If Li Xiaojuan has her way, the rest of the world will no longer be able to take cheap Chinese labour for granted. The 20-year-old, who works on the production line at a Honda components factory in Foshan, a manufacturing city in southern Guangdong province, was one of the few workers at Honda Automotive Components Manufacturing to take a public stand in an industrial action late last month.

Ms Li issued an open letter on behalf of the 16 employees chosen by workers to negotiate on their behalf, during a strike that closed the Japanese carmaker's China operations for a full week. “We must maintain a high degree of unity and not let the representatives of Capital divide us,” the letter urged. “This factory's profits are the fruits of our bitter toil . . . This struggle is not just about the interests of our 1,800 workers. We also care about the rights and interests of all Chinese workers.”

Ms Li and her colleagues secured a 25 per cent increase in their basic monthly salary to Rmb1,900 ($280, €--, ￡ --), in a victory that inspired copycat action at two other Honda suppliers in the province. Although salaries have been rising steadily in recent years, with a hiatus in 2008-09 during the global financial crisis, the successful industrial action signalled that workers now are prepared to fight for double-digit rises.