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. Frustrated, Lin attempted to mobilise moderate wage growth. The deputy director of villagers to collectively petition the government, China’s Bureau of Social Security and Human but he was detained shortly afterwards. Following Resources, Xin Changxing, maintains that if the detention of his grandson and having been Chinese companies are to remain competitive, denied access to his lawyers, Lin confessed to the frequency and scale of wage adjustment bribery charges. After his confession was taped and should be slowed. In the first half of 2016, only six broadcasted on state television, he was sentenced regions in China increased their local minimum to thirty-seven months in prison. For almost three wage, compared to thirteen regions in 2015. The months, villagers held daily public demonstrations. average minimum wage increase is also slower: On 13 September, riot police broke into the village only 11 percent compared to 13.5 percent in the to detain thirteen villagers accused of inciting a previous year. Mirroring the minimum wage mob and disrupting public order. The police were adjustment, local governments’ annual guidelines met with resistance by villagers, and with many for workplace salaries similarly propose slower injured; however, since this time the protest has wage growth. In addition, in August, the powerful subsided. National Development and Reform Commission released a document that described the relatively (Sources: The Initium, The New York Times, large amounts provided by the social insurance BBC) scheme as undermining the competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry. This comes after sixteen provinces slightly reduced the percentage of social insurance contributions in the first half of 2016 in an effort to drive down labour costs.

(Sources: Caixin, Jinghua Shibao, The South China Morning Post, Zhongguo Jingji Zhoukan, 21 Shiji Jingji Baodao)

PC: SCMP PC: YOUTUBE MADE IN CHINA - BRIEFS 8

Flurry of Legislative Activity on Panyu Labour Activists Civil Society Organisations Sentenced, Lu Yuyu Beaten in Jail

After the passing of the Charity Law and the highly On 26 September, the Panyu district court in controversial Foreign NGOs Law earlier this year Guangzhou held separate hearings for labour (see Ivan Franceschini and Elisa Nesossi in Made activists Zeng Feiyang, Zhu Xiaomei, and Tang in China 2/2016) , over the summer, the Chinese Huanxing. Zeng was sentenced to three years authorities have continued to move forward imprisonment, suspended for four years, for with the revision of legislation related to the ‘gathering a crowd to disturb social order’, while management of civil society organisations. Since Zhu and Tang received prison sentences of June, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has issued draft eighteen months, suspended for two years, for registration and management regulations for public the same charge. The case of Meng Han, another comment for all three types of social organisations activist who refused to cooperate with the judicial legally recognised in China: foundations (jijinhui), authorities, was sent back to the police for further social service organisations (shehui fuwu jigou), investigation (he already had a previous conviction and social association (shehui tuanti). As long- back in 2014 for organising hospital security time observer of Chinese civil society Shawn guards). All activists worked for the Panyu Migrant Shieh has pointed out in his blog NGOs in China, Workers Centre, an outspoken labour NGO based ‘these three sets of regulations form the heart of in Guangzhou that has, over the past few years, the regulatory system governing the registration distinguished itself for taking on several high and management of social organisations—China’s profile collective cases. After being arrested in a equivalent of not-for-profit organisations.’ coordinated crackdown against labour activists Complementary administrative regulations in in early December 2015, Zeng and his colleagues either draft, provisional, or final form have also were formally accused of ‘gathering a crowd to been concurrently released. The rationale behind disturb social order.’ While Zhu and Tang were the new legislation is spelled out in an ‘Opinion’ released on bail after a few weeks, Zeng and Meng jointly released by the General Office of the remained under detention without trial for almost Communist Party’s Central Committee and the ten months. Worrying news has also emerged about General Office of the State Council on 21 August. blogger Lu Yuyu, chronicler of protests in China, According to this document, the overall goal of and his girlfriend and collaborator Li Tingyu who the reform is to see that by 2020 China will have have been detained since 15 June. On 31 August, achieved ‘the complete and sound building of a Lu met his lawyer at the Dali Bai Autonomous Chinese-style social organisation management Prefecture Detention Centre, and told him that system that features unified registration, with he had been beaten by officers and was suffering each undertaking their own duties, coordination from sleep deprivation after having been exposed and cooperation, responsibilities according to to strong light at night. Amnesty International has level, and oversight on the basis of the law.’ In the called for urgent action in support of Lu and Li. new legal and political environment, ‘government and social organisations [will be] separate, powers (Sources: Amnesty International, China Labor and obligations [will be] clear, and self-regulation Bulletin, The New York Times) [will be] practiced in line with the law,’ but at the same time ‘Party organisations [will be] playing a more obvious role.’

(Sources: China Law Translate 1, China Law Translate 2, NGOs in China, Central Government Website)

PC: ON.CC MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 9

CHINA COLUMNS MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 10

1

The Chinese Working Class Made, Unmade, in Itself, for Itself, or None of the Above? William Hurst

2

Chinese Workers and the Legal System Bridging the Gap in Representation Aaron Halegua MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 11

China’s working class dwarfs those of all The Chinese other countries. It has undergone several rounds of momentous and wrenching Working Class: change over the past hundred years—from Made, Unmade, in Itself, early industrialisation and urban growth, for Itself, or None of the through the Japanese invasion and the Second World War, to the 1949 Chinese Above? Communist Party (CCP) takeover and Maoist Era mobilisation, the advent of William Hurst reform and 1980s growth, globalisation since the mid-1990s, and adjusting to a ‘new normal’ in the aftermath of the world China’s working class has undergone several financial crisis of 2008. But what has this rounds of momentous and wrenching change all meant for interest intermediation over the past hundred years. But what has this all meant for interest intermediation or politi- or political representation for labour in cal representation for labour in China? In order China? to address these questions, we must accept In order to address these questions, and understand the fractured and segmented we must accept and understand the history of the Chinese working class, as well fractured and segmented history of the as its rapidly homogenising present. We must Chinese working class, as well as its also refrain from too-facile comparisons with rapidly homogenising present. We must European or other post-socialist or developing also refrain from too-facile comparisons countries. with European or other post-socialist or developing countries, if we are to make the most accurate possible predictions about what might emerge in terms of class compromise or incorporation, and how far and in what directions any such model might travel. From Segmentation to Homogenisation

Conventional wisdom has always held the Chinese working class to be among the most profoundly and multiply segmented in the world. Divided in the pre-1949 Zhao Jiancheng, period by cleavages of native place, skill Mining Brightness: The Real Story of Migrant Workers. MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 12 level, and urban versus rural status—as (both domestic and foreign-owned) well as region—the proletariat began life employing mainly rural migrants, and as a kind of compound organism. During smaller self-proprietorships and local the Maoist Era, the cellular boundaries firms concentrated in services and some of the work unit (danwei) system and smaller manufactures. Each of these the relatively impregnable ramparts sectors was to experience its own form of dividing city and countryside that the crisis in turn. household registration (hukou) system As early as the 1980s, but especially in provided, helped reify and intensify this the years after 1997, the state sector lost segmentation. With more than a touch of roughly half of its workforce to attrition, irony, the world’s largest workers’ state early retirements, lay-offs, and firm managed to eviscerate its working class bankruptcy. Just as SOEs were beginning as a unified political and social actor. to stabilise and new and improved social Following the advent of reform, changes welfare and assistance programmes for have been more complex. the unemployed were being rolled out in a meaningful way, the 2008 world financial crisis hit, causing Chinese exports to plunge sharply. Export processing manufacturers laid off as many as thirty million migrant workers in a little over six months, precipitating massive social and economic disruption across the countryside. Much of this sector has yet to fully recover as of late 2016. Other countries in South or Southeast Asia or in Africa are proving cheaper destinations for off-shoring from advanced industrial economies, or even from China itself. Labour-intensive manufacturing on the scale that appeared so ascendant in the

