In a small but very significant way Apple is trying to change China. It’s a step perhaps no one else could make, and it’s rather complicated. Let’s break it down.

As part of a joint agreement with Foxconn, Apple’s keystone supplier

responsible for making the iPhone and iPad and other devices, the tech giant is going

to hire tens of thousands more workers, restrict illegal overtime, bump

safety procedures, improve worker living conditions, and make other

tweaks. Reuters says it’s a “landmark development for the way Western companies do business in China,” which gives you a flavor of the scale and importance of this news.

The moves come after a fairly damning report from the Fair Labor Association, an independant body that Apple voluntarily invited to make an audit of worker conditions in its various Chinese suppliers. This was in response to numerous claims that illegal practices like underage employees and unpaid overtime were common, and after a long period where Foxconn’s alleged suicide problem was in the headlines. Of course some of the accusations were exaggerated (ably demonstrated by the recent scandal involving actor Mike Daisey and his falsified accounts of seeing some of this illegality) and others taken out of context–with the suicide rate among Foxconn’s 1.2 million employees actually being lower than the Chinese average. But the FLA did nevertheless uncover many unfortunate instances of worker maltreatment.

And that’s what Apple and Foxconn are trying to redress.

That will please many Apple critics, and its the culmination of a sequence of changes that Apple and Foxconn have been making in reaction to global condemnation. For example, employee wages have risen dramatically over the last several years and Foxconn’s monthly salary for its Shenzen workers is, Reuters notes, 1,800 yuan ($290) which is much more than the minimum of 1,400–and overtime pay comes on top of this.

But this is where things get complicated. It’s noted that Foxconn’s working conditions are already better than many similar factories in China that make goods for the Chinese themselves, and for consumers around the planet. Apple’s moves are likely to bias this situation even more–and although they’re made with the very best intentions, it is still an asymmetric act because of course Apple can’t change every factory in China. It may set a precedent that others follow, perhaps even at the urging of Chinese workers themselves…but it won’t happen immediately.