“The world's leading retailer giant Wal-Mart has seen the establishment of the first branch of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the first branch of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) in one of its outlets in the northeastern city of Shenyang, capital of Liaoning Province….Wal-Mart has set up 59 outlets in 30 Chinese cities since it entered China in 1996. It has more than 23,000 employees in China, including over 700 in Shenyang”
Related;
China Digital Times
Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart; Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month. With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports), Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, about 460,000 per year.
Fight poverty by shopping at Wal-Mart?
Managing Governments: Unilever in India and Turkey, 1950-1980
A related column at Bloomberg;
Wal-Mart Economy' Faces Audit at IMF Meeting: By William Pesek
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. labor leaders were incensed last month when Wal-Mart Stores Inc. let employees in China unionize.
How could Wal-Mart allow in China what it aggressively fights at home? Yet labor leaders missed the point: China's unions are paper tigers that help Asia's No. 2 economy appear to protect workers rather than actually doing so. It's all about public relations.
The real news with regard to Wal-Mart's embracing unions in China is that the world's largest retailer may be digging its heels further into the nation of 1.3 billion people, regardless of growing complaints from U.S. politicians and workers.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_pesek&sid=acH90aegF5Jw