Western media coverage of China tends to be dominated by two competing narratives. The first is all about economics. China, it contends, is an epochal success story. The economy is booming and national wealth is on the rise. The Chinese themselves are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lot. There's nowhere to go but up. The second focuses on politics. China is in the grip of communist party dictatorship. People have no democratic rights. Everywhere you turn, there is social turmoil -- seething popular anger over corruption, environmental degradation, illegal land grabs, and summary arrests. Something's got to give. To be sure, both of these interpretations contain grains of truth. But it turns out that there's another way of comprehending the reality of modern-day China -- one that captures the contradictions of the place and allows them to co-exist.

The Guangzhou federation of trade unions is investigating why a trade union official at a Japanese owned company in the city recommended that a victim of sexual harassment be sacked. The 28 year-old office worker (Ms A) was dismissed in January this year after complaining about the blatant sexual harassment of her Japanese boss, which was caught on camera.

Despite government moves to eradicate employment discrimination against people with HBV, the virus that causes Hepatitis B, employers still routinely refuse to hire HBV-positive job candidates, and there is still a widespread fear and misunderstanding of the disease in Chinese society, according to a new research report by the HBV activist and support group, Yirenping

A 25 year-old university graduate with Hepatitis B has, for the first time in China, successfully sued a hospital for violating his right to privacy after it gave the results of his blood test to a prospective employer.

The authorities in China’s manufacturing heartland, Dongguan, are attempting to limit and control the activities of citizen agents (公民代理人), self-trained labour rights advocates who help workers who cannot afford professional legal services file labour dispute cases at arbitration hearings and courts.

BEIJING - CHINA will stop mandatory hepatitis B tests for employees joining new companies and students enrolling in schools, state media said on Sunday, after a court ruled the tests were illegal discrimination. Deng Haihua, deputy director of the health ministry's general office, said the government would soon issue instructions to stop the practice, which is currently a requirement, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The government’s revisions to its Work-related Injury Insurance Regulations will go a long way to giving workers the insurance cover and legal protection they need, but lack the clout to force employers to comply.

On 23 May 2008, a Beijing district court awarded Gao Yiming nearly 20,000 yuan in compensation after he was refused employment at a Beijing technology company on the grounds that he was carrying the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). This was the first time a HBV discrimination case had been successfully litigated in China. Earlier cases had been successfully concluded through court ordered mediation or through private agreements between the plaintiff and defendant.

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) announced on 13 July 2009 that labour disputes in China as a whole climbed by 30 percent in the first half of 2009. Certain areas saw sharper increases, with labour disputes in the first quarter of 2009 shooting up by 41.6 percent in Guangdong, 50.3 percent in Jiangsu, and a staggering 159.6 percent in Zhejiang.