Tensions rise as economic power tilts USATODAY.com
The AFL-CIO says 727,000 Americans have lost their jobs as a result of China's unfair labor practices. The union group calculates that China depresses the pay of its own workers by up to 86% by denying them collective bargaining rights, safe working conditions and a minimum wage. That, in turn, depresses the cost of Chinese-made goods by as much as 44%, the AFL-CIO says.

Those figures are 'close to worthless,' says Nicholas Lardy, economist and China specialist at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington think tank. 'They pile on assumption after assumption after assumption. You get to a result that isn't plausible.'

But even if the numbers held up, they wouldn't tell the whole story.