BEIJING — China is getting its exchange-rate adjustment whether it likes it or not. While Chinese officials continue to mull the right time to let the renminbi rise, manufacturing workers are voting with their feet — and their picket lines.
Honda has offered its transmission- factory workers in China a 24 percent wage increase to head off a crippling strike. Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer for Apple and Dell, has announced wage increases of as much as 70 percent. Shenzhen, to head off trouble, has announced a 16 percent increase in the minimum wage. Beijing's municipal authorities have pre-emptively boosted the city's minimum wage by 20 percent.
The result will be to raise the prices of China's exports and fuel demand for imports. The effect will be much the same as a currency appreciation.
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