China's workforce isn't just cheap; it is of comparatively high quality, as demonstrated in particular by the great differences between the Chinese and African understanding of the word "diligence".

As a consumer, I support producers of Apple and other mobile phones reducing their prices, but the loss of the environment is too high a price to pay; I feel that Apple should buy from a few more companies, and let them compete freely, rather than simply forcing prices down.

At the same time, the Ministry of Environmental Protection should bring out concrete environmental policies and pollution standards. If Apple's production chain is causing pollution, they should be supervised by a taxpayer-funded government ministry, rather than so-called environmental groups.

First is Apple corporation's own contradiction: they act like and call themselves low polluters, but their suppliers are high polluters. Furthermore, they didn't release the third party report to the public. In terms of social responsibility, this grave lack of public transparency of information does not correspond with Apple's international reputation.
Second is the fairly subdued behavior of China's Ministry of Environmental Protection. If this government ministry served the interests of the people, if everyone followed the rules and demanded that everyone of Apple's Chinese suppliers were honest and open, could Apple still act so arrogantly?

Clearly the partners that Chinese companies choose in Cambodia have abundant political capital, but to go against the political tide will incite public indignation. While such indignation may initially spread underground, one day it will erupt.

Thank you to the writer for this article and for writing very factually about this issue. I just have one point to make; the article says " The memory of a failed attempt to quantify economic losses attributable to environmental harms is still fresh in the MEP’s memory." Is this referring to the 2007 research done jointly by the World Bank, the then-State Environmental Protection Agency and the Ministry of Health called "China's Environmental Costs"? This research report has been revised by the Chinese side multiple times and has not yet been published. This was once revealed by the Financial Times, and resulted in the then China Director for the World Bank David Dollar having to make a special announcement to explain the situation.
Aside from this, during the Beijing Olympics an air-quality monitoring project, a product of co-operation between the Beijing Envionmental Protection Bureau, the EU and the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee, also became mired in dispute over air particulates (though I'm not sure of the index); in the end the outcome was unknown.