ABSTRACT
Introduction China's labour legislation, intertwined with its industrial relations, is being inftuenced by external and domestic factors: on the one hand, calls for protectionism in the United States and the EU against Chinese labour intensive exports in the context of the global economic crisis; and, on the other, the need to boost internal consumption in order to realize the 'harmonious society' (hexie shehui), increasingly emphasized by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jibao since the Seventeenth Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress during autumn 2007. Western leaders and academic analysts have called for the continuing revaluation of the Chinese yuan (renminbi or RMB) - at the time of writing, worth around 6.65 RMB against the US dollar. However, while the Chinese currency has gained about 20% in relation to the 'greenback' since 2005, thereby reducing the export surplus, the policy can only be a temporary palliative; the issue may only be resolved in the long-term by economic restructuring, especially in China itself (Sheridan 2008b, 2009).
