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Will Peasants and Migrant Workers Forge China’s New Political Vanguard?
China is no longer a sleeping giant. The past few months have seen riots, strikes, and peasant clashes with police. If you lay out all these incidents on a map, you get more than a random data cloud; you see a slow seismic shift in a society of contrasts, where boundaries of class and power are being constantly redrawn.
Residents attend a rally in Wukan, a fishing village in the southern province of Guangdong. (AFP/Getty Images)
The most high-profile uprising of recent weeks is the revolt in the Guangdong village of Wukan. Peasants began protesting to defend their land rights, accusing officials of handing over land to developers and bilking farmers out of millions of dollars worth of real estate.
By December, as with many land-rights struggles in the Global South, direct action was apparently the only leverage villagers had to push back against the local government. The death of a leading protester in police custody catalyzed their outrage, and after driving out local officials, the activists launched an ad-hoc self-governing occupation.
Rachel Beitarie at Foreign Policy reported:
Villagers refrained from looting and instead focused on bringing food into the village through back roads, away from security forces that massed outside. They coordinated mass rallies, making protest signs, and cooked for the hordes of journalists who descended on the village.
A tense truce has emerged since then, with some political and economic concessions handed down from provincial officials. It’s unclear whether leading activists will continue campaigning or settle with authorities. But for now, the Wukan narrative stands as a vindication of poor people's challenge to metastasizing inequality and parasitic corruption across China.
Meanwhile urban areas are getting restless, too. Protest actions, including strikes and demonstrations, doubled from 2006 to 2010, according to one study. Many of those roughly 180,000 “disturbances” were driven by migrant workers who have flocked to cities hoping to bank on China’s capitalist explosion.
Last month, workers went on strike at a Japanese-owned auto parts factory over pay and hours, protesting a sharp cut in year-end bonuses. According to the U.S.-based China Labor Watch, the Aries Auto Parts factory has done a brisk trade supplying car and motorcycle parts to global brands like Honda and Suzuki, which symbolize new prosperity among China’s elite. But workers haven’t seen that wealth trickle down.
Management claimed that its decision to reduce the bonus was due to the Japanese earthquake reducing demand for production. However, the workers dispute this, as they believe this past year’s production orders have been roughly the same as they were in 2010.
However, there was another long-standing grievance that workers had with the factory, and that was their long working hours. Workers are currently working 12-hour workdays, forcing them to work about 50 hours of overtime every month.
Around the same time, in a similar strike action at an LG electronics factory, workers complained of unfair bonuses and wages despite workdays stretching up to 12 hours, and eventually wrested conessions from management. CLW described a walkout in an early negotiating session:
On their way out of the dining hall, the workers flipped a number of tables and chairs and toppled the dining hall’s Christmas tree. Apart from that, the protestors have been largely peaceful. The exceptions have come during conflicts with the police, who instigated a few confrontations.
Domestic and international media outlets, as well as the public data-mapping project China Strikes, have documented actions ranging from a blockade of a Tesco chain store to work stoppage at an Apple-supplier factory.
Like the migrants themselves, the climate of unrest transcends the rural-urban divide. While it’s too early to tell if the Wukan rebellion will inspire other village uprisings, it suggests a convergence between rural and migrant labor struggles. First, migrants seeking a better life in the cities are thwarted by draconian residency regulations that restrict workers rights and economic opportunities. Yet, back in their hometowns, the land to which the rural poor have been tethered all their lives is being snatched by landgrabbers, with no real recourse.
The leaders of the Wukan revolt were migrants who had toiled outside the village and experienced the vast gap between rural and urban societies. The New York Times quoted the elder protest leader Lin Zuluan, who had earned a living as a merchant in the city of Dongguan: “I want to be able to express my opinions to officials... I have that right. We all have that right.”
In an interview with In These Times, Wayne State University sociologist and China specialist Sarah Swider sees the migration wave as a potential vehicle for dissent.
The migrant worker has been called into existence as a result of the transition from socialism into a form of capitalism. Their forms of protest, like their identities, integrate the old (peasants) with the new (peasant/migrant workers). They use old forms of protests that occurred frequently under Communism, such as mass marches to confront bosses and petitions for government intervention. These are coupled with newer forms of protest, which include strikes, legal complaints, and getting the media involved.
