The recent easing of US-China tariffs has undoubtedly pulled China back from the brink of a social and economic rupture. For months, the spectre of mass layoffs haunted the country’s manufacturing hubs, where labour-intensive industries like lighting, footwear, furniture, and toys bore the brunt of tariff hikes that reached as high as 145 per cent. But even as tariffs drop to more manageable ~ though still burdensome ~ levels, the structural damage to China’s job market cannot be wished away. The truth is sobering. The tariff rollback has prevented an immediate crisis, but not a long-term correction. For workers once earning a modest living in factory jobs, the economic disruption has already altered life trajectories. Forced to return to subsistence farming, they represent a silent but growing population pushed out of industrial employment, not due to their own failings, but because of geopolitical manoeuvres beyond their control.

The relief from Geneva’s........

© The Statesman