When I worked in China in the mid 70s, I was astonished at how they would use labor over machines. They had some large construction machinery that was always put to low value uses so they could keep people employed. They cast a large concrete pedestal for a smokestack too high (it was about ten feet in diameter and eight feet high solid concrete).. Instead of using tractor-mounted jackhammers to tear it down and start over, they assigned a big team of men to use hammers and homemade chisels (made out of rebar) to manually chisel the pedestal down a couple of feet. I saw this over and over.
China has a problem - too many people.
The world has a problem - China has too many people!