More pertinent perhaps are the increasingly large communities of Southeast Asian laborers who have begun working in southern Chinese factories as the supply of migrants from the countryside dries up. No reliable estimate of their numbers exists. But according to an August investigative report from Reuters, there are “at least 30,000” illegal workers in Dongguan, one of China’s best-known manufacturing towns, most of whom hail from Southeast Asia. (In the last four months, I’ve personally seen Burmese working illegally in recycling facilities in Guangdong province.) Chinese officials are reluctant to admit to the scale of the influx (likely because of the corruption involved in bringing workers over the border), but state media concedes that the number of illegals has grown in recent years.