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Although Hulan always tried to avoid campaigns, she—like any other citizen of China—couldn’t avoid them, especially since the cornerstone of any campaign involved the press. So of course she’d seen articles like “Is a Chinese Life Worth Less Than a Foreign Life?” and “A Needle in My Father’s New Kidney!” In fact, the media was very much at the heart of the new consumer law. Since press reports could be introduced in court as evidence, smear campaigns went a long way in swaying judges. This resulted in costly counterattacks mounted in the media by the defendants. And while awards to plaintiffs weren’t as lucrative as in the States—the record still stood at about $30,000 U.S., given to the family of a woman who’d been asphyxiated by a faulty water heater—judges regularly granted monies to dubitable claimants based on a “fairness principle” that implied that the rich should help the poor.
“But what does this have to do with Knight?” David asked. “They’ve never had a product-liability case.”
“It’s not the products I care about,” Guy said. “It’s how they’re made. For me that includes not using child labor and providing a safe environment. Three years ago we didn’t have consumer rights or product liability, but we have them now. Why can’t we take the next step and push for workers’ rights?” Guy searched David’s face. “Every country, including yours, had to start somewhere. Miaoshan and I thought that somewhere could be Knight. But the women in the factory never helped us. They never said a word because they were afraid they would lose their jobs. Still, she kept asking.”
“Even after the women wouldn’t respond?” Hulan asked.
Guy nodded. Hulan put two fingers to her lips and tapped gently, deep in thought.
“When the women wouldn’t help,” Guy continued, “I said, ‘Let’s forget it.’ But Miaoshan had another idea. There was a man in the factory, an American, who liked her. Sometimes during the week she would go and talk to him at night. She said he was worried about the factory. He thought it was unfair how the women were treated. He began to tell her things—money things—that went on inside. That’s when I knew we couldn’t do everything on our own. I have a friend who’s in business in Taiyuan. He has computers in his office, and he let me use one. I got on the Internet and looked for help.”
“That’s how he found me,” Pearl interjected. “At the paper we get information out of China in the usual ways—press conferences and speeches by politicians. The things the government wants you to know are easy to find out. But what about something like Tiananmen? We had reporters in Beijing at the time, but we also relied heavily on the students who communicated with us through fax machines. The same goes for a lot of other stories. We hear about things, but it’s difficult to work officially, if you know what I mean. Nowadays, with the Internet, getting information is easier than it used to be. China blocks the Times’ website, but enterprising people like Guy are able to get around the firewalls.”
“So for you it’s not personal,” Hulan said. “It’s professional.”
“What isn’t?” Pearl asked. “There isn’t a business reporter in the States who hasn’t tried to get at a story like this, but it’s been completely closed to us by both the Chinese and the Americans.”
“Why does it matter to you what happens in a factory in China?” Hulan asked.
“Because it’s a human-rights issue and that’s a hot-button issue that sells.”
Hulan said, “The people who work in the Knight factory aren’t prisoners…”
“Human-rights violations come in many forms: political prisoners in solitary confinement, prison laborers, but I would also include what happens to the women and girls in factories like Knight.”
“I agree it’s bad in there,” Hulan said, “but is it worse than working in the fields?”
David hid his surprise. Hadn’t Hulan just gotten on his case for using this same argument? Was she using this as a tactic to provoke Pearl?
“That’s not the point.”
“Really?” Hulan retorted. “Do you have any idea what a factory like Knight has done for the surrounding area? I’m not defending the company. I’ve been inside, but I also see a new prosperity in the countryside that was unimaginable twenty years ago.”
Pearl seemed ready for Hulan’s challenge. “You want the big picture? All right, here it is.” For the next few minutes Pearl talked about her and her colleagues’ efforts to cover American manufacturing practices in China and their deeper cultural and political implications. Manufacturers went overseas for cheap labor and great tax breaks, but they could also skirt around American laws by hiring children, by using chemicals that would never pass U.S. safety standards, by having working conditions that were dangerous, and by employing people for inhumane numbers of hours.
“Occasionally some company or person gets targeted by a watchdog group,” Pearl said. “You’ve read about them. Some conglomerate hires a celebrity who endorses a line of children’s clothing that turns out to be manufactured using child labor. What do the celebrity and conglomerate do when the truth comes out? They plead ignorance.” Pearl sighed. “The truth is, they probably are ignorant, but that doesn’t make it right. Then you get reporters who want to go and see what it’s like in a factory like Knight, but we can’t get in. You have to wonder about that.”
“But does anyone wonder about it?” Hulan asked.
Pearl’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I lived in the States for a while. I never noticed anyone caring much about China one way or the other.”
Every once in a while Hulan said something that showed animosity toward the U.S. David knew she sometimes did it just to elicit a reaction. Other times he thought she was giving her real opinion. Right now, watching these two women—one Chinese, the other Chinese American—he wondered what exactly Hulan was doing.
“That’s the beauty of the story,” Pearl exclaimed. “Most Americans never think at all about China, and to me that’s very strange, because China plays a part of our everyday lives.”
“What are you talking about?” Hulan asked, agitated now.
“China’s invisible,” Pearl responded, “producing invisible work and invisible products. From the moment we wake up in the morning until we go to sleep at night, we are coming in contact with China. Our alarm clocks, our T-shirts, our designer clothes. The tires on our cars. The electronics we use all day. Take any holiday—Easter, Halloween, Christmas—all the decorations are made in China. The toys our kids play with, even those that we consider to be the most ‘American’—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, Sam & His Friends, and of course Barbie. Tens of millions of Barbies are made in China every year. Without naming names, I can say that there are some American factories in China that pay only about twenty-four dollars a month. That’s six dollars a month less than what the Chinese laborers working on the transcontinental railroad were paid in the last century.”
“But these things aren’t unique to China,” Hulan said, again defending her home country.
“You’re right. They also happen in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Haiti, but I’m Chinese American, and what happens here matters to me.”
Seeing Hulan’s dubious look, Pearl said, “When Guy first contacted me, I didn’t know what to believe. Then he started e-mailing information about the factory’s conditions. They sounded really awful.” She turned to David. “Like lawyers, reporters also need proof. I tried to set up several appointments with Henry Knight, but he always canceled. Then, when I heard that Tartan was going to buy Knight, I tried Randall Craig, then Miles Stout. They were pleasant enough, but of course they told me nothing. About three months ago, I called Keith Baxter. He denied any wrongdoing by Knight or his client, Tartan. But I kept calling and giving him pieces of information that only someone on the inside, someone like Guy, could know. The more I pressed Keith with those tidbits, for lack of a better word, the more I could sense his softening. Did you know that Keith used to come out here a lot?”
David nodded. Miles had told him that Keith had been over here at least once a month for the last year, sometimes staying for a week or two at a time.