Zhao Jiancheng, late 1990s and early 2000s may never Mining Brightness: The Real Story of Migrant Workers. revive. Throughout, depressed incomes and lack of job security have precluded During the 1980s, workers began to the rising consumption necessary to stream into cities from rural China, boost services to a higher level. at first on temporary assignments, As I have outlined elsewhere, what but gradually as longer-term migrants had long been one of the world’s most and residents. At the same time, new fragmented working classes—in terms of industrial sectors sprung up, notably how it came into being, the conditions in small-scale manufacturing and of work, forms of incorporation into services, as well as newly resurgent rural the polity, etc.—has since 2008 become enterprises. By the mid-1990s, when increasingly homogenised. While SOE monetary reform opened the Chinese workers enjoyed rising fortunes from the economy in earnest to globalisation, there government’s massive injection of capital were at least three distinct and important aimed at forestalling recession, migrants’ sectors employing significant numbers prospects declined. As state sector of workers outside rural areas (where employment has become much less secure local enterprises had already begun to and benefits have continued to erode, wane): old-line state-owned enterprises basic social protections and job security (SOEs), export-oriented manufacturers for those in the private sector (including MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 13 migrants) have improved markedly. has explained, the lack of genuine Though their historical origins and representation by independent unions ‘conditions of proletarianisation’ may or other vehicles for workers’ interest remain strikingly different, the various intermediation has left China vulnerable segments of China’s working class have to an incomplete double-movement. come to share rhythms of working life, Unable to provide institutionalisation similar places on the social ladder, and genuine political incorporation to precarious economic livelihoods, and workers left socially dislocated by the political mobilisation in the face of advance of the market, the CCP and repression to a remarkable degree. On the Chinese state are forced to contend the one hand, we may see this change with workers’ ongoing mobilisation and as a decline for a once-vaunted leading increasingly radical activism. In such a element in Chinese society. But, on the context, progress up the product cycle other, we must recognise recent shifts as or toward a more consumption-based having produced a far more unified and economy appears unlikely. potentially assertive Chinese proletariat This places Chinese workers in a than has existed for at least the last potentially powerful yet uncertain several decades. position and leaves the state with unpalatable and risky response options. Quo Vadis, Chinese Workers can choose to continue with Proletariat? disunited activism in hopes of at least maintaining stasis or perhaps advancing A simplistic knee-jerk answer to some new social protections. They can this question might be, ‘to be crucified work proactively with the state and again’. But such an answer would assume Party to forge a new role for official that China’s continuing economic unions or, more likely, develop some development and social change must rely new template for institutionalisation of upon maintenance of working classes class compromise and incorporation of repression if the CCP is to achieve workers into the polity. Or they can press political stability. It also assumes that forward with bold unified mobilisation in the fragmentation and quiescence that support of independent unions or other has characterised much of the Chinese vehicles of representation. The state and working class in recent years will endure. Party, in turn, can choose to promote Recent structural shifts undermine both independent unions (which appears assumptions, and suggest that the road incompatible with basic CCP principles ahead may well be paved with greater and thus ideologically anathema), to mobilisation and potentially even seismic remain trapped in a cycle of repression changes in the forms and functions of and accommodation in response to workers’ interest representation across workers’ fragmented mobilisation (which the Chinese economy. risks the rise of a united and destabilising Indeed, it may well be that the only way labour movement, repression of which to cement the sort of changes Xi Jinping could prove unwieldy at best), or develop and the rest of the Chinese political a proactive strategy for some alternative leadership have called for—especially form of working class incorporation. a bold move into higher value-added At present, I am optimistic that industries and toward a greater reliance workers and their state interlocutors can on consumption, as opposed to exports, avoid protracted or broad-based class for boosting GDP—would be for China conflict that could result from unified finally to break out of its ‘insurgency activism or too ham-fisted generalised trap’ in labour relations. As Eli Friedman repression. I even see some reason MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 14 to hope for an innovative long-term have predicted or that might be read solution, from which a new formula of from the annals of European history. It institutionalisation and incorporation may also provide new insights that could may yet emerge. But I fear that the travel further afield, but not necessarily short term is likely to see continuing to the countries that may seem obvious confrontation on the shop floor and comparators. persistent stalemate at the macro-level. Specifically, if a genuinely new and Such an unhappy equilibrium of slow- innovative method of institutionalisation burn conflict may well take hold even or accommodation of working class more deeply than it already has, if no way mobilisation can be found that does out can be found within the next several not involve the creation of independent years. unions or mechanisms of interest intermediation, this would be innovation Implications for Other indeed. It would represent not just a true Aspects of Chinese Politics form of ‘responsive authoritarianism’, and for Workers Elsewhere but a fundamentally different kind of corporatism or class compromise than has been seen anywhere before. Like What happens in China has obvious those other modes of incorporation that and direct effects on workers the world sprang forth during the first half of the over. China is also, on its own terms, twentieth century, it may also provide an a critical case, worthy of study as exemplar for other countries well beyond representative of a number of types, in the set of large developing or post- addition to its intrinsic importance. Yet, socialist countries we might be tempted few have examined the implications of to think of. A first step in making good Chinese labour politics or potential class guesses about how such a new bargain compromise for the rest of the world or might be struck or how far beyond China it even outlined how their unique contours might travel would be nailing down much might be seen in a comparative light. more specifically the proper universe of To do this well, we must first dispense comparison for Chinese labour politics with any assumption that in China one (something well beyond the scope of this might be able to discern any reflection of essay). When we know what mirrors to Europe’s past. hold up to China, we will be much better Indeed, traditional comparative able to analyse its changing face and analysis of labour politics has tended to gauge how far and in what directions its accept axiomatically certain truisms— reflection might radiate or refract. notably that the experiences of working class formation, mobilisation, and incorporation throughout the world have been broadly similar to those of Western European countries between roughly 1848 William Hurst and 1945, even if they have diverged in William Hurst is Associate Profes- important respects. If we, however, allow sor at the Department of Political for a sort of Lobachevskian geometry of Science at Northwestern University, comparison, suppositions of similarity Chicago. He works on labour politics, in the absence of strict congruence fall contentious politics, political econ- omy, and the politics of law and legal away for the analysis of labour politics institutions, principally in China and as surely and quickly as they do for the Indonesia. study of triangles. China’s future may thus not resemble anything Polanyi could MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 15

