Zhengzhou

"By the end of 2010, the number of attempted suicides rose to eighteen. Foxconn became a household name for all the wrong reasons, and Apple was accused of “iSlavery.” Whatever his other skills, Terry Gou didn’t exactly come out of this crisis looking like a media-savvy CEO. He installed nets all around the factories, to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths, and compelled workers to sign a pledge not to commit suicide. Describing his hopes for the new factories in Zhengzhou and Chengdu, Gou said that workers living inland and closer to their families would feel less anxiety. “There will be hospitals, there will be other facilities, there will be sources of entertainment,” Gou said in September 2010. “And if people still decide to kill themselves, then no one can blame me.”"

"Lawyers in Cupertino were frantic and confused about China’s newest ordinance—the labor dispatch law of mid-2014, which limited the share of temporary workers a company could employ to just 10 percent. The new rules wouldn’t be enforceable until March 2016, but as soon as they were Apple’s most important suppliers would be in violation. The lawyers looked at each other in dismay. “There’s no way we can comply with this!” When they called up Doug Guthrie in China, the professor’s response only confused them further. “That’s the point,” he told them. “You’re *supposed* to be out of compliance.” They’d protest: “How does that make any sense?” And Guthrie would explain: “Because you’re supposed to go figure out what the mayor of Zhengzhou wants from you.”"