Pretty naive to think that child labor dosen't exists in China tbh. Maybe not at the scale of child factory workers that some western media like to depict, but at a smaller scale, in farming, family owned business and small isolated factories.
As a parent, I would prefer this to modern western environments for children that include TVs, video games, phones and no idea what I do for a profession.
According to a couple news stories I've seen pop up from time to time, we have child labor in the US too. It's not legal and the children are usually the children of illegal immigrants. Maybe it's sort of the same deal over there i.e. desperate people doing desperate things despite the norm.
A lot of child labor in the US, is in fact, very legal.
From the age of 10-15, working papers can be issued allowing children to deliver newspaper, hawk products on corners, and do limited farm work.
From 15-17, working papers can be issues allowing children to pretty much do any job, with some limitations on hours, and tooling they can use (ie, no automatic sharp tools, like slicers).
Now, these are for my state. Some states are far more exploitative, such as Georgia, where kids as young as 13 can work a fast food joint.
Now that you mention it, I was a soccer ref when I was 15. You're right, it probably varies by state. I guess "child labor" is a pretty broad term that could include delivering newspapers and processing chicken on a factory floor.
Yes, this is not something exclusive of China, or the US, basically everywhere, except maybe some countries in Europe, still have some kind of child labor in a lesser or greater degree. I don't think China is the worst place on that respect, but blinding believing to someone who lives in a big metropolitan Chinese city that child labor dosen't exists is pretty dumb.
US media loves to go on about the horrible working conditions in China, claiming 11-hour days and all kinds of other sweatshop working conditions because nothing sells like a good tragedy, but nobody talks about the working conditions at home and talking amongst ourselves is often made difficult, either by cultural or business practices. It's illegal to punish employees for talking about how much they make with each other, but that doesn't stop businesses from doing it anyway, because people here simply don't know their rights as a worker and companies love to take advantage of it. So we think we have a clear grasp of how the Chinese live while still believing that people here work 40-hour weeks and somewhere in the cultural zeitgeist is still the belief that people can afford a house with a white picket fence, a dog/cat, and 2.5 kids on one person's salary.
Believe it or not, present in the US and other Western Countries as well. I would know, I have been forced into that before, and I even saw worse. Working hours for Chinese citizens are on par with developed countries while doing far more industrial production. Propaganda generally works by taking a kernal of truth and exaggerating its scope or minimizing it, not normally by outright lying.
Not necessarily. You don't know why they're making that claim.
I live in Korea, where the letter of the labor laws are quite strong. However, they're not enforced. Workers don't sue companies because they're either afraid to rock the boat due to cultural norms or afraid they will develop a reputation and become unhirable.
Korea and China are very distinct cultures, but there are key facets that are common between them. Confucian (or at least neo-Confucian in Korea) values prioritize maintaining the peace and deferring to authority. This is one of several factors that causes Koreans to endure intense working hours, and I'm more willing to believe Chinese folks overwork a lot due to the few shared values.
You're also making assumptions though. And like pointed out elsewhere, mentioning Tiananmen Square still gets silenced so we're kinda forced to assume one way or another and I generally don't believe the state that is doing the silencing. That's not racist and it's messed up to jump to that accusation so quickly
USA have literal slavery, and it's even straight up called slavery in 13 amendment to constitution. Which also makes US afaik the only country that did enshrined slavery in constitution. Land of the free my ass.