In 2007, the Chinese authorities issued the Labour Contract Law to grant new legal protections to workers and the Labour Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law to make it easier for them to enforce their rights through litigation. In the decade that followed, Chinese workers have increasingly turned to labour arbitration and courts in the hope of resolving their grievances. But how do they fare in this process? Are they able to find legal representation? In China, as elsewhere, a significant ‘representation The Labour Contract Law, 2007 gap’ exists between workers’ legal needs and the available legal services. A new report that I authored, Who Will Chinese Workers Represent China’s Workers? Lawyers, Legal Aid, and the Enforcement of and the Legal Labour Rights, takes an in-depth look System: at the landscape of enforcing worker rights in China, with a particular focus Bridging the Gap in on trends in labour rights litigation and Representation the availability of legal representation. The report draws on over one hundred interviews, observations from litigation Aaron Halegua proceedings, and an extensive review A decade ago, the Chinese authorities of published and unpublished written adopted a set of new laws to grant materials. The executive summary lists increased legal protections to workers and seven ‘key findings’, including that the easier access to the legal system to enforce number and diversity of labour disputes their rights through litigation. Since then, is rising; mediation has become the Chinese workers have increasingly turned predominant means of resolving labour to labour arbitration and courts in the disputes; workers are often unsuccessful hope of resolving their grievances. But in litigation; and represented workers how do they fare in this process? And are achieve better outcomes in litigation. they able to find legal representation? Finding competent legal representation to assist in the litigation process remains a challenge for workers, however. Due to economic and political considerations, private lawyers and law firms are reluctant to represent workers. ‘Barefoot lawyers’ have been essentially banned and labour NGOs are significantly constrained in the current political environment. More workers are represented each year by the government-sponsored legal aid system, which pays private lawyers a set stipend to handle cases regardless of the outcome. But many workers are still turned away and those who receive a lawyer are MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 16 often dissatisfied with the quality of the a worker filing a complaint. Furthermore, representation. even when violations are detected, a fine In addition to describing the above against the employer is only imposed trends, the report takes an initial step in 3.4 percent of cases. Accordingly, towards quantifying the representation measures are needed to both encourage gap and other aspects of labour litigation. workers to come forward with violations In collaboration with the Chinese data and raise the penalties for employers who analytics company Legal Miner, over are not in compliance—which the first thirty thousand publicly available court two strategies do. The third strategy— decisions were collected and then growing a robust plaintiffs’ bar—most analysed to determine how many workers directly addresses the ‘supply’ side of have a legal representative, the identity the representation gap, but a heightened of these representatives (licensed threat of litigation against employers lawyers versus other providers), and the could also lead to increased compliance. average length of the court proceedings. A significant number of workers, roughly Anti-Retaliation forty percent, had no legal representation Measures in court. However, plaintiffs who make it all the way to court are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of workers who need Employer retaliation against workers legal assistance but are unable to obtain who complain about unfair or illegal it. working conditions is commonplace—not In light of this representation gap, the only in China, but also other countries. penultimate section of the report sets In the United States, for instance, over forth eight practical strategies to narrow forty-four percent of the nearly ninety the chasm and improve the enforcement thousand charges filed with the federal of labour rights. Some proposals seek to anti-discrimination agency in 2015 decrease the ‘demand’ for legal services contained an allegation of retaliation, by reducing labour violations in the first making it the most frequent complaint. place. Others are designed to increase the This agency even made combating ‘supply’ of quality legal representation for retaliation a ‘national priority’. As for workers. In the remainder of this article, I China, a survey of Foxconn employees discuss three of these strategies that have revealed that over forty-seven percent received less attention: (1) strengthening of workers experienced retaliation after anti-retaliation measures; (2) imposing raising a complaint. Eighty percent of criminal sanctions and establishing Guangzhou workers feared that suing personal liability for employers; and (3) their employer would result in their encouraging the growth of a plaintiffs’ termination. If workers are too afraid to bar. complain about violations, employers will The first two strategies address the not be held accountable. With nothing to ‘demand’ side of the representation gap. fear, employers will continue violating One crucial reason for the prevalence of the law. noncompliance with labour standards, The Chinese government may consider and thus the large number of aggrieved adopting anti-retaliation protections for workers, is the lack of adequate deterrents workers who protest employer violations for employers. The labour inspectorate of discrimination, workplace safety, and in China, which enforces labour laws, other labour laws. The concept of an employs just one inspector for every thirty anti-retaliation measure is not foreign thousand workers. For the most part, to China. Indeed, similar protections investigations only occur in response to already exist for trade union officers, MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 17 workers who complain to the labour 2014, Beijing did not prosecute its first inspectorate, and certain witnesses. The case until 2013 and is reported to only best model may be the fairly robust anti- undertake about forty per year. retaliation provisions to protect whistle- Labour advocates should engage local blowers that China promulgated in 2016, governments to increase both the number which includes a broad list of actions that of criminal prosecutions and their constitute retaliation. impact. Chinese officials complain that Labour advocates might propose that the most significant obstacle to achieving any amendments to the Labour Contract more prosecutions is the poor evidence Law, which is rumoured to be revised that workers bring to the government. in the near future, include an anti- Accordingly, one potential area for retaliation provision. This would provide cooperation is for the government to an opportunity not only to explicitly educate lawyers and labour NGOs about prohibit retaliation, but also establish the types of cases and evidence they seek, procedures for handling complaints and for these advocates to then identify and set meaningful penalties against cases that are ripe for prosecution—thus violators. In light of speculation that resulting in more prosecutions. Another the other amendments will be designed aspect of this type of cooperation to increase the flexibility of employers, would be for labour advocates to assist and may even broaden the grounds upon in publicising the prosecutions that which employees can be terminated, occur. If employers are aware that these it is particularly important to make prosecutions are happening, and with explicit that workers cannot be fired increasing frequency, they are more likely for challenging illegal conditions in the to be deterred from committing similar workplace. violations. An additional prong of this deterrence Criminal Prosecutions strategy is to create civil liability for and Personal Liability individual employers. At present, an individual does not have the capacity to be an ‘employer’ under Chinese labour Another strategy to deter employer law. Therefore, a judgment for unpaid noncompliance is to hold them personally wages can only be issued against the accountable for any violations, including corporate entity that employed a worker through criminal prosecutions. In and may only be enforced against the 2011, China amended its Criminal assets of the corporation. The individual Law to establish criminal penalties— employer has little to fear. Labour law including fines and imprisonment—for scholar Xie Zengyi writes that this lack the malicious non-payment of wages. of individual accountability has a lot Where an employer has been ordered to to do with the poor implementation of pay a ‘comparatively large sum’ of wages, labour law in China. Therefore, labour but instead chooses to transfer assets advocates should propose establishing or otherwise evades payment, he may such individual liability so that judgments be held criminally liable. The Chinese can be enforced against the personal government has already demonstrated assets of the individual employer. some willingness to undertake these prosecutions: 753 cases were prosecuted Plaintiffs’ Bar in 2014 and nearly one thousand and two hundred in 2015, an increase of fifty-eight percent. But while Shenzhen Given their current reluctance, the alone brought ninety-three cases in emergence of a bar of Chinese lawyers MADE IN CHINA - CHINA COLUMNS 18 committed to representing workers be awarded legal fees when they prevail would significantly help to narrow the in labour cases, but several aspects of representation gap and improve the that system limit its utility and impact. enforcement of labour rights. If the Due to restrictions on contingency fees, compensation structure were properly plaintiffs must still front the legal fees aligned, attorneys could become before a court can require the employer to entrepreneurial and zealous advocates reimburse those fees. In other countries, for workers. The report recommends fee-shifting schemes can deter employers reforms in three areas—contingency fee from dragging out litigation because the arrangements, aggregate litigation, and amount of the fees is calculated based fee-shifting provisions—that would help on the number of hours worked by the create such incentives. plaintiff’s counsel. In Shenzhen, the Contingency fee arrangements—by legal fee is tied to how much the worker which the lawyer only collects fees if actually paid his lawyer and is capped the client recovers money—are generally at five thousand yuan per procedure— banned in labour cases. Workers are hardly enough to deter most employers. therefore required to pay legal fees But if this system were modified, it upfront, which many cannot afford. has great potential to help narrow the Permitting contingency fee arrangements representation gap. would allow lawyers to represent workers with strong cases, regardless Conclusion of whether they could afford to pay. Moreover, as contingency fees are often calculated based on a percentage of the As the Chinese government considers compensation awarded to the worker, rolling back some of the labour protections they may allow attorneys to earn more previously granted to workers in the money in cases where there are sizeable Labour Contract Law, it becomes even recoveries. more important to ensure that whatever Bringing collective or class litigation is rights still exist are adequately enforced. difficult in China. But aggregating small, For a more comprehensive discussion of individual claims can be an effective way to the landscape of labour rights enforcement make litigating those cases economically in China and other proposed strategies viable for a lawyer. For instance, a China for narrowing the representation gap, Labour Watch report discovered that readers are encouraged to access the full seventy thousand workers at Pegatron report. attended a fifteen-minute meeting each day for which they were not compensated. Litigating the claim of one worker may not be worth a lawyer’s time; but if one lawsuit could be brought on behalf of all Aaron Halegua workers, who are collectively owed over Aaron Halegua is a practicing lawyer, eleven million US dollars, the case would consultant, and research fellow at the be quite attractive. Therefore, labour NYU School of Law. He has published advocates should promote the adoption a variety of book chapters, journal ar - of measures to facilitate collective and ticles, and op-eds on labour and em- class labour cases. ployment law issues in the United States and China. More information A final reform to help encourage on his work is available on his web - the growth of a plaintiffs’ bar is a site: http://www.aaronhalegua.com. properly structured fee-shifting scheme. Shenzhen already permits workers to MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 19

FOCUS Chinese Labour and Investment in Africa MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 20

1

Fighting the Race to the Bottom: Regulating Chinese Investment in Zambian Mines Mukete Beyongo Dynamic

2

There and Back Again: Conceptualising the Chinese Gold Rush in Ghana Nicholas Loubere and Gordon Crawford

3

A Chinese Empire in the Making? Questioning Myths from the Agri-Food Sector in Ghana Jixia Lu MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 21

Nkana mine in Zambia is one of the largest in Africa and has been in operation since 1932. PC: Wikipedia

Copper mining remains the dominant Fighting the Race economic activity in Zambia, a situation that has not changed since 1928 when to the Bottom: large-scale mining was introduced in Regulating Chinese the country. According to a World Bank Investment in Zambian report released in June 2015, the sector today accounts for more than sixty-five Mines percent of Zambia’s export earnings and eleven percent of its gross domestic Mukete Beyongo Dynamic product. However, while the World Bank detailed the benefits of the sector to the Following the widespread privatisation of the economy, another more critical report Zambian copper mining sector in the 1990s, released at the same time by the Office of several state-owned companies from China the Auditor General of Zambia found that began to invest in the country. While these the mining sector has seen the largest companies have created jobs, built valuable number of industrial accidents and infrastructure, and paid taxes to the govern- fatalities in post-colonial Zambia. For ment, China’s increasing presence in Zambia this reason, finding a way to mitigate risks has also given rise to a number of concerns. to worker safety while increasing copper Some Chinese mining companies have been production has become a paramount accused of maintaining lax safety standards, public concern in the country. paying low wages to local employees, and of physically abusing their workers. Critics allege The widespread privatisation of that this has triggered a ‘race to the bottom’ in the Zambian copper mining sector in labour standards. Still, such a perspective runs the 1990s led to the (re)emergence of the risk of being over simplistic, as it largely foreign mining companies in the country, overlooks the agency of local actors. including several state-owned companies from China. While these Chinese companies have created jobs, built valuable infrastructure, and paid taxes to the government, China’s increasing presence in Zambia has also given rise to a number of concerns. Some Chinese mining companies have been accused of MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 22 maintaining lax safety standards, paying factory jointly owned by the Beijing low wages to local employees—especially General Institute for Research and if compared to other foreign mining Metallurgy (BGRIMM) and the Non- companies—and of physically abusing Ferrous China-Africa (NFCA) Mining their workers. For these reasons, critics Company—both state-owned companies— have accused the Zambian government of in Chambishi in Zambia’s Copperbelt weakening its safety standards to attract Province. One year after the accident at foreign investors, of failing to monitor the BGRIMM plant, five Zambians were compliance with safety and labour laws, shot and injured by gunshots fired by and of underfunding local regulators. their Chinese manager while they were These critics allege that this has protesting against low wages and lax triggered a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour safety standards at the NFCA Chambishi standards. By ‘race to the bottom’, they mine. In light of this, it is not surprising refer to a tendency where the government that Chinese safety and labour relations reduces the monitoring and enforcement in Zambian copper mines were at the capacity of public regulatory institutions, centre of Zambia’s 2006 presidential or enacts lax safety laws, in order to election. Indeed, in a keynote speech attract foreign investors. They not only former Zambian president Michael Sata argue that the Zambian government stated that ‘[Chinese] labour relations are weakens safety standards through very bad. They are not adding any value funding cuts, but they also claim that to what they claim is investment; instead current regulatory standards are obsolete of creating jobs for the local workforce, and that the government intervenes in the they bring in Chinese workers to cut decision-making process of regulators to wood and carry water.’ protect Chinese companies from paying Such high-level political attention penalties when they fail to comply with fuelled the discontent. In August 2008, local regulations. Still, such a perspective more than five hundred Zambian workers runs the risk of being over simplistic, as attacked a newly built Chinese-owned it largely overlooks the agency of local Chambishi Copper Smelter and burnt actors. down the kitchen of a Chinese-resident. One Chinese and three Zambians working in the kitchen were seriously injured. The protesters claimed that they had been told that the management was going on vacation and abandoning collective negotiations in which workers had demanded changes in safety standards and a reduction in work hours. In another accident that attracted a lot of media attention in 2010, a Chinese supervisor A woman in despair at the funeral of fifty-one at the Collum Coal mine in Southern workers who were killed at a Chinese-owned Province shot thirteen Zambians. The copper mine in Zambia in 2005. PC: Salim Henry workers at the mine were complaining against the state of safety standards in The Roots of the the mines and their low wages. These accidents and protests have raised serious Discontent debate about labour and safety standards in Chinese mines in Zambia and about In April 2005, fifty-two Zambians were the local government’s ability to enforce killed in an accident in an explosives their own regulations in these contexts. MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 23

The Importance of thesis suggests that the Zambian government is passive with regard to Local Actors safety abuses in the country, or negligent of labour conflicts within Chinese mines because the authorities prioritise The claim that Chinese companies are economic growth and investment creating a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour over safety. This is far from the truth. standards, while having certain merits, For instance, during a parliamentary ultimately simplifies the processes at debate on 11 July 2007, in response to play in the formulation of safety and the 2005 BGRIMM accident, former labour regulations in Zambia. It is based deputy minister of Mines and Minerals on a state/business-centred approach Development, Maxwell Mwale, told the that ignores the role of non-state actors, Zambian parliament that the government such as trade unions, mine workers, local had increased the number of inspection NGOs, and international organisations. vehicles, logistics, and staff at the Mines The 2006 protest at the NFCA mine Safety Department (MSD). According to mentioned above is a good case in point. official data, inspections conducted by In June 2006, NFCA mine workers went officials at the MSD increased from 260 on strike in protest against the company’s in 2004 to 1,269 in 2014. Furthermore, refusal to implement a labour agreement a report published in 2009 by the it had agreed to with National Union International Labour Organisation also of Mine and Allied Workers of Zambia highlighted labour and safety reforms (NUMAW) to improve safety at its undertaken in Zambia since the incident. Chambishi mine. When five miners were For instance, in 2006, the government shot in the protest, the popular reaction introduced an integrated labour to the onslaught led to significant safety inspection form to streamline inspections and labour relations reform at the mine. and verification of compliance; forty- In response, the NFCA launched the five new inspectors were hired; and the ‘Safe Production Management System’ administrative powers of inspectors were in which Safety and Environmental increased. Protection were restructured into a In addition, in 2008, 2012, and 2015, separate department. Moreover, in the government revised the national 2007, the NFCA introduced a company Employment Act. A Minimum Wage Bill ‘Safety Month’ in commemoration of was introduced in 2012, fines for non- the incident, an event that is still being compliance with safety standards were held every June. Nine years after the increased, and labour inspectors were incident, in a company memo sent to all provided with more powers to enforce workers at the start of the 2015 Safety labour and safety laws. In November Month, the management suggested that 2007, the government established a commemorating the month of June Labour Task Force through the Ministry on a yearly basis demonstrates the of Labour and Social Security ‘to enforce company’s commitment to ensuring that and ensure adherence to national labour its operations are conducted in a safe and laws’. The number of members on the risk-free environment. In an interview task force jumped from forty-five in 2007 that I conducted in Chambishi Township to ninety-one in 2009. Moreover, a new in October 2015, a union leader at the Mines and Mineral Development Act was NFCA mine told me that the 2006 protest passed in 2015, providing officials at the positively changed safety and labour Mines Safety Department with stronger relations at the mine. powers to enforce and ensure that mining Furthermore, the ‘race to the bottom’ companies maintain a safe and healthy MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 24 working environment. According to To conclude, the activities of Chinese official data, industrial accidents and mining companies have indeed threatened fatalities in mining companies have a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour and safety declined since 2006: the number of standards in Zambia. But local actors accidents recorded by the Mines Safety such as trade unions have organised Department fell from 350 in 2005 to 123 in protests, and pushed the issue into the 2014, while the number of fatal accidents public agenda. In response to these fell from eighty in 2005 to twelve in 2014. protests, some Chinese mining companies have altered their safety policies and Challenges Ahead normalised their relations with unions. Furthermore, under mounting public pressure, the Zambian government has Ching Kwan Lee has claimed that introduced labour laws and established ‘Chinese investors [operating in Zambia] structures to strengthen its safety have had to climb a steep learning curve regulatory standards in the last decade. in dealing with types of politics not Nevertheless, notwithstanding the found in their own country’. The trend of demonstrable success of these measures injuries and fatalities in Chinese mines in reducing industrial accidents, the in Zambia recorded by the Mines Safety industrial relations system in Zambia still Department supports this claim. However, suffers from inadequate funding, limited as a 2011 study by Human Rights Watch human resources and capacity, and in (HRW) has highlighted, Chinese mining some instances a lack of coordination companies in Zambia still have further among the relevant regulatory agencies. reforms to make in order to strengthen their efforts to mitigate accidents. These include improving the safety conditions of workers hired by subcontractors, reducing the number of casual employees, and cutting the number of working hours. A letter sent to HRW by officials from the China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining Company in 2011, and quoted in the same report, suggest that these reforms are gradually being introduced. Conversations between the author and mine workers at the NFCA mine indicates that as of October 2015, although safety and labour disputes between the NFCA and local unions have been normalised, Mukete Beyongo some workers in Chinese companies Mukete Beyongo is PhD candidate contracted by the NFCA still work at the Australian Centre on China under unsafe conditions—most often in the World, Australian National without appropriate safety equipment. University. His research focuses However, as one worker said, compared on local response to growing Chi- to 2006, before the BGRIMM accident nese outbound direct investment in Zambia. He completed his under - and the NFCA Chambishi protest, there graduate and postgraduate studies have been significant improvements in at the University of Yaounde II-Soa, the enforcement of safety and labour Cameroon, and the Cherkassy State regulations at the NFCA mine and the Technological University, Ukraine. Chambishi Copper Smelter. MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 25

Small-scale miner in Ghana, by Francis Carmine

On 15 May 2013, Ghanaian President There and Back John Dramani Mahama announced the Again: establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Task Force aimed at bringing ‘sanity’ to Conceptualising the the country’s rapidly (and chaotically) Chinese Gold Rush in expanding small-scale mining sector. Over the course of the next month, the Ghana army and police proceeded to ‘flush out’ and deport nearly 5,000 foreign nationals Nicholas Loubere who were illegally engaging in small- Gordon Crawford scale mining—the vast majority of whom were Chinese, primarily originating from Shanglin County in the country’s Guangxi In mid-2013, the Ghanaian government ini- Zhuang Autonomous Region. While there tiated a crackdown on the estimated 50,000 are still some reports of illegal miners Chinese nationals engaging in small-scale gold mining in the country. In both the media and setting up new operations ‘deep in the popular discourse the Chinese miners were de- bush’, most of the estimated 50,000 picted as feeding into corruption, destroying the Chinese that flooded into Ghana, mainly environment and stealing resources from mar - between 2008 and 2013, have either been ginal sectors of Ghanaian society. However, we deported or have left of their own accord. still do not know much about who these miners This brief but intense episode has were, the factors that compelled them to travel much to tell us about the perceptions to such a distant land in the hopes of ‘striking and outcomes of large-scale global it rich’, or how the spoils of this gold rush were migrations, and the ways in which scarce distributed back in China. and valuable resources are allocated in the Global South. At the same time, it provides a way of understanding what the increasingly large presence of China on the African continent means for labour and livelihoods in both places. MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 26

The sudden influx of these small-scale The Gold Rush miners to Ghana also draws parallels with Chinese involvement in other gold rushes throughout history. Most notably, the Ghana is the second largest gold mass exoduses to the United States and producer in Africa, and artisanal gold Australia in the nineteenth and twentieth mining has been a traditional indigenous centuries—both of which resulted in activity in the country for centuries. violent confrontations, strict immigration Particularly over the past few decades, policies, and the demonisation of the small-scale mining has become an Chinese as ‘invaders’ by local labour increasingly important way for poor movements. Indeed, in contemporary and marginal segments of Ghanaian Ghana, as in previous gold rushes, the society to improve their livelihoods by Chinese migrant miners have been supplementing low returns from farming. implicitly depicted as a homogeneous In recognition of the importance of this mass that is working in unison, collectively activity for poor rural people, in 2006, benefiting from the extraction of the government specifically restricted Ghanaian gold at the expense of poorer the sector to Ghanaian citizens, making it segments of the local population, and illegal for foreign nationals to engage in having a uniform (primarily negative) any small-scale mining activities. impact on the environment, economy, However, this attempt to reserve and lives of local people. This essay will small-scale mining for Ghanaians was begin by examining the sudden arrival unsuccessful. From 2005, large numbers and equally sudden departure of small- of Chinese miners began to arrive to scale Chinese miners in Ghana. It will Ghana, mostly from Shanglin County. then go on to raise important questions Shanglin, whose population is primarily for future research related to China- ethnically Zhuang (a minority group), Africa migration dynamics, the labour has a long historical tradition of gold relations and inequality existing amongst mining. Throughout the 1990s, Shanglin the Chinese, and the allocation of the residents migrated domestically within extracted resources back in China. China to engage in small-scale mining

Small-scale miners in Ghana, by Francis Carmine MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 27 around the country. When the Chinese many cases this perception was entirely government tightened regulations on justified, with Chinese miners bribing this type of activity, the Shanglin miners officials to ‘turn a blind eye’ or paying- looked outward. In the late 2000s, stories off local chiefs in order to illegally gain of people ‘striking it rich’ in Ghana, access to land for mining. For instance, combined with the increase in gold prices Ghana Immigration Service officials in 2008, resulted in a mass influx of allegedly enabled entry into the country Chinese miners establishing over 2,000 and then provided (false) work permits mining operations. to Chinese miners for a fee. Ghanaian Most of the ‘Shanglin gang’ took up small-scale miners also reported that, mining in the rural areas surrounding if challenged, Chinese miners would Kumasi, Obuasi, and Takoradi, ‘threaten to call the minister or police compensating the owners of the land with commander,’ suggesting close links to usage fees, and often paying percentages high levels of government facilitated by to local government officials or tribal bribes. chiefs. In general, mining activities were The Chinese mechanisation of the financed by individual Chinese investors small-scale mining industry also had or small groups of partners, who huge environmental impacts through borrowed and pooled larger sums from the pollution of bodies of water and the financial institutions in China in order clearing of large areas of agricultural land. to purchase excavators and large pumps The introduction of new technologies for dredging. The miners then employed and mining teams—replacing traditional workers from China who were promised techniques—meant that the Chinese set monthly wages, and local Ghanaians miners were able to extract much larger who were paid daily at a substantially quantities of gold than their Ghanaian lower rate than the Chinese workers. The counterparts. The increasingly visible Chinese involvement in the sector has wealth of the Chinese miners, particularly resulted in a huge jump in the production of the main investors, unsurprisingly of gold from small-scale mines in Ghana. resulted in a narrative of resource theft. And at the height of the gold rush it was The Chinese were depicted as stealing a estimated that billions of yuan were being vital livelihood resource from marginal sent from Ghana to China—far more than Ghanaians, while also extracting the the Ghanaian governmental revenue. country’s wealth and sending it back to China through illegal channels. In a 2014 Collusion and Pushback interview conducted in Upper Denkyira East Municipality, a licensed Ghanaian concession holder who had worked with The sudden influx of Chinese miners, Chinese miners expressed the view that and the expansion of their small-scale ‘gold was sent direct to China’ with ‘so mining operations, was facilitated many ways’ of doing so. He recounted through cooperation (or collusion) with one method where containers that Ghanaians, many of whom benefitted brought machinery into the country were individually from their relationships then used to smuggle gold back to China with the Chinese. This situation led to the by cutting out part of the container, filling widespread perception—particularly in the inside with gold, and then re-welding the media—that the mining phenomenon it. was feeding into corruption, and that While most interactions between the these corrupt activities were the reason Chinese and Ghanaians were collaborative the government had largely ignored (or in nature, the negative perception of the even protected) the illegal miners. In Chinese miners was also exacerbated by MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 28 the widespread reporting of some violent representations of mass migrations in conflicts that coincided with their general and Chinese mining migration arrival. As the operations successfully in particular, both historically and in began extracting gold, they also became contemporary discourse. Most notably— targets for local bandits and armed and notoriously—both the ‘Chinese robbery. This prompted the Chinese Exclusion Act’ in the United States and the miners to arm themselves—often with ‘White Australia Policy’ were the direct guns purchased illegally from the local result of antagonism towards the sudden police—and engage in firefights with arrival of large numbers of Chinese would-be thieves; resulting in the deaths miners, and their perceived ability to of both Chinese and Ghanaians. Finally, extract more gold than ‘local’ miners in mid-2013, the combination of these through collective effort. Moreover, it is issues presented too large of a political well known that after the end of the gold challenge to the Ghanaian government, rushes in the United States and Australia, and President Mahama established the the remaining Chinese were demonised Task Force, stating: ‘The government by local labour movements and accused will not allow their [the illegal miners] of undercutting wages. Similarly, the activities to cause conflict, dislocation, short-lived Chinese gold rush in Ghana environmental degradation and has seen ‘the Chinese’ as a whole unemployment when in fact the sector being blamed for causing widespread should rather benefit our communities environmental degradation, feeding into and our country.’ With that, the Chinese corruption, increasing violence, stealing gold rush in Ghana was largely brought to the livelihoods of poor Ghanaians, and an inglorious end. capturing the country’s resources. While these problematic issues arising Conceptualising the from the sudden influx of Chinese Chinese Migrant Miner miners and the rapid expansion of mining activities should certainly not be underestimated, the current depiction of So what does this tell us about the the Chinese in Ghana as a singular group perception of Chinese migrant miners tends to obscure as much as enlighten. In in Ghana, and the role of Chinese particular, these representations fail to migration to the African continent more explore the migratory and class dynamics generally? While the story has been that gave rise to the exodus in the first reported on extensively—primarily place. They also turn a blind eye to the from Ghana—the picture that has been ways in which different types of Chinese presented fails to shed light on a number miners benefitted or lost out, and ignore of important aspects of this episode of the developmental impacts back in China. mass migration, resource extraction, and Little is known about the Chinese miners wealth production (for some). In general, themselves, other than the fact that they depictions of the Chinese miners in Ghana mainly come from a single poor county have been essentialised representations. in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous The miners themselves are largely Region. Even less is known about the described as a homogenous group labour relations that operated within composed of individuals with the same the small mining groups, or the social ambitions and having the same potential processes within China that gave rise to to ‘strike it rich’. This perception of the the wider migration phenomenon. While Chinese as a uniform mass, rather than the mining groups are often described differentiated individuals and subgroups, as collaborative efforts of ‘partners’ follows classic tropes and popular investing together; hierarchical MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 29 structures have also been observed, with the people involved in both places— individuals or small groups hiring wage the Chinese as a whole are depicted as labourers from China. This points to the uniformly (negatively) impacting on the likelihood that the individual Chinese environment, Ghanaian politics, and the miners in Ghana have benefited in livelihoods of the poorest. In this way, the significantly different ways—with some Chinese miners are ascribed with causal potentially even being exploited. After all, abilities—they are seen as the origin research on small-scale mining within of the negative outcomes rather than a China has shown that the contribution symptom of wider systemic issues. This to the livelihoods of miners is highly shifts attention away from the labour differentiated, with wealthier investors relations and unequal power that exist profiting at a much higher rate than within the Chinese ‘mass’, resulting in the more marginalised individuals. Research production of winners and losers among has also documented the ways in which the miners themselves. It also obscures poor Chinese migrant workers are often the processes implicit within global exploited through the withholding (and capitalism that prompt large numbers sometimes non-payment) of wages by of precarious and marginal people to ‘labour subcontractors’ (baogongtou) move from one place to another—and operating in townships and villages. sometimes back again—in search of secure livelihoods amid increasingly low Disentangling the returns. Chinese Miner

Ultimately, this points to the need for research following up on the Shanglin miners who were chased out of Ghana three years ago. Future research should look to examine who these people are, how they went to Ghana in the first place, how the spoils of this gold rush have been distributed amongst the Chinese participants in this story, and what the remittances meant for socioeconomic development in marginal Shanglin County and its ethnically Zhuang population. By lumping the Chinese together, ignoring the different experiences of Nicholas Loubere the miners, and disregarding the fact that these Chinese are themselves a Nicholas Loubere is a Postdoctoral minority group in their own country, Fellow at the Australian Centre on China in the World, Australian Na- we get a distorted view of this historical tional University. episode that does not properly reflect the developmental processes and relations Gordon Crawford at play. Rather than seeing the complex Gordon Crawford is Researcher webs of relationships connecting Professor of Global Development peripheral rural China with the margins in the Centre for Trust, Peace and of Ghana—and thus producing patterns Social Relations, Coventry Univer - of resource extraction, accumulation, and sity. inequality between, within and across MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 30

A Chinese Empire in the Making? Questioning Myths from the Agri-Food Sector in Ghana

Jixia Lu

While China’s expanding presence in Africa Western media and research often is often framed as a new project in empire frame China’s expanding presence in building, the Chinese authorities explain their African countries as a new project in engagement on the continent as simple ‘South- empire building on the continent. The South cooperation’. Taking the agricultural Chinese government, on the contrary, sector in Ghana as a case study, this article espouses a very different narrative— challenges both narratives and argues that one which depicts Chinese companies Chinese farmers in Africa are not a ‘silent and migrants as promoting development army’ (either malevolent or benevolent), but instead are largely precarious individuals through beneficial South-South attempting to meet their livelihood needs. cooperation resulting in mechanisation and advanced techniques. In this way, in both academic research and popular discourse, discussions about China’s developmental role in contemporary Africa often end up implicitly categorising all the activities of Chinese businesses and individual migrants in African countries as being either malevolent or benevolent extensions of China’s expanding global influence.

