I went to China about every 8 mo for about a 12 year period. The change was phenomenal. The first trips road work was done by men in drabby clothes, straw hats, and really bad footwear. The work was very manual. By my last trips it was work uniforms, steel toed shoes, hard hats, and caterpillars doing the work. Around 2000 average wages were about 10K cny, and now it's around 75k cny. Wages have gone exponential since around 2000.
I think people don't realize as their economy grows, people become more affluent, and then they start the finer things in life too. They're becoming more environmentally conscious, rivers are becoming cleaner, and Starbucks are on every corner. The factory I visited won a UN green plant award. A lot of the staff there were US educated (lot's of advanced degrees),worked as senior managers/directors in high tech US firms, and repatriated. Often they're parents and other family is aging and they want to get back to them. Times are such they can now.
IOW, places like China are catching up to our living standards. Sure, they're still behind us. For how long? It does begs the question, who's the next emerging country to take over with cheap labor? Or, the cost to make things anywhere else may cost the same as to make it here in the future. Ergo, it may make economical sense to build new factories here at some point.
One last comment, from the stats I've seen on immigrants, the amount of "bad" people is about the same to less than people who've been here for at least a generation. Historically, post WWII there was a lot of anti-imigration. They were going to take you job and do heinous crimes. The news (and politicians) will always find you a poster child for any cause, for whichever side you're on, and base their argument solely on them. The classic false syllogism.
