An army marching to escape medieval China

This was supposed to be a spring of soup kitchens and breadlines in China’s manufacturing heartlands, the potential precursor to a long, hot summer of industrial unrest threatening the government’s vision of a “harmonious society”. Times are hard in China’s export sector, the hardest in memory. Exports from southern Guangdong province, which account for a third of the country’s total, fell 21 per cent in January and February as western retailers ran down their inventories.