Yet the mobilization of the migrant working class resonates with a history of peasant insurgency, according to Swider:
[P]easants now face two fronts of protest. On the one hand, they have to contend with local authorities in the villages and towns that want to pillage their land, and other the other hand, they have to fight against being worked to death (literally in some cases) by capitalist employers in the urban areas.
But it may be a long time before farmers or workers can shake off the control of the state. As it prepares for a leadership transition, the Communist Party may step up efforts to buy off protesters with economic concessions or token elections, tighten censorship, or crack down on prominent dissidents.
Still, a massive populace of increasingly mobile, globally oriented workers will eventually outpace officialdom. Despite the monetization of Chinese society and the privatization of the state, the poor are discovering that justice can’t be bought. Now the dispossessed peasants and migrant laborers have to decide what price they’re willing to pay for democracy.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllThe problem with outsourcing is it doesn't stop with China . Many Chinese jobs are being lost to India, Vietnam , Cambodia , ect , since wages are a bit lower in those nations . So its impossible for Chinese wages to raise too much before the companies decide to pick up and move else where . Combine this with the fact that most companies sub contract their work to a Chinese or Taiwanese owned manufacturer and you have the potential to see jobs leave China very quickly if things get too expensive. Say I'm a Shoe company, if a Chinese manufacture can make a show for like 5$ , but an Indian one can make the same shoe for 3$, I can just cancel my orders at the Chinese manufacturer and give them to the Indian manufacturer .
China has an advantage in that the PRC from the very beginning made massive investments in infrastructure. That makes it so the energy supply is secure and relatively cheap, that workers can be transported, housed, and fed cheaply, that goods can go to port cheaply over the good transport infrastructure and that the port will clear and load the goods quickly. All of this favors china over India, Vietnam, or Cambodia. Even if goods are more expensive to produce in China, the logistical challenges brought about by poor infrastructure elsewhere means the end cost will still be higher elsewhere than China. That's not to say that other countries aren't doing their bit to catch up with China on public infrastructure, but for now, China still has an edge, even if its rate of pay goes up.
There's also the fact that the Chinese government has proven to be relatively stable. In unstable environments and shifting political winds, an assembly factory may be subject to different regulation when new governments come in and also there is a chance the factory may be nationalized if a popular movement ends up in power. As such China is a safe bet.
No Ms. Chen, they will not. Politics and political power in China will not change. You believe that when push comes to shove the Chinese government will go quietly into the night? China has killed millions and millions of its own people before, it has invaded soverign countries and still occupies them, so if you think they will hesitate to use force to maintain control you are naive to put it politely.
China is not America, It's not Europe, its not even an Egypt. China is not a democracy or even a social democracy. Its not a Republic like America. It is a military dictatorship.
typical white man's propaganda.
What a simplistic and stereotyped view of China and its people. This is what Edward Said might have called "orientalism". China had 2 revolutions in the 20th Century. What have we done? China resisted British domination. They endured the cruel invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese. Most of these situations ended up with complicated results, with improvements and abuses in leadership and life. Still, there is no genetic or cultural reason to write off the ability of the ordinary Chinese person to fight in his or her own interests as compared with any other group or country.
Unfortunately, money always finds a way to corrupt. The only way to stop the abuse of the money-power has always been to wield equal or superior power. As chairman Mao said: Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'
"As chairman Mao said: Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'"
Real World Proof that it is in everyone's interest to be against gun control.
The widespread possession of firearms amongst the People make totalitarians think twice before executing their final stage plans of the total enslavement of the People and the United States of America is no exception.
No matter how proficient a military or police force is an armed populous is ungovernable and deadly to any occupating force.
Note should be to historical evidence confirming this as the worst crimes of the Soviets, ChiComs, Khmer Rouge, Nazis, etc. did not occur until the populous was disarmed. The British did not march to Lexington to have a picnic. They wanted the arms of the colonists and ultimately we won our independence because although the British could march anywhere they wanted they could not hold any ground without troops doing police duties 24/7 because the People possessed and would use firearms against the British occupying force.
