A decision by the province that is China’s second-biggest exporter to raise minimum wage rates has heightened expectations that other provinces and cities will soon follow, just as the central government’s attention is shifting from economic stimulus to rising inflation. Eastern Jiangsu province, which exports more than Brazil and South Africa combined, raised its monthly minimum wage rate 13 per cent to Rmb960 ($140) last week. It was the first time the rate had been adjusted in two years.

When school reopens after the Spring Break in February, thousands of children of rural migrant workers in a Beijing district face having no classes to return to as their schools will have been demolished to make way for urban redevelopment. At least 6,000 students, among them young children of kindergarten age, would be affected after some 20 privately run migrant schools in Chaoyang District are torn down by the end of February, according to principals of the schools slated for demolition.

In a nation known for social stability – with pliant workers willing to labour long hours for little pay – the scene was stunning. Some 2,000 workers milled about the grounds of a local high-tech factory, overturned a vehicle, smashed computers, hurled objects at police trying to restore order, and succeeded in shutting down one of the largest producers of mobile phone panels in the world. By Chinese standards, it was chaotic.

China cut mining deaths by almost a fifth last year, according to state media, despite a spate of disasters towards the end of the year. The coal industry is one of the world's deadliest, but a government safety drive has closed thousands of mines and slashed the toll from 6,027 in 2004 to 2,631 in 2009 – still equivalent to more than seven a day.

Google Inc.'s challenge to Beijing is not a first: Levi Strauss & Co. 17 years ago walked away from China. Today, Levi's brand jeans are produced in China, and in Beijing last November the company opened its 501st store in the country. What happened in between?

At 1.50am on November 21, a safety officer in the Xinxing coal mine in Heilongjiang noticed a sharp swing on his instrument that measures underground gas. He sent an alarm, advising evacuation of the 528 men at work. Forty minutes later, an explosion rocked the mine, leaving 104 dead and 65 injured. It was the worst coal-mine accident in China since 107 were killed in the Hongtong mine in Shanxi in December 2007.

This week, the managing editor of Time Magazine unveiled the final nominees for the famed 'Person of the Year' edition. The list included a number of the usual suspects, including Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke, but the most surprising addition to the list was also the most deserving – 'The Chinese Worker'.

Hailed as an unprecedented move to shed its reputation as the country's "blood-stained coal basket", Shanxi's latest coal industry reform will see the closure of more than 1,500 small coal mines, the disappearance of more than 95 per cent of its coal enterprises, and the loss of at least 140 billion yuan (HK$159 billion) of private investment, state media confirmed yesterday.

During the last decade China has been hit by a wave of wildcat workers strikes, the fundamental cause of which, according to Han Dongfang, is the lack of Chinese workers to engage in collective bargaining with their employers.

The American retail giant Wal Mart has run into trouble in China again, after some of its suppliers were accused of serious abuses against their workers.