BEIJING: As China’s Communist Party congress got under way, nervous garment factory owners were on high alert, running lookouts to evade inspectors as they continued to produce coats, jackets and button-down shirts in defiance of official orders to close.

Chinese authorities have taken extraordinary measures to prevent any disturbance — including pollution — from marring the week-long, twice-a-decade meeting as businesses ranging from bars to factories were shut down.

Apparel producers were ordered to suspend work for the month out of fire safety concerns, but in Dahongmen, one of Beijing’s last clothing manufacturing hubs, some factory owners simply took their work underground.

“I can’t possibly stop for a month, so I can only choose to secretly keep on working,” factory owner Yue Fang said.

Yue is one of some 200 small factory owners based in Dahongmen, some 25 kilometres from the Great Hall of the People, where the party’s top leaders are meeting to hand general secretary Xi Jinping a second term when the congress ends Tuesday.

Each factory had staff keeping an eye out for inspectors weeks before the meeting kicked off, Yue recalled.

“I didn’t even dare set foot in my factory — I just stood watch in the wind and rain” for plainclothes officials and police, she said, attaching tags to a mountain of fur-trimmed corduroy jackets in her workshop.

But her business was raided a few days ago when she dropped her guard.

Zhang Jie, a 26-year-old factory owner from Hubei province, decided to give his five employees time off rather than risk reprisals.

In Dahongmen’s muddy, unpaved streets, garment industry workers lounged on damp sofas next to laundry hanging out to dry in the smoggy air, killing time. “We play cards, or talk about who made more money,” said a 16-year-old button-hole maker surnamed Chen.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2017