Mobility as resilience: Non-standard workers in China under geopolitically induced supply-chain restructuring

Amid supply-chain restructuring triggered by US–China trade frictions, this study examines labour mobility among non-standard workers in China's export manufacturing sector. Drawing on four rounds of fieldwork undertaken between 2021 and 2024 as part of a longitudinal case study of rattan weavers at a leading Chinese manufacturer of outdoor leisure products, this study argues that weavers’ labour mobility is better understood not merely as an ad hoc response to employment precarity, but as a livelihood practice shaped by the interaction between buyer-driven global production regimes and China's labour regulatory framework premised on stable employment relationships, and organised through contractor-mediated networks. US–China trade frictions prompted global buyers to recalibrate governance arrangements in response to geopolitical risk, accelerating supply-chain restructuring. These changes intensified employment precarity and reconfigured weavers’ labour mobility from predominantly short-term and sector-bound circulation to more prolonged and differentiated forms of labour-market repositioning. Kinship- and locality-based ties supported this reconfiguration by enabling collective sense-making and facilitating access to alternative employment. The analysis develops a relational account of the translation of geopolitical pressures into workers’ employment experiences and livelihood practices, while theorising the reconfiguration of mobility strategies amid geopolitically induced supply-chain restructuring.