A small story from the Qing Dynasty:

Foreign Western firms in the Qing Dynasty offered high salaries to Chinese employees, which caused strong dissatisfaction among Chinese officials. Zeng Guofan submitted a memorial to the court: foreign merchants heavily invest to lure our Chinese people, leading craftsmen to be unwilling to serve the country, which is not a long-term strategy.
Liu Kunyi also submitted a memorial to the court: foreign firms pay too high salaries, fearing that Chinese workers will gain these substantial benefits, become arrogant over time, and forget their original duties.
Due to the high salaries offered by foreign merchants, Qing officials and employees increasingly defected to foreign firms. For example, the Chinese chief engineer at American-owned Qichang Foreign Firm earned 250 taels of silver per month, while the Qing navy’s chief engineer earned only 30 taels per month. Naturally, Qing employees chose to work for foreign firms.
Shen Baozhen, the Viceroy of Liangjiang, was very angry. He issued a strict order: anyone working for foreign firms would be considered a traitor. As a result, 30 Chinese employees working for foreign firms were arrested and exiled to Heilongjiang.
Li Hongzhang personally ordered the Tianjin Customs Department: Chinese employees at foreign firms must not earn more than 100 taels per month; otherwise, they would be charged with disturbing the market and held accountable collectively.
As a result, foreign firms could only distribute the excess as year-end bonuses.
To suppress the high salaries of foreign firms, Qing officials responded with heavy taxes. Wu Xu, the governor of Shanghai, introduced a policy of additional levies on the Baojia system: for those earning more than 50 taels per month, a Baojia fee of 10-30 taels was levied. In short, they tried every means to prevent Chinese employees from earning high salaries.