Passenger sitting beside me on a plane was a GM for a bank well known on the stock exchange. They set up factories in china and manufactured everything (shoes, textiles, mouldings etc). Although the average wage at the time was about $10 a week, it varied greatly between provinces and city & rural areas. The government had made steps forward in improving wages, but only 2 provinces were enforcing them at the time. Some workers actually paid for their position on the assembly line, also for accommodation and incidentals. Most were lucky to make $1 a day. As far as the 'cost of living there' comforting thought, some of the minimum wages were equivalent to 4 bowls of noodles per day.
Be aware that some of the big shoe, clothing companies that say "we don't own any sweat shops". They may not, but some certainly contract out work to other companies that do. Things have greatly improved over the past few years, but It's easy to grab extreme examples. There still is a huge disparity; much like WA and NSW. We should be getting far cheaper kites in NSW than you mining rich WA folk. Our second hand ones are worth a lot more to, because we hardly ever have wind over here to use them.
