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Abstract
The article begins by analyzing the historical evolution of “class ideology” in China, especially since 1978. Next, it turns to the concrete effects of the recent and ongoing recession on the Chinese working class. It finds that the crisis affected rural–urban migrants far more substantially than it did workers in the formal (mostly state-owned) urban sector. While this situation presents numerous challenges (for the central state, a crisis of legitimacy; for the local state, a crisis of managing social unrest as well as providing welfare; and, for the workers, a crisis of survival), it also creates opportunities for new conceptualizations and practices of class-politics. In conclusion, we discuss the nascent articulation of a few of these opportunities in labor-union activity, protests, and emergent rights-awareness, and legal consciousness among workers, as well as the implications for China's model of economic development.
Notes
1 Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 43–44; William Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 108.
2 Keith Bradsher, “A Labor Movement Stirs in China,” The New York Times, June 10, 2010, < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/global/11strike.html>.
3 David Barboza and Keith Bradsher, “In China, Labor Movement Enabled by Technology,” The New York Times, June 16, 2010, < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/business/global/17strike.html>.
4 Edward Wong, “As China Aids Labor, Unrest is Still Rising,” The New York Times, June 20, 2010, < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21chinalabor.html>.
5 Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “Strike Out: What the Foreign Media Misses in Covering China's Labor Unrest,” Foreign Policy, June 18, 2010.
6 Keith Bradsher, “Unrest May Signal New Phase in China Economy,” The New York Times, May 29, 2010, < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/business/global/30strike.html>.
7 “The Next China,” The Economist, July 29, 2010.
8 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964), p. 9: “I do not see class as a ‘structure,’ nor even as a ‘category,’ but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships.”
9 Wang Hui, The End of the Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity (London: Verso, 2009), p. 13: “As both market or state are gradually neutralized or depoliticized, divisions over questions of development become technical disputes about market-adjustment mechanisms. Political divisions between labor and capital, left and right, are made to disappear.”
10 The Chinese government is perfectly happy to selectively promote individual stories of migrants and laid-off workers who have made a fortune in the capitalist labor market. Rachel Murphy, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Jaeyoun Won, “Withering Away of the Iron Rice Bowl? The Re-Employment Project of Post-Socialist China,” Studies in Comparative International Development 39:2 (2004), pp. 71–93.
11 Etienne Balibar, On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (London: NLB, 1977), p. 64.
12 As Li Zhang correctly points out, the current real estate boom in China, resulting in fortunes for some local governments and real estate developers, has been made possible by massive demolition and relocation of poor urban residents and the use of low‐wage migrant construction labor. See: Li Zhang, In Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), pp. 137–162.
13 Xudong Zhang, Postsocialism and Cultural Politics: China in the Last Decade of the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), p. 13.
14 Elizabeth J. Perry, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).
15 Marc Blecher, China Against the Tides: Restructuring through Revolution, Radicalism and Reform (New York: Continuum, 2010), p. 110.
16 According to Marc Blecher: “The meaning of class and class struggle, and efforts to reinterpret them in a fundamental way, lay at the epicenter of the Cultural Revolution,” Blecher, China Against the Tides, p. 114.
17 It is also worth noting that in Europe during the same year, communist parties were hotly debating the topic of “Euro-Communism” or how to create a European socialism distinct from, and in many ways in opposition to, the ruthlessness of the Soviet Union. In the same year China abandoned the concept of “class antagonism,” the French Communist Party voted to abandon the concept of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
18 Li Zhang, In Search of Paradise, p. 6.
19 Blecher, China Against the Tides, pp. 114–115.
20 Balibar, On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, pp. 54–55.
21 Chen Yun and You Jun, “Hou Jinrong Weiji Shiqi Wo Guo Jiuye Celue” (Our Country's Employment Tactics in the Post-Financial Crisis Era), Zhongguo Laodong 2010:6 (2010), pp. 9–12.
22 Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, pp. 16–20.
23 Xu Haocheng, “Cong ‘Lao Da Ge’ dao Lanling Jingying” (From “Big Brother” to Blue-Collar Aristocracy), Juece 2009:10 (2009), p. 14.
24 Dorothy J. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasants, Migrants, the State, and the Logic of the Market (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Pun Ngai, Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
25 Lowell Dittmer and William Hurst, ”Analysis in Limbo: Contemporary Chinese Politics Amid the Maturation of Reform," Issues & Studies 38:4/39:1 (2002/2003), pp. 29–30.
26 Murphy, How Migrant Labor is Changing Rural China.
27 William J. Hurst, Thomas B. Gold, and Jaeyoun Won, “Introduction,” in Thomas B. Gold, William J. Hurst, Jaeyoun Won, and Qiang Li (eds), Laid-off Workers in a Workers' State: Unemployment with Chinese Characteristics (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2009), p. 6; Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, p. 4.
28 Zhu Yuan, “Jinrong Weijixia de Jiuye Xingshi Fenxi—Yali yu Jiyu” (Analysis of the Employment Terrain during the Financial Crisis—Pressures and Opportunities), Zhongguo Jiti Jingji 2009:22 (2009), p. 140.
29 Sharon LaFraniere, “China Puts Joblessness for Migrants at 20 Million,” The New York Times, February 3, 2009, < http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/asia/03china.html>; Rowan Callick, “Millions of Chinese Migrant Workers Lose Jobs,” The Australian, March 2, 2009.
30 Olivia Cheng, “China's Tide of Migrant Labor Turns,” The Asia Times, February 5, 2009, < http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KB05Cb01.html>.
31 Liu Jianqiang, “‘Xue Han’ de Zhongjie?” (The End of “Blood and Sweat”?), Zhongguo Qiyejia 2010:13 (2010), pp. 53–59.
32 Qu Shibin, “Guanzhu Jinrong Fengbao xia de Nongmin Gong ‘Huiliu Chao’” (Regarding the “Reflux Current” of Rural Migrant Workers during the Financial Storm), Fazhi yu Shehui 2008:12 (2008), p. 298.
