996 just sounds like mismanagement to me. Yes it's hard work but Ali Baba is not a seed startup that they can't afford to hire more people and distribute the workload.

Exploiting people is exploiting people, no matter how you spin it.

No. No one thinks that. Not ever, not anywhere.

But if you want human beings to give a shit about said country, maybe let them spend some time in it. Also look up “diminishing returns”.

I’m certainly glad my ancestors put in the hours, but I don’t exactly want to work 14-16 hours a day like they did in the Industrial Revolution.

China has so much excess labour though, compared to the leverage Western workers had back in the day due to lower numbers.

That with Party control leaves it hard to see how anything like unions could form, or someone like a Sam Parnell could emerge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell).