Dalian, the port city of Liaoning province in China's north-east, is home to the country's biggest, most modern shipyard. In the cavernous dry dock, a modern crane lifts massive steel sections for final assembly of a gigantic oil tanker ordered by Iran. The din is deafening as workers hammer and weld the parts together. Ten minutes' drive away there is noise of another kind: children laughing as they play basketball during a break from lessons. Their school, a shabby concrete building with bitterly cold classrooms, looks out of place amongst Dalian's grand Russian- and Japanese-inspired architecture, and wholly unconnected to the gleaming shipyard. Yet both are part of the same state-owned enterprise, Dalian New Shipbuilding Heavy Industries.
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