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Made-In-China-03-2016.Pdf MADE IN CHINA 2016 A Quarterly on Chinese Labour, Civil Society, and Rights ISSUE 3, 2016 WHAT WORKING CHINESE WORKERS FOCUS ON CHINESE PARADISE UNDER CLASS IN CHINA? AND THE LEGAL LABOUR AND CONSTRUCTION William Hurst SYSTEM INVESTMENT IN Christian Sorace Aaron Halegua AFRICA MADE IN 2016 CHINAA Quarterly on Chinese Labour, Civil Society, and Rights Made in China Made in China is a quarterly on Chinese labour, civil society, and rights. This project has been produced with the financial assistance of the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW), Australian National University, and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 654852. The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of the European Union, CIW, or the institutions to which the authors are affiliated. 2016 ISSUE #3 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2016 ISSN 2206-9119 EDITORS TABLE OF CONTENTS Ivan Franceschini Kevin Lin EDITORIAL (P.5) Nicholas Loubere COPY-EDITING HEART OF DARKNESS? A CHINESE EMPIRE IN Sharon Strange Ivan Franceschini THE MAKING? (P.30) Kevin Lin Jixia Lu PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Nicholas Loubere Tommaso Facchin A WINDOW ON ASIA (P.34) ISSUE CONTRIBUTORS BRIEFS (P.6) Tom Barnes BHARAT BANDH: MILLIONS Mukete Beyongo Dynamic CHALLENGE MODI’S Gordon Crawford CHINA COLUMNS (P.9) LABOUR AGENDA (P.35) Aaron Halegua Tom Barnes William Hurst THE CHINESE WORKING Jixia Lu CLASS (P.11) Elisa Nesossi William Hurst Christian Sorace WORK OF ARTS (P.39) CHINESE WORKERS AND PHOTO CREDITS THE LEGAL SYSTEM (P.15) PARADISE UNDER Albert Graf (Cover) Aaron Halegua CONSTRUCTION (p.40) Jacob Montrasio (P.9-10) Christian Sorace Sandeepa Chetan (P.34) FOCUS (P.19) Zhao Liang (P.39) FIGHTING THE RACE TO ACADEMIC WATCH (P.44) THE BOTTOM (P.21) Mukete Beyongo Dynamic ELISA NESOSSI ON LEGAL REFORMS AND THERE AND BACK AGAIN DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY (P.25) IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA Nicholas Loubere (P.44) Gordon Crawford 4 WHY MADE IN CHINA? In the last few years, the Chinese labour movement has witnessed significant developments, not only with the occurrence of some of the largest strikes in decades but also the emergence of grave chal- lenges for workers and activists. Made in China springs from the belief that this calls for more seri- ous analysis from both scholars and practitioners, as well for a critical engagement with a broader international audience interested in forging inter - national solidarity. MADE IN CHINA - EDITORIAL 5 HEART OF DARKNESS? Questioning Chinese Labour and Investment in Africa We are pleased to announce the third in copper mines in Zambia have led to a issue of Made in China. As usual, we open ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards. In with a series of Briefs where we provide an There and Back Again: Conceptualising overview of notable stories that occurred the Chinese Gold Rush in Ghana, Nicholas over the past three months. Undoubtedly Loubere and Gordon Crawford investigate the most important development is the the media discourse and popular depiction conviction, but suspended sentences, of Chinese miners in Ghana as stealing of labour activists Zeng Feiyang, Zhu resources from marginal sectors of local Xiaomei, and Tang Huanxing, while a society. Finally, in A Chinese Empire in fourth activist, Meng Han, is still awaiting the Making? Questioning Myths from trial. In the midst of an oppressive political the Agri-Food Sector in Ghana, Jixia Lu climate, a suspended sentence comes as draws from her fieldwork in the country’s a relief to Chinese labour NGOs, which agricultural sector to challenge the are already struggling to survive due to dominant narratives of China’s presence in government repression and increasing Africa. financial constraints. In the Window on Asia section, you will In the China Columns, we present two find an article by Tom Barnes on possibly the essays. In The Chinese Working Class: largest strike in Indian history, which took Made, Unmade, in Itself, for Itself, or place in September. In this issue, we also None of the Above?, William Hurst invites launch a new cultural section with Christian our readers to consider the fractured and Sorace’s Paradise under Construction, an segmented history of the Chinese working essay on Zhao Liang’s Behemoth, a recent class, as well as its rapidly homogenising documentary on the environmental and present, and emphasises the need to refrain social tragedy behind China’s economic from too-facile comparisons with other miracle. We conclude with the Academic foreign experiences. In China’s Workers Watch, which introduces the edited and the Legal System: Bridging the Gap volume Legal Reforms and Deprivation of in Representation, Aaron Halegua delves Liberty in Contemporary China through a into the challenges that Chinese workers conversation with co-editor