‘Mary tills her field’ by Felix Clay, Ghana, 2013 MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 31

This is particularly apparent in the been groups of Chinese people dwelling agricultural sector. At present, most in Ghana—many of whom had originally media attention and research on Chinese come over as aid experts—the last few agricultural engagements in Africa focus years have seen a dramatic increase in on aid or commercial investments by the number of Chinese immigrants in large state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the country. This is primarily due to the neglecting the fact that on the African small-scale mining phenomenon and the continent there is also a growing number fact that Chinese companies have entered of small-scale farms run by individual a growing number of sectors, including Chinese migrants and their families. mining, construction, and manufacturing, Indeed, while doing fieldwork in Ghana, just to name a few. In addition, Chinese I only encountered one case of large- migrants maintain a significance presence scale Chinese agricultural investment in retail trade, fishing, small-scale mining, that involved modern mechanised and timber sectors, much of it outside the technologies aiming to produce rice law and without proper registration. It is, for the local Ghanaian market. I did, therefore, not surprising that data on the however, encounter a collection of small- number of Chinese migrants in Ghana are scale Chinese farms that are filling a very limited and unreliable, with estimates different niche. They are characterised varying between 7,000 and 20,000. Still, by strong personal networks and family even these figures may be conservative if relations, and target an expatriate we consider that in August 2013 the South population trying to make ends meet. China Morning Post quoted the secretary Such endeavours do not fit neatly into general of the Chinese Mining Association the narratives espoused neither by the in Ghana as saying that more than 50,000 Chinese government nor Western media Chinese gold miners had poured into and research. the country since 2005. Another article In this article, I will take Ghana as a case from The Guardian published roughly at study to explore how Chinese migrants the same time reported that 4,592 illegal operate in the agri-food sector in Africa. Chinese gold miners had been deported In particular, I will argue that Chinese from June to July 2013 alone. farmers in Africa are not a ‘silent army’ While Chinese miners in Ghana have (either malevolent or benevolent), but often featured in the international media, are instead largely precarious individuals China and Ghana have a longer history of attempting to meet their livelihood engagement in agriculture than in mining. needs. Moreover, these migrants are a Cooperation in agriculture between symptom of, and a response to, wider China and Ghana goes back to the 1960s, global migration dynamics. In particular, and has continued to grow and develop many of these small-scale farmers over subsequent decades. Today, China and have gone into Ghanaian agriculture in Ghana officially cooperate in a number order to provide for the huge influx of of sectors, including agro-processing, Chinese migrant miners (see Loubere irrigation, infrastructure development, and Crawford in this issue). In this and agricultural technology. Chinese way, Chinese farmers in Ghana can be agronomists even teach at the University considered reflective of wider processes of Ghana. Yet, just as the information of contemporary globalisation. on Chinese migration is patchy and unreliable, data on Chinese investment Chinese Migration to Ghana in the agricultural sector are incomplete and often inaccurate. According to some estimates, Chinese investments Although since the Mao era there have in agriculture constitute about four MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 32 percent of total Chinese investments in agriculture. Before setting up his farm, the country, with the largest being in the owner of one of the farms had been rice irrigation projects. In other words, trading agricultural products between compared with other industries, farming China and Ghana. Another of the farm seems to be a relatively neglected sector owners had been working in Ghana as an for the Chinese in Ghana. engineer in a Chinese company. Only the It is clear from our fieldwork that owner of the third farm came to Ghana in Ghana there are only a few formally specifically to set up a farm. However, registered farms. According to a list his migration history was far more provided by the Ghana Investment complex than those of the other people Promotion Centre, only twelve Chinese we met. For the past two decades he had farms officially registered with the been living and farming on the Northern government between 1994 and 2013. Mariana Islands, a US Commonwealth Moreover, after attempting to get in touch territory in the middle of the Pacific with these farms, we found that only two Ocean where he had moved during the of them were actually contactable. Both Cultural Revolution. were registered as producing vegetables Despite their very varied backgrounds, and one was said to rear pigs. However, though, all of them have learned while we were visiting the official farms about farming, livestock, agricultural we had contacted, we by chance met some management, and marketing in a other unlisted farms owned by Chinese remarkably challenging social, linguistic, individuals, as well as some unregistered and physical environment. Furthermore, farms owned by large Chinese SOEs they also have shown a willingness to with their own small vegetable and pig convert to a new line of business if it farms geared towards meeting their proves to be more economically viable. own consumption purposes, i.e. for Moreover, their motivations to start their their employees. To shed some light on farms were somewhat similar: all of them why Chinese people migrate to Ghana said they aimed to meet their own needs to undertake small-scale agriculture I for vegetable consumption in the first will discuss three of these small-scale instance. As a Chinese employee on one individually-owned farms, two of them of the farms put it: ‘The boss of our farm registered and one not. The three farms is about sixty years old. He was running were between two and twenty hectares a trade business in agricultural products and, on average, they employed three between China and Ghana four years Chinese nationals as managers and ago. Later on, when he found it difficult technicians and five to ten local people as to find Chinese vegetables in the local manual workers. market, though, he started his first farm.’ In this way, the farm was established as Profiling Chinese Farmers a response to a particular market need, in Ghana which itself arose due to the wider processes of global migration. The Chinese farmers we interviewed According to our findings, many stated that in order to successfully run a Chinese small-scale farmers in Ghana small farm in Ghana, they had to consider come from non-agricultural backgrounds. the following elements: land, water In the cases examined in this article, all resources, access to markets, and labour. three farm owners were from different Among these aspects, land was the most provinces in southern China (Hunan, significant and challenging element to Guangdong, and Zhejiang), but only consider. Generally speaking, the Chinese one of them migrated specifically for farmers had great difficulties securing the MADE IN CHINA - FOCUS AFRICA 33 land of the size and quality they wanted locally. While there are a handful of larger within the existing legal framework. SOE farms, they are primarily operating Part of the problem is that throughout for the consumption needs of the Ghana there is a lack of clarity about land personnel employed by the company. More ownership, particularly between local widespread are small individually-owned chiefs and local governments. This is a farms; however, the majority of these major hindrance for those foreigners who farmers are working hard to meet their want to invest in agricultural activities in own livelihood needs in an increasingly Africa, because it is not always clear who unpredictable and volatile market. This owns the land rights. This meant that the does not fit neatly into the western media Chinese farmers were often unable to discourses focussed on land grabbing and operate in a technically ‘legal’ way, not neo-imperialism, nor into the narrative necessarily because they are maliciously of the Chinese government centred on land-grabbing or exploiting local people, the idea of mutually beneficial South- but rather because legality in this context South cooperation. is tenuous for everyone involved. For this From this perspective, Chinese reason, many Chinese migrants give up agricultural workers in Africa are not an farming after one or two years. organised ‘silent army’ of labourers, but That being said, although in the are actually diverse and fragmented. They beginning the farms we examined are relatively marginal people moving encountered a lot of difficulties, those from one place to another in an attempt who stayed and persisted in earlier years to improve their livelihoods. Living were able to survive due to a sizeable independently with no support or even Chinese community that provided a contact with the Chinese government, ready market, particularly the rapid they struggle to ensure their survival in the influx of illegal miners after the increase local markets, facing the competition of in gold prices in 2008 (see Loubere and local producers and sellers, and surviving Crawford in this issue). However, due in unstable and unclear legal situations. to the expulsion of a large number of Quite clearly, there is no real prospect for Chinese gold miners in June 2013, the these farms to become large-scale, highly farms lost a significant portion of their mechanised or capital intensive, which is market. The remaining Chinese farmers actually what most African governments confirmed that they have been selling less yearn for in order to increase agricultural than before and are, therefore, struggling. production. In other words, China’s Besides the difficulties mentioned above, presence in the agricultural sector in since their products are sold locally, Africa mostly remains in the realm of they still need to compete in the local individual entrepreneurship, a far cry market, both among themselves and with from the ambition of empire. Ghanaian farmers. This greatly tests the farmers’ business acumen, patience, and resilience. Jixia Lu Dispelling the Jixia Lu is an Associate Professor at the College of Humanities Misconceptions and Development Studies, China Agricultural University. Her The examples provided above suggest research fields include Chinese that Chinese ‘land grabs’ and agricultural and international development, environment, health and ‘cooperation’ in Ghana in fact mostly development, development consists of informal small plots of a few intervention and social change. hectares producing vegetables to sell MADE IN CHINA - A WINDOW ON ASIA 34

