8216;Reverse migration could shake China8217;s stability8217;

On Wednesday, workers let go from a liquor factory in northern China mounted a protest in Beijing, at the parent company8217;s headquarters. In the latest sign of economic stress, China8217;s currency fell on Monday by its single largest margin on record against the dollar, on expectations the central bank might devalue it to prop up sagging growth, the paper said.

As the government tries to calm tensions in the cities, the Journal says, it also fears that newly unemployed migrants returning home could upend the already-strained social system in the countryside.

Many of the returning workers have too little income from the land to support their families, it says, adding that Beijing has been encouraging many to lease out their farms to more profitable cooperatives 8212; which don8217;t share their increased earnings from the crops with the landholders.

Others have no farms to come back to, having seen their land gobbled up by decades of previous Chinese urbanization drives, in which unscrupulous developers and corrupt officials often illegally seized peasants8217; land, it said.

For workers accustomed to a decade of double-digit growth, it says, China8217;s sudden downturn has come as a shock to the system.