Elisa Nesossi. face when they seek to enforce their rights This journal is hosted by Chinoiresie.info. through the legal system. In the final pages of this issue, you can find We dedicate the core of this issue to some highlights from the website. If you a special section on Chinese labour and would like to contribute a piece of writing, investment in Africa, offering a series of please contact us; to receive this journal thought-provoking pieces with a focus on regularly by email, please subscribe to two countries—Zambia and Ghana—where our mailing list. We welcome any feedback conflicts related to Chinese capital and and we hope you will consider sharing this labour inflows have recently emerged. journal with your friends and colleagues. In Fighting the Race to the Bottom: Regulating Chinese Investment in The Editors, Zambian Mines, Mukete Beyongo Dynamic Ivan Franceschini, Kevin Lin, examines the claim that Chinese investment and Nicholas Loubere MADE IN CHINA - BRIEFS 6 Second Anniversary of Zhou Jianrong’s Suicide On 17 July, Chinese labour activists commemorated JUL/SEP the second anniversary of the death of Zhou Jianrong, a 49-year-old worker at a Hong Kong- owned footwear factory in Shenzhen. Two years 2016 ago, Zhou committed suicide by jumping out of her dormitory after being fired for her role in organising a strike. Since May 2014, Zhou and her co-workers had been struggling with the management over the issue of compensation following the company’s ownership restructuring. Walmart Workers on Strike They were concerned they would lose out. In the protracted struggle, more than one hundred In July, the struggle of Walmart workers in China workers were fired by management. On 16 July, entered a new stage. Early that month, Walmart the day before the suicide, the company had workers at retail stores in Nanchang, Chengdu, fired another sixteen activist workers, including and Harbin staged wildcat strikes against the Zhou. In Shenzhen, it would have been extremely company’s new working-hour system (see Anita difficult for female workers over the age of forty Chan in Made in China 2/2016). Dozens of work - to find any factory work, and the loss of her job ers from each of these stores participated in the deeply distressed Zhou. Two years later, her death strikes, holding signs, and chanting slogans in- is not forgotten. A candlelight vigil was held in the side the Walmart premises. The strikes were co - office of a labour NGO in Guangzhou with more ordinated via workers’ online networks facilitated than a dozen former worker representatives and by the Walmart Chinese Workers Association, an activists from Zhou’s factory. They proposed to informal group led by former employees of the mark 17 July as the ‘Day of Suffering of Chinese company. The Financial Times reports that there Workers.’ were forty such WeChat groups with about twenty thousand members, roughly a fifth of Walmart’s (Sources: Caixin, Radio Free Asia) workforce in China. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) neither organised nor in- tervened in the strikes. Workers ended their pro - test only after management promised a response, but so far the company is still pushing for the new working hour system to be adopted in its retails stores. These strikes represent a rare instance of cross-regional labour organisation leading to work stoppages. Since July, individual Walmart workers have taken the company to arbitration on issues re - lated to the new working-hour system. (Sources: China Labor Bulletin, The Financial Times, Xinjing Bao) PC: RADIO FREE ASIA MADE IN CHINA - BRIEFS 7 Mounting Concerns about Wukan Sieged and Conquered the Impact of the Economic Slowdown on Wage Growth On 19 June, hundreds of residents in the southern fishing village of Wukan, Guangdong province, In mid-July, China’s National Bureau of Statistics returned to the street five years after protests issued a report warning that sustaining economic had flared up against official corruption and land and wage growth will be a challenge in the grabbing. The protesting villagers demanded the second half of 2016. In particular, the report release of Village Chief Lin Zuluan, who had been cited industrial overcapacity in the state-owned detained on 18 June for his persistent advocacy for coal and steel sectors, and declining agricultural land rights. Lin had been elected as chief of the prices as contributing factors. In the first half of village committee and Party secretary after he and this year, inflation-adjusted disposable household others led a massive village protest in 2011 that income rose 6.5 percent, barely keeping pace secured a concession to hold democratic village with economic growth at 6.7 percent. However, elections. The land issue at the heart of the protest, in anticipation of slowing economic growth, however, had become increasingly difficult to the Chinese government has taken measures to resolve.
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