Culture
China's Changing Shipyards
The national government issued a series of reforms to fix a struggling industry, but many will be left behind.
Earlier this year, the Chinese government released a three-year plan for its sizable but struggling ship-building industry, asking local officials to stop approving new projects and private companies to replace their vessels with newer, high-tech ones.
While some shipyards have enough work orders to stay busy through 2016, the future looks grim for others as they suffer through overcapacity and layoffs. The trend is especially noticeable in Changqingcun, a town along the Yangtze river. There, nearly half of one ship-building company's workforce was laid off in a span of three years, leaving the many stores and apartments that depended on them empty and abandoned.