Launched in the 1960s with the iconic Exercise Sandal Dr. Scholl’s shoes is now part of $2.6 billion global footwear company Caleres, which also owns Via Spiga, Franco Sarto, and Sam Edelman. Even with their Americana origins, Dr. Scholl’s shoes are produced in China. “We’ve really been manufacturing fairly extensively in China for the better part of about 30 years,” said Keith Duplain, general manager and senior vice president of Dr. Scholl’s division of Caleres. “I would consider ourselves one of the pioneers of footwear manufacturing in China.”The heritage company works with multiple Chinese factories to source nearly 50 million pairs of shoes a year. “What happened over time is [China] built up the specialized skills, invested in the machines, and the global community came to them,” explained Duplain. “The level of quality that you get out of China right now is superior to what we get out of most other developing or emerging markets, where you still have relatively low manufacturing costs,” said Brian Buchwald, CEO of Bomoda , a consumer intelligence company with a focus on luxury retail in China. Back in 2011, Miuccia Prada even told the The Wall Street Journal , “Sooner or later, it will happen to everyone because [Chinese manufacturing] is so good.” (Yes, Prada produces part of its collection in China, too.)“What’s resulted in the last 15 years is just massive investments in large-scale factories with very high-end, brand new, or newer equipment,” said Kyle Vucko, CEO and cofounder of Indochino , a custom menswear line founded in 2007.After spending four months looking for a factory in New York and abroad, Phillip Salem, who launched contemporary handbag line Owen in 2014, found that China offered the best option to manufacture his signature geometric-hardware handles. “The factories are so intelligent,” he said. “They have the resources. They have the technology there right now.” The New York-based factories that Salem spoke with either didn’t have the technology available or they would have to outsource the handle production to China themselves. It made business sense to go right to the source.For Indochino, “it’s not a question of cost,” said Vucko. “It’s a question of quality and speed of delivery.” By producing in China, Indochino can offer customers made-to-measure, high-end suiting both at a friendly price point — starting at $449 as compared to the roughly $1,000 that is typical of bespoke suiting — and a four-week wait time, at least halving the eight to 12 weeks it usually takes for a custom-made suit to arrive.“Today what you see is largely a much more educated workforce that is adopting digital design and digital manufacturing,” said Duplain about the shoe production process at Dr. Scholl’s. According to a 2015 World Bank case study , the Chinese manufacturing economy has “shifted towards new knowledge-based industries,” that include advanced skills in handling electronic information, as compared to earlier years when the factories were largely comprised of unskilled laborers.And there are official minimum wages in China, that are set on a local level. According to a 2015 China Briefing report , in the past 10 years, the minimum wage has also risen rapidly with an average increase of approximately 13% annually, though it's still much less than in other industrialized countries — The Economist estimates that many Chinese manufacturers pay above the minimum wage at $270 per month, as compared to minimum wage in the U.S. at approximately $1,257 a month . But that’s still higher than what workers make in the alternative emerging manufacturing markets where production is shifting — an average of $27.50 per day in China versus $8.60 in Indonesia and $6.70 in Vietnam, The Economist reports.China has actually been experiencing a labor shortage for factory workers since 2012, as the younger generation of college graduates prefer white-collar industries. Facing high turnover and in an effort to attract more workers, some factories began raising wages , creating more reasonable working hours, and offering benefits packages, WSJ reported in 2013, including basic insurance and free meals. BloombergView pointed out that with the rising labor costs, “in some cities, semiskilled factory workers make more than university graduates in office jobs.”All of this isn't to diminish the dire importance of recognizing and preventing the instances of worker rights abuses in China, that are exacerbated by government corruption. But “there are general laws and practices held up by the Chinese government and they’re actually very strict,” Vucko said. For example, in 2014, China put into effect a revised Workplace Safety Law , which requires factories to create and enforce factory safety standards, gives local regulators more power to enforce the rules, and metes out stricter punishments for offenses. In 2008, the Labor Contract Law required companies to give workers contracts to protect their legal rights. Although, it should be noted that the law does not allow Chinese workers to organize independent labor unions.Unfortunately, labor abuses are prevalent in manufacturing countries around the world — even the United States — and some believe that the answer lies in international companies to play a much larger role in ensuring a safe working environment and fair wages. “Responsibility for working conditions in global garment industry rest primarily with international brands and retailers, because it’s those companies' own supply chain that creates labor rights abuses in the workplace,” said Theresa Haas, director of communications at the Worker Rights Consortium , citing the attractiveness of low production costs and the opportunity to hide from the public eye.“I think everybody has their own stance on it,” said Vucko about companies taking responsibility for working conditions in their factories. “We have a really strong position as to what we believe. I’ve seen it firsthand in China: They care about their employees. [There are] great companies [that] treat their team members well and invest in all sorts of things, whether great perks or working conditions, and they’re setting the bar as much as we are.”