The Pearl River Delta industrial belt has served as one of China’s most important growth engines since the Communist Party opened the economy four decades ago, propelling its rise to become one of the world’s leading powers.

But now in Guangdong, a southern coastal province that alone would stand as one of Asia’s top five economies, the situation is getting dire in some labor-intensive sectors that are more China’s past than future. In the dank back-alleys of Dongguan, a metropolis with about as many people as New York City, small textile makers are struggling to survive. Thousands of migrant workers have already headed back to China’s poorer interior.

"You can see around here, nine out of ten textile workshops have already shut down,” the owner of one shop, who gave his surname as Long, said last week over the sound of whirring sewing machines. His ten remaining employees have seen their take-home pay cut in half due to long idle periods. "Their income levels have returned to what they were ten years ago,” Long’s wife said.