Why China’s low-cost business model resists reform
Even as the model outlives its usefulness, built-in incentives continue to stifle efforts to protect the rights and interests of workers
China’s low-cost business model needs reform, but why has change been so difficult?
The plant that burned employed hundreds of workers, yet company filings for 2025 indicate that only a handful of them were enrolled in pension and medical insurance plans. A fire-safety inspection two days earlier had flagged its blocked exits, but it didn’t stop production.
The problem is structural. Labour law is enforced largely by local governments, yet those same governments depend heavily on the jobs, tax revenue and growth that low-cost manufacturing brings. Strict enforcement means fiscal and political costs.
The low-cost model is not just a product of corporate behaviour. It is embedded in the fiscal incentives at the local and central government levels. The obstacle to reform is, therefore, this entire structure which not only discourages change, but reproduces the very conditions that stifle reform efforts.