Press reports call China's workplace safety woes a grim replay of the Industrial Revolution in the United States and other countries. Machinery will crush or sever the arms, hands and fingers of some 40,000 Chinese workers this year, according to government-controlled news media.

Most injuries occur in metalworking and electronics plants with heavy stamping equipment, shoe and handbag factories with leather-cutting equipment, toy factories and industrial plastics plants with blazing-hot machinery.