A WINDOW ON ASIA India MADE IN CHINA - A WINDOW ON ASIA 35

Indian workers on strike, september 2016, PC: Karo4Greatness

Bharat Bandh: Millions Challenge Modi’s Labour Agenda

Tom Barnes

On 2 September 2016, possibly the largest A massive, nationwide strike— strike in India’s history—involving up to 150 popularised as Bharat Bandh (literally million workers—caused major disruption to ‘India closed’ in Hindi/Sanskrit)—caused the country’s economy. This is just the latest in major disruption to India’s economy on a series of strikes launched by the Indian trade 2 September 2016. Some unions have unions in their fight against labour law reforms claimed this was the largest general promoted by the right-wing government of strike in history, with up to one hundred Narendra Modi. A significant feature of these recent struggles has been the involvement of and fifty million workers involved and thousands of temporary and female workers. costs to business of around 2.7 billion US dollars. While these figures are probably impossible to verify, the strike was highly significant with virtually all public sector units, banks—including at least half a million bank workers— and electricity power stations closed, as well as insurance companies and, in many regions, trains, bus services, and schools. Additionally, tens of thousands of coal miners joined the strike, along with university and college teachers. Many large private sector firms were also closed down or substantially affected. MADE IN CHINA - A WINDOW ON ASIA 36

The strike reflects a clash between ten of India’s largest trade union federations and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A right-wing populist and a member of the fascist-like Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Modi was elected in a landslide victory two years ago with promises to facilitate development and higher living standards among India’s majority-rural population. Part of Modi’s agenda has been to reform India’s system of labour laws while promoting his ‘Make in India’ initiative, which aims to transform India into the global destination of choice for manufacturing India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, investment. member of the right-wing Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh, elected in 2014. Indian Labour in Context redundancy schemes’ to avoid this Understanding the longer-term requirement. The Contract Labour Act context is helpful here. While previous of 1970 limits the use of temporary or governments liberalised trade, labour-hire work in medium-to-large investment rules, and finance, there firms. But field research in various parts of have been very few changes to labour India has found that this law is routinely laws. The core of India’s employment ignored, often via corruption between relations system relies on laws enacted industrialists and state officials. And shortly after independence in 1947. These India has a plethora of minimum wage laws have proved controversial today laws for workers in different sectors—but among policy-makers, industrialists few of these are applied in practice and and intellectuals. In the narrative of many workers are unaware they exist. the political right, supported by many Nevertheless, the BJP has ploughed powerful industrialists, these laws are ahead with labour law reforms supposedly anachronistic and reduce ‘formal sector’ designed to create more formal jobs employment in industry, forcing millions in industry and attract more foreign of workers and businesses to operate investment. Since its election, the Modi informally—i.e., outside the formal government has sought to consolidate system of state regulations—due to the changes pioneered by several BJP-led burdensome regulations they supposedly state governments by introducing two impose on businesses. ‘Labour Codes’ that, they argue, simplify However, in practice most of these existing national laws. The most recent laws are not implemented or they are of these bills, introduced in April 2015, relatively easy for employers to avoid. seeks to unify three key laws into one. For example, the Industrial Disputes The new law would lift the threshold Act of 1947 formally requires businesses for large firms seeking state permission with one hundred or more workers to for layoffs from one hundred to three seek state government permission to hundred employees. The revised law also close operations or sack workers. Yet imposes a penalty of twenty thousand many businesses have used ‘voluntary to fifty thousand rupees (approximately MADE IN CHINA - A WINDOW ON ASIA 37

300-750 US dollars) and possible although the true figure is much larger— imprisonment for individual workers and also the successful growth of many who participate in a strike for which CTUOs in recent years. CTUOs claimed two weeks advance notice has not been their total affiliated membership had given—a decree previously only reserved grown to nearly ninety million in 2013, for public sector workers. Trade unions representing an increase of over three- are also angry at the bill’s proposal that and-a-half times since the last official union office-bearers must be employed in count in 2002. Much of this success has the same industry as union members, as come from organising informal workers it contradicts the longstanding practice who make up over ninety percent of all of workers seeking leadership from Indian workers. ‘outsider’ union federations. This most recent general strike comes on the back of important conflicts in The Wrath of the Unions different industries. In March, over seventy thousand mathadi workers (head loaders), especially those employed in For the past two years, these changes railways, transport and government have caught the ire of India’s unions, warehouses, went on strike in Navi (New) which are dominated by several enormous Mumbai in response to labour law changes federations—known as Central Trade by the BJP and its right-wing allies in the Union Organisations (CTUOs). Most, state government of Maharashtra. In the though not all, CTUOs are affiliated with auto industry, a strike by three thousand competing political parties, including the Honda workers in Tapukara, one ruling BJP, the Indian National Congress hundred kilometers southwest of New (INC), the different Communist Parties, Delhi was heavily repressed by the state and other parties based on versions of BJP government, with over one thousand nationalism, regional identity, or caste workers arrested, 136 workers fired, and politics. The recent Bharat Bandh is the dozens jailed. Five of these workers have result of coordinated action by ten CTUOs been on a hunger strike in New Delhi who have been promoting a twelve- for the past two weeks. This comes after point charter of demands on the Modi the most serious conflict in the auto government. These demands include industry to date, at Maruti Suzuki in the calls to expand subsidised food schemes, nearby town of Manesar, which resulted enforce existing labour laws including in thousands of sackings, the tragic death minimum wages, implement universal of an HR manager, and 147 workers jailed, social security, an end to privatisation of of which about a dozen were still in jail public sector units, and a ban on foreign without conviction at the time of writing— investment in railways and defence. The over four years since the dispute ended. same CTUOs organised a national strike one year ago, which attracted a similar Temporary Workers and number of participants. In February Women on the Move 2013, tens of millions also joined a national strike. However, the BJP- affiliated union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor A significant feature of these strikes Sangh (BMS) pulled out of the strike after was the involvement of thousands of negotiations with the government. The temporary workers, very few of whom huge numbers involved in these successive have representation or support from trade protests demonstrates both the sheer size unions. Another important strike took of the Indian working class—the official place recently in Bengaluru (Bangalore) labour force count is around 500 million, where up to four hundred thousand MADE IN CHINA - A WINDOW ON ASIA 38 workers emptied the city’s garments remain with regard to what happens factories and flooded the streets in in between these set-piece events, response to government changes to state as continued labour mobilisation is pensions (the so-called Provident Fund). required in a society where the labour Key features of this strike included its laws and social protections that have primarily ‘wildcat’ character—local provoked such ferocious debate among CTUOs were taken by surprise, despite industrialists, union federations, and the having organised their own, much political classes are so rarely applied. smaller response to the changes—and The Modi Government has signalled that the strikers were overwhelmingly its intentions to plough ahead with its women. This massive protest succeeded controversial labour reform agenda, so in deferring the Modi government’s points of contention leading to further plans. future conflict are likely to emerge. Given that women tend to work outside the male-dominated structures of most trade unions, another highly significant development occurred in the tea plantations of Munnar in Kerala in September 2015, when female plantation workers established a new women migrant-led union— Pembila Urumai (‘Unity of Women’ in Tamil)—to break with male-dominated unions that had virtually ignored their interests. Although Pembila Urumai was recently linked to the Aam Aaadmi Party (‘Common Man’)—a Delhi-centred political party based on the urbanised middle classes, which grew out of the 2011 anti-corruption movement— its real significance is the leading role it reserves for women. Women’s work dominates India’s informal economy where it is often not even recognised as ‘real’ work. Other organisations—above all the Gujarat-based Self-Employment Tom Barnes Women’s Association (SEWA), which participated in the 2 September general Tom is an economic sociologist strike—have also organised female at the Institute for Religion, workers in the past, including in sectors Politics, and Society at Australian dominated by low-caste and tribal women Catholic University in Melbourne. such as brick kilns, construction sites, His research primarily focuses rag-picking, household labour, garment on insecure, precarious, and work or agricultural labour. informal work in Australia and Asia (especially India and Indonesia). He has written a book, Informal New Challenges Labour in Urban India: Three Cities, Three Journeys (Routledge, 2015) and is completing a second book No doubt, many of these informal on the Indian automotive industry workers participated in the 2 September with Cambridge University Press. general strike. However, challenges MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 39

WORK OF ARTS

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying. Rainer Maria Rilke MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 40

Paradise under Construction

Christian Sorace

A shot from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth

From the earliest times, human civilization has been no more than a strange luminescence growing more intense by the hour, of which no one can say when it will begin to wane and when it will fade away. W.G. Sebald