Make no mistake about it, I am at odds with all the leftists who want to disarm our People. Most seem to be set up and can just fit in with the 1% no matter what happens to us, the People. Watching the back and forth flow of some intelligensia I wonder if being a leftist is just fun time and they can go back home when the party is over. Maybe a job which they do while collecting a paycheck.
Anyone who uses that old, arrogant, right wing "make no mistake" phrase - can you remember Cheney and Rumsfeld - should be considered somewhat unbalanced and possibly dangerous.
I agree. however I think that NDAA is just the first step in the fascist takeover of America. I predict that in about 1 year congress will pass a law that all Americans have to register any guns they own. I predict that within 1 year after that the army will come to your house to collect those guns. If they find more than you reported you will be taken away immediately and indefinitely. I predict that within 1 year after all the guns are confiscated is when we will start seeing people "disappearing." Does it sound unlikely? The idea of NDAA sounded unthinkable 6 months ago. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
I agree. however I think that NDAA is just the first step in the fascist takeover of America. I predict that in about 1 year congress will pass a law that all Americans have to register any guns they own. I predict that within 1 year after that the army will come to your house to collect those guns. If they find more than you reported you will be taken away immediately and indefinitely. I predict that within 1 year after all the guns are confiscated is when we will start seeing people "disappearing." Does it sound unlikely? The idea of NDAA sounded unthinkable 6 months ago. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Ezeflyer wrote: "Unfortunately, money always finds a way to corrupt. The only way to stop the abuse of the money-power has always been to wield equal or superior power."
Perhaps some people were corrupted before they even have the money. Despite their protestations, these people joined the Chinese Communist party to fight against Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang NOT because they believed in communism, but because they were nationalists. After the victory of the Communist Party in 1949, they showed their true colors and began to act like the feudal masters of the past. In their hearts, the peasants and workers were naturally inferior, while they themselves - better-off "intellectuals" and thus local, provincial, or national leaders - were born to lead. THEY were the ones to sabotage all socialist efforts from day one. When Deng took over in the late 1970s, their true colors were revealed and the country was set on a capitalist road.
The present Chinese revolt is certainly in the mode of traditional peasant uprisings. Despite the collaboration of the present party leaders with the imperialist West in offering their one-sided narrative of the first 30 years of socialist rule, millions of Chinese poor continued to believe in socialist democracy. This was obvious during the early 1980s when peasants migrated to cities in search of factory jobs: songs of Mao and socialism filled the makeshift homes of these people, and nearly every taxi played the old revolutionary songs. Some even pasted old Mao badges "for luck." The present ruling party were aghast, and sought to tighten their grip in this "unhealthy" tendency, but the recent resurgence of "red" songs all over China shows that it could not be stamped out. More important, millions of deprived peasants and workers are heeding the words of Mao: "To rebel is justified."
It's not so easy for the present reactionary government to fool the country any more, not when a global recession is going on. This is true nearly everywhere else in the world: in India, uprisings in former Nagaland and other areas annexed by British imperialism to form the present India have seen a resurgence, and so have the native Muslim peoples in southern Philippines. In Latin America, leftist governments are now in a position to put in pro-people programs - a clear sign of their rejection of the Washington Consensus and the genocidal regimes supported by the US in the past (this is a region where the US had invaded over 40 times since WW2 alone). In the US itself, the Corporate 1% has sought to divide Americans as they continued to discriminate against the descendents of African slaves, not to mention the Hispanics - many of whom became Americans only after the US war of aggression against Mexico in the 19th century. Poor whites are still being oppressed as they were since the earliest days of the US when non-propertied Americans - and women as a whole - were generally not allowed to vote. The leopard never changes its spots, even after killing millions of Native Americans, at least over a hundred million more in other countries, the US Empire is still oppressing its own people and the rest of the world's poor and marginalized.