33 Qu Shibin, “Guanzhu Jinrong Fengbao xia de Nongmin Gong ‘Huiliu Chao’” (Regarding the “Reflux Current” of Rural Migrant Workers during the Financial Storm), Fazhi yu Shehui 2008:12 (2008), p. 298
34 Yu Hengkui and Liu Jixue, “Dui Guoji Jinrong Weiji Beijing xia Wo Guo Jiuye Wenti de Sikao” (Thoughts Regarding Our County's Employment Problems Against the Backdrop of the International Financial Crisis), Harbin Dangxiao Xuebao 2009:11 (2009), pp. 1–5.
35 Li Qingsong and Zeng Zhenqun, “Jinrong Weiji zhong Guizhou Nongmin Gong Huiliu Xianxiang Fenxi” (Analysis of the Phenomenon of Reverse Flows of Guizhou Migrant Workers during the Financial Crisis), Guizhou Nongye Kexue 2009:10 (2009), p. 210.
36 Li Qingsong and Zeng Zhenqun, “Jinrong Weiji zhong Guizhou Nongmin Gong Huiliu Xianxiang Fenxi” (Analysis of the Phenomenon of Reverse Flows of Guizhou Migrant Workers during the Financial Crisis), Guizhou Nongye Kexue 2009:10 (2009), p. 210
37 Yi Ling and Zheng Jun, “Nanning Shi Nongmin Gong Fan Xiang Yuanyin ji Chuangye Duice Yanjiu” (Reasons for Nanning City Migrants Returning to their Villages and Research on Employment Policy), Guangxi Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban) (January 2010), p. 74.
38 Yi Ling and Zheng Jun, “Nanning Shi Nongmin Gong Fan Xiang Yuanyin ji Chuangye Duice Yanjiu” (Reasons for Nanning City Migrants Returning to their Villages and Research on Employment Policy), Guangxi Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban) (January 2010), p. 74
39 Yi Ling and Zheng Jun, “Nanning Shi Nongmin Gong Fan Xiang Yuanyin ji Chuangye Duice Yanjiu” (Reasons for Nanning City Migrants Returning to their Villages and Research on Employment Policy), Guangxi Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban) (January 2010), p. 74, 74–75.
40 Yi Ling and Zheng Jun, “Nanning Shi Nongmin Gong Fan Xiang Yuanyin ji Chuangye Duice Yanjiu” (Reasons for Nanning City Migrants Returning to their Villages and Research on Employment Policy), Guangxi Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban) (January 2010), p. 74 Actually, the authors note that 60% of jobs for returning migrants in Nanning would pay less than one thousand Yuan per month (with 10% paying less than five hundred), while the majority of those in Guangdong or Hainan paid more than one thousand five hundred per month and a few even paid more than three thousand.
41 Yi Ling and Zheng Jun, “Nanning Shi Nongmin Gong Fan Xiang Yuanyin ji Chuangye Duice Yanjiu” (Reasons for Nanning City Migrants Returning to their Villages and Research on Employment Policy), Guangxi Daxue Xuebao (Zhexue Shehui Kexue Ban) (January 2010), p. 74, 75.
42 On how workers displaced from the state sector have also been most successful as entrepreneurs, see: Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, chapter 4.
43 Chen and You, “Hou Jinrong Weiji Shiqi,” p. 11.
44 Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, pp. 91–93.
45 Xinhua, “Labor Dispute Turned Violent in Guangdong Toy Factory,” The China Daily, November 26, 2008, < http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/2008-11/26/content_7242413.htm#>.
46 Liu Yan, “Kaida Gongsi yu Sun Mou Laodong Zhengyi An” (The Labor Dispute Case of Kaida Company and Sun Mou), Zhongguo Nongzi 2009:10 (2009), p. 13.
47 “Layoffs Spark Riots,” The Straits Times, November 27, 2008, < http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Asia/Story/STIStory_307333.html>.
48 Yang Xinsheng, “Fuwu Qiye he Zhigong Gouzhu: ‘Erge Yi Gongcheng’” (Serve Enterprises and Workers' Construction: The “Two Ones Project”) Zhongguo Gonghui Caihui 2010:4 (2010), p. 32.
49 On laid-off and migrant workers' contention see: William Hurst, “Understanding Contentious Collective Action by Chinese Laid-off Workers: The Importance of Regional Political Economy,” Studies in Comparative International Development 39:2 (2004), pp. 94–120; Lee, Against the Law.
50 Qian Songhui, “Zhunque Ba Woxin Xingshi xia Gonghui Gongzuo de Jiaose Dingwei” (Precisely Locate the Role of Trade Union Work under the New Circumstances), Zhongguo Laodong Guanxi Xueyuan Xuebao 24:3 (2010), pp. 38–41.
51 Wasserstrom, “Strike Out.”
52 Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, p. 140.
53 For more detail see: William Hurst, “A ‘China Model’ or Just a Broken Mould?,” in Robert Springborg (ed.), Development Models in Muslim Contexts: Chinese, “Islamic,” and Neo-Liberal Alternatives (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), pp. 15–16.
54 James Hudson, William Hurst, and Christian Sorace, “Workers in Post-Socialist China: Shattered Rice Bowls, Fragmented Subjectivities,” in Yin-wah Chu (ed.), Chinese Capitalisms: Historical Emergence and Political Implications (New York: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2010), pp. 106–107.
55 Hurst, The Chinese Worker after Socialism, pp. 139–140.
56 Kenneth Lieberthal and Michael Oksenberg, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
57 Andrew Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).