Zhao Liang’s recent film Behemoth Zhao Liang’s aesthetic style is one of (beixi moshou) is a cinematic meditation unflinching exposure, however, which on the Anthropocene—the current geolog- shares little in common with the theat - ical epoch marking ‘a new phase in the ricality of state power and mystification history of the Earth, when natural forces of sovereign violence. The gorgeous cin- and human forces become intertwined, so ematography of Behemoth creates a new that the fate of one determines the fate perceptual field of planetary destruction of the other.’ Composed from documen- in a way that is unavailable to the prose tary footage of natural and human life in of scientific description and political ar - their devastated forms, Behemoth offers gument. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke a dystopian view of our present reality famously wrote in his Duino Elegies, ‘For based on a script written by Zhao Liang beauty is nothing but the beginning of ter - that is loosely adapted from Dante’s Di- ror, which we are still just able to endure, vine Comedy. In an interview I conducted and we are so awed because it serenely with the director via the popular Chinese disdains to destroy us. Every angel is ter - social media platform WeChat this past rifying.’ We follow the prophetic guide July, taking a studied cynical tone, he de - into the Inferno, but we do not come out scribed his art as a technique of making the same. the ugly beautiful: ‘Most of the time, I The narrative of Behemoth follows what take some ugly affair and make it “look Zhao Liang describes as a ‘supply chain’ beautiful” on film. But isn’t our world of - (chanyelian) of urban construction. 1 The ten packaged to appear beautiful in this film opens with a long-shot of an open-pit way, especially politics?’ coal mine in Inner Mongolia, explosions MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 41 are heard in the distance, coal ash rains most. from the sky into the frame, accompanied Part of Behemoth’s visual power is its by the rasping of traditional Mongolian formal treatment of human bodies and throat-singing. The camera descends into natural landscapes as the same damaged coal mines, swelters in the heat of iron matter. The bodies of coal miners belong smelting furnaces, dispassionately gazes to the landscape. The camera glides across on coal miners in their dormitories and their creased faces, blistered hands, and hospital beds, and finally sojourns in the bodies covered in the ‘inky make-up’ soot utopian ‘ghost city of Ordos’ where the and sweat. In one scene, we hear the la- film ends. boured breathing of a coal miner suffer - For those who are unfamiliar with the ing from pneumoconiosis, hooked up to context, Ordos is a Prefecture-Level Mu- a respiratory apparatus, lying in bed. He nicipality located in the Gobi Desert in is indifferent to the camera’s presence. Inner Mongolia. After a natural resource Later, we see a woman holding up a fu- boom beginning in 2004, the Ordos gov - nerary portrait of a man who may or may ernment decided to invest its windfall not have been him. revenue in the construction of a new ad- Even though Behemoth is ostensibly ministrative capital named Kangbashi in a documentary, none of the miners are an area that was mostly desolate waste - given a voice in the film. To some, this land. Despite its modern architecture and may appear as an additional layer of ex - urban trappings, Kangbashi has failed to ploitation. For me, however, the decision attract residents, earning it the reputa- to exclude biographical details and life tion of China’s most infamous ‘ghost city’ trajectories from the film’s narrative con- (gui chengshi). For some China watchers, tent allows a different kind of speech to it is a portent of the inevitable bursting of occur. China’s real estate bubble inflated by po - The silent bodies and gazes of the min- litical incentives and speculative land de - ers speak of their expendability. A min- velopment. In Behemoth, Kangbashi is de - er’s individual life, dreams, and medical scribed as the ‘paradise of our dreams’—a records matter little to the coal mining perfect, clean, and empty city. boss, Party secretary, financial specula- tor, and middle class home-owner. From The Other Side of the standpoint of those who benefit from Urbanisation the urbanisation process, the miner’s life is valued as long as he is healthy enough to show up for work. When he can no lon- Urbanisation and the extraction of ger work, he will be replaced. The deci- coal, natural gas, and rare earth miner - sion not to give the miners a voice am- als contribute to the desertification of plifies the singularity of each physical China’s grasslands, which has triggered presence in the face of its precarity and massive sandstorms that have blown into serial interchangeability. Beijing and Tianjin. In Behemoth, we wit- Behemoth is about more than ‘the hu- ness the scars of urban modernity: craters man and environmental costs of coal from open-pit coal mines, vegetation des- mining and consumption in China’ be - iccated due to the consumption of sur - cause the word ‘cost’ remains within a face water by mining operations, billowy political economy of commensurability. A clouds of pollution. According to Zhao miner’s health is not the ‘cost’ of his need Liang, filming ‘the shattered mountains to survive. The destruction of the planet and rivers and last gasps of life’ (posui is not some unfortunate ‘price’ of moder - de shanhe, canchuan de shengming) were nisation but its suicidal involution. The the scenes that ‘pierced’ (citong) him the Anthropocene has moved us beyond the MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 42

A shot from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth calculation of cost-benefit equivalences as a cancer of the earth’ (renlei shi diqiu into a world where new values, systems, de aizheng). When I asked him why he and myths are needed. thought we are ‘incurable’ (meijiu), his As the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy put answer was ‘original sin’ (yuanzui) which it, ‘Yet we can oppose nothing to “growth” he defined as ‘the defect of boundless unless we can conceive of another civili- desire’ (yuwang de wuxianxing de quex - zation, a new sense of existence not en- ian). He is also increasingly skeptical of slaved to production but freed for itself. the transformative power of art. In an Which implies that this “for itself” finds interview from March 2016 with Slant its own meaning, the meaning of its “own” Magazine, the artist recalls feeling ‘com- fact of being.’ The end of capitalism will pelled by social responsibility’ when he only be the beginning of a life we have not first started making documentaries but yet imagined. ‘no longer’ sees his ‘work as a catalyst for creating social benefit.’ When I asked After the Promise of what precipitated his abandonment of Communism political optimism, his response was the ‘cruelty of the real world’ and ‘powerless- ness’ to change it (xianshi shijie de canku - It is significant that Zhao Liang’s dys- xing he wuligan). topian vision of reality takes place in Although such arrant nihilism is mod- post-socialist China. Twentieth century ish in China’s art scene, it is not without communism promised an end to ex - historical basis. Zhao Liang’s pessimistic ploitation, the emancipation of all hu- view of human nature raises important, man beings, and the liberation of our cre - unresolved, and unfashionable ques- ative faculties. Instead of achieving these tions about the failure of China’s twen- goals, it generated its own forms of lethal tieth century communist project. To put oppression and, in doing so, destroyed it somewhat coarsely, for all of the Com- our ability to dream of a political solution munist Party’s laudable as well as violent to the inequalities of capitalism. 2 attempts to ‘change the human being in In a conversation that I had with him what is most profound’, they were un- at his workshop in Beijing this past able to eradicate the venality, cruelty, and June, Zhao Liang referred to ‘humanity boundless desire of human nature. MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 43

Art in the Anthropocene Dreaming from the Ruins

As McKenzie Wark points out, ‘The With unforgettable cinematogra- unspeakable secret about climate change phy and soundscapes, Behemoth reveals is that nobody really wants to think about the devastation of the Inner Mongolian it for too long. It’s just too depressing.’ grasslands due to fossil fuel extraction. It is also cognitively impossible to grasp The mobility of the camera enables it the totality of climate change’s complex to traverse, and record, different scales non-linear temporalities and uneven and topographies of damaged matter. It geographies. Instead, as Jodi Dean brings into view a dystopian reality that argues, it is much easier to circulate we would otherwise be unable to visua- platitudes that generate enjoyment in lise. moral outrage and self-exoneration. For This is not to suggest that art can save these reasons, I suggest that art in the us from extinction. Perhaps Zhao Liang’s age of the Anthropocene has the power to pessimism is correct and humanity is a convey scientific and political truths in ‘cancer’ that will metastasise until we images and sensory environments in ways have killed our host. I am not convinced. that disturb our complacency, enjoyment, For me, Behemoth prophesises that it is and ignorance. time to dream of a new paradise that can In China, several contemporary artists mobilise the political energy and will to have been grappling with the problems build a world in common from the ruins posed by the Anthropocene, inventing of the one we have destroyed. It may fail, new aesthetic forms, and creatively work - but it is our only hope. ing with damaged materialities. In the series of photographs called New Land- [1] scapes, Yao Lu re-creates traditional Chi- This description is from an advertisement on WeChat for nese landscapes of mountains and rivers a private screening of Behemoth in Beijing. The advertisement was ‘harmonised’, i.e., deleted, from WeChat and the screening using trash and debris from landfills. He was cancelled. Xiangyu’s Cola Project required boiling [2] Today, the Chinese Communist Party officially prom- thousands of litres of cola, which hard- ises to engineer a ‘moderately prosperous society’ (xiaokang ened into a coal-like substance that could shehui), and the ‘China dream’ (Zhongguo meng) is deployed in the service of ‘social stability’ (weihu shehui wending), capital- be ground into ink and used for Song Dy - ist accumulