Two years after opening his garment factory in Myanmar, Li Dongliang is on the verge of closing down and laying off his 800 remaining workers.
Business had been struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but after a Feb. 1 coup that sparked mass protests and a deadly crackdown, during which his factory was set alight amid a surge of anti-Chinese sentiment, orders stopped.
His story is emblematic of the perilous situation facing a sector critical to Myanmar's economy, which accounts for a third of its exports and employs 700,000 low-income workers, according to U.N. data.