The worries and challenges of workers in this southern Chinese car-making city illustrate the risks Beijing faces as its dispute with Japan over a group of islands drags on.
The local economy is feeling the effects of a drop in demand for Japanese-brand cars. Work in the factories has slowed and employees are concerned about possible layoffs. Guangzhou is one of the main clusters for China's automotive industry, employing tens of thousands of plant workers.
'Workers don't have overtime so their salary is less and our sales aren't as good as before,' said Niu He Guo, 27 years old, a migrant from Hubei in central China who runs a small restaurant near the Dongfeng Nissan plant in the Huadu district of Guangzhou. 'It's a big problem.'
Hotels, restaurants and bars that rely on Japanese customers─including those residing in Huadu and those on business trips─are quiet. The number of Japanese guests at the popular New Century Hotel is down, according to a hotel staff member.
Close to the hotel on Gongyuanqian Road, business at Japanese restaurant Fujisan was slow on a recent Thursday evening, with three groups of diners in a space designed to hold at least five times more. 'It used to be busy before,' a Chinese waitress said.
'It's difficult to underestimate the impact of Japanese auto makers on the Chinese automotive industry and economy at large,' said Stephen Dyer, a partner with management-consulting firm A.T. Kearney who is based in Shanghai. He said many of the companies have adopted just-in-time inventory standards, meaning they rely on networks of fast-moving suppliers that could also be hit by production halts.
just-in-time：恰好及时，刚好够用 inventory：存货，库存
Dongfeng Nissan employee Lin Peiyu, 24, said he has been called a traitor for working with the Japanese. But he added that he is generally happy in his job. 'Every job has its difficulties,' he said. 'A lot of workers are doing training and nobody has been fired─for now.'
Zhang Hong, a 21-year-old migrant fellow Nissan worker from the central Chinese province of Hunan, said there had been talk among his colleagues about possible layoffs. 'I think it isn't going to happen, but we are still worried,' Mr. Zhang said, picking at his lunch of oily spiced chicken at a restaurant close to his plant.
He makes the equivalent of $2.70 an hour working in the instrument division of the joint venture between Nissan Motor Co. NSANY -2.27% and Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Group Co., 0489.HK -2.22% which produces models such as the Nissan Bluebird, Livina and Tiida.
Guangzhou, with a population of 12.7 million, accounts for about 12% of the more than one million passenger cars produced in China in 2011, according to a report by the Social Sciences Academic Press (China). Joint ventures between Chinese companies and Japanese companies Nissan, Toyota Motor Corp. 7203.TO -0.16% and Honda Motor Co. 7267.TO -0.04% are major employers.
As a result of the latest China-Japan spat, Japan's September exports to China fell 14.1% from a year earlier. In China, economic growth slowed to its lowest level since the global financial crisis, giving Beijing an incentive to soothe tensions with Tokyo, one of its biggest trading partners.
incentive：刺激，诱因，鼓励 soothe：安慰，使平静，缓和
So far, Toyota, Nissan and Honda say they have no plans to cut workers here. 'Although the short-term impact of this issue is not light, we believe that in the long to medium term, our business will recover,' said a Honda spokesman. In a statement, Nissan said it expected sales to improve toward the end of the year.
Precise figures for the number of people employed in the auto industry in Guangzhou are difficult to obtain, but a person at the local government's automobile investment-promotion center in the Huadu district estimated 30,000 people in Guangzhou were employed in the industry.
Tensions have heated up between China and Japan over the uninhabited East China Sea islets─called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Last month, protests turned violent when Tokyo nationalized some of the islands. In one incident, a Chinese man in the city of Xi'an was badly beaten by a mob because he was driving a Toyota, further denting demand for Japanese models.
uninhabited：无人居住的 denting：凹陷，使...凹下
Toyota and Honda partner Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.'s 2238.HK +4.73% sales dropped 33% to 47,000 vehicles in September, according to an industry group. Dongfeng Automobile Co., 600006.SH +6.99% the Nissan-Dongfeng joint venture, sold 18,608 vehicles in September, down close to 30% from the year-earlier period. Neither company returned calls seeking comment.
On the east side of Guangzhou, in the Zengcheng area, workers at a Honda-GAC joint venture also spoke of cuts to production. One factory worker surnamed Zhang, 26, from Guangdong province, said schedules had changed. 'Now the production has decreased to half,' he said. 'We used to have two work groups in our factory working at the same time, but now we take turns to work. We work for one day and then take a day off. We are paid for the off-work day.'
Another Honda worker surnamed Chen, 21, also from Guangdong province, said he wasn't too concerned about the situation, although he is wary about the possibility of more idle days.
wary about：对...报慎重态度
For Mr. Zhang, the young worker at the Nissan plant in Huadu, the uncertainty is unsettling. 'If I get fired, I don't know where to go. I want to keep working here,' he said.