>Note should be to historical evidence confirming this as the worst crimes of the Soviets, ChiComs, Khmer Rouge, Nazis, etc. did not occur until the populous was disarmed.<
The ignorance is deafening: e.g., if the "crimes" refer to the rise of the Soviets, then it was the Tzars who had the guns, not the communists who initially were poorly armed. In China, the capitalistic Kuomintang (KMT) were armed to the teeth by the US, whereas the peasants were largely unarmed until, under the leadership of the Communist Party, they fought back with weapons seized from the KMT. Other weapons were seized from the retreating Japanese at the end of WW2 (Stalin refused to recognize the Communist government until the very last stages of China's Civil War and therefore did not provide extensive help for the Communist forces).
However, quite often the so-called Soviet "crimes" - invented after WW2 and "Uncle Joe" (FDR's term of endearment) became the designated enemy of the West - refer to the forced industrialization under Stalin. Stalin's methods were indeed brutal, but on the whole the Soviet peoples saw the forced pace as necessary for two reasons:
1) Western aggression against the founding of the Soviet state, during which troops from the US, Britain, and their client Eastern European states invaded Soviet territory, causing widespread death and destruction (partly also by subsequent famines) in their paths. In one march against the Communists in Ukraine, the village of Kalinovka was wiped out, with all the villagers shot and buried in a mass grave. The parents of a later Soviet leader, Nikita Kruschev, were buried in that grave (you won't find such episodes mentioned in American high school texts).
2) Stalin and the Soviet leadership knew that a second invasion would be coming from the West. The Soviet Union, therefore, had only a couple of decades at most to prepare itself. Hence the forced industrialization which indeed must've cost many lives. However, despite Western propaganda about "tens of millions" of victims, it's unlikely that that many died: an utterly brutal regime would never win the hearts of the people to the extent that they were willing to bear such extreme sufferings and loss of life against the Nazis in the sieges of Stalingrad, Moscow, and Leningrad. WW2 cost the Soviets over 20 million lives, but undoubtedly the figures would've risen astronomically were Hitler able to subjugate that nation.
But back to the matter of arms in the hands of the people, this time regarding China: from 1950 till the 1970s, one of the proudest boasts of Communist China was its People's Militia which amounted to hundreds of millions of citizens under arms. Around 1962, the US thought about doing a Bay of Pigs on China by arming and assisting Chiang Kai-shek to invade the mainland because of the hardships and even possible famines in isolated areas during the Great Leap Forward. The projected aggression was called off because of CIA testimony to Congress that the peasants, forming the bulk of the Ming Bing (People's Militia), "would rise up to crush any invading force" (not verbatim).
Until Deng took over, most worker-peasant groups were armed, including those from China's 50-over minority peoples (some of whom at times seemed to have used the AK47 for hunting!). Britain's WW2 hero of Alamein, Field Marshal Lord Montgomery had visited China and wrote in the June 12th edition (1960) of London's Sunday Times :
"This (People's) Militia organization covers the country, and in the event of a foreign invasion of China the invading army would've a very poor time, indeed it would be engulfed by the Ming-Bing ... "
Obviously, no government would be silly enough to arm so many peasants and workers if they didn't have the support of the people.
I can't think of Washington willingly arming the Native Americans or even minorities such as the Afro-Americans, though 15-year-old hispanic kids might, next time, decide on their own to carry real guns than the pellet gun that Jaime Gonzalez was carrying.
In cases such as helping the Kashmiris to defend themselves against Indian aggression (genocide?), guns for Kashmiri civilians might work. Read about silent mass graves by Arundhati Roy in "The Dead begin to speak up in India" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/sep/30/kashmir-india-unmarked-graves
It is nice to see a report of local people standing up for their local human rights! Political corruption abounds worldwide, there are few if any exceptions!
Stuff we don't hear about over here in our MSM... perhaps because it would encourage a stiffer spine in American workers. Thanks, Michelle! Another great one!
Political vanguard? China doesn't allow for one. I watched what happenned to the students in Tiannamen Square. Politics in China will be set by multinational corporations. They are the ruling power on earth today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6inWKFKv9UA
The rest of us will continue to buy Nikes and cheap Christmas decorations. And China will forever have "Most Favored Nation" trading status.