I think we have to be careful not to conflate things. While China does use forced labor, and that gives individual enterprises unfair advantages (which of course is not the only reason we should care about that), itâ(TM)s unlikely that in a country of 740 million active workers that there is enough slavery going on to alter the economics of labor much on a nationwide level.
Weak legal protections for the common worker probably does more to give China a labor cost advantage than slavery, because thatâ(TM)s pervasive across the economy. Workers arenâ(TM)t allowed to unionize because in theory the CCP represents them. The official reported Chinese work week 14 hours longer than the US , which in turn is ten hours longer than in the EU.
But even the reported figures for China should be impossible given Chinaâ(TM)s labor laws, which brings us to another systematic advantage for Chinese companies: selective enforcement of Chinese law. Many companies still practice the brutal and technically illegal 996 labor system: 9am to 9pm six days a week. China is living with unrealistic economic expectations created by decades of 10%+ annual GDP growth, so results that would be good for a normal country are seen as failure. So the party turns a blind eye to violations of worker protection and safety laws, and environmental laws too, as long as a company doesnâ(TM)t do anything that draws the ire of the CCP.
Itâ(TM)s a system that works for the CCP on multiple levels. Not only does this produce more economic growth than you would get if you had the rule of law, it gives the CCP a powerful tool to take down any rich entrepreneur who gets too big for his britches; in a country with strict but unenforced laws, everyone is doing something illegal.
While the exploitation of Uyghur labor is morally repugnant, the exploitation of hundreds of millions of *Chinese* workers is probably a lot more significant economically, not to mention selective enforcement of environmental and consumer protection laws.
Nonetheless China is no longer a poor country, itâ(TM)s an upper middle income country following policies that worked for it when it was poor with a vast, reasonably educated but underutilized labor pool. Itâ(TM)s losing its status as the only place to go if you want something made cheap. Thatâ(TM)s why companies and entire countries are consciously decoupling from China. The downsides just donâ(TM)t feel necessary when you can go to Mexico or Vietnam.