The Chinese government has no plans or measures in place to bring in labor from Southeast Asia on a large scale. Nevertheless, many individuals from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines do enter China illegally to work.
This is an unavoidable cost of China’s open-door policy. The Chinese government’s approach is to keep the situation under control, rather than resorting to forceful, large-scale deportations.
You may appear to be Vietnamese, but you are not truly Vietnamese.
Guangxi, China, is the country’s largest producer of sugarcane (which is primarily used for sugar production and snacks). Each year, during the harvest season, a large number of Vietnamese people cross the China-Vietnam border illegally to work for sugarcane plantation owners in Guangxi.
1. There is a shortage of local labor in Guangxi.
2. The cost of hiring illegal Vietnamese laborers is significantly lower.
Local Chinese government authorities tend to turn a blind eye to this situation—a pragmatic compromise, given that these illegal Vietnamese workers do not pose any substantive threat to social stability in China. If the local government were to attempt to bring these workers in through legal channels, the administrative procedures would be highly cumbersome and would likely spark unnecessary public controversy.
But,
this does not mean that people are unaware of the situation!
If you rely solely on English-language media from Western societies for your information, then—regrettably—you will find that this matter is rarely covered by Western English-language media, Chinese-language media, or even the media in Vietnam.
However, on Chinese social media platforms such as Douyin and Weibo, you can find a wealth of concrete evidence.