Abstract: The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative has placed foreign contracted projects (or overseas contracted projects) in a prominent strategic position, with a growing number of Chinese workers posted overseas. To examine the effectiveness of Chinese law in protecting the labour rights of these workers, this article adopts a rights-based approach, under which posted workers are treated as holders of legally enforceable rights and the analysis focuses on the role of origin-country legal frameworks in securing labour protection. Drawing on the actual employment patterns of Chinese posted workers in overseas contracted projects, the article reveals a structural incompatibility arising from the inadequate integration of the regulatory framework governing overseas contracted projects into China’s labour law regime. This misalignment generates significant legal uncertainty in the application of labour standards, the allocation of employer liability and questions of jurisdiction. As a result, these workers’ labour rights are often infringed due to employers’ evasion of liability and the lack of clear pathways for applying labour standards stipulated in Chinese labour law. The article argues that addressing these deficiencies requires strengthening supply chain compliance mechanisms, clarifying the extraterritorial application of Chinese labour law and adopting complementary measures to enhance transnational coordination in the protection of labour rights.
Xiaohui et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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