China joined World Trade Organization after fifteen years of negotiations, committing to tariff reductions, intellectual property enforcement, and market access in exchange for integration into global trading system. Accession triggered manufacturing explosion that made China world's factory, lifting hundreds of millions from poverty while depressing wages in competing nations. This transformative event reshaped global supply chains and geopolitical balances.

Chinese migrant worker poets like Zheng Xiaoqiong and Xu Lizhi documented factory floor experiences in verses exposing human costs behind cheap consumer goods celebrated in global markets. Diasporic Chinese poetry explored tensions between economic opportunity and cultural displacement in host countries. Manufacturing boom funded domestic literary market expansion while state censorship constrained critical expression about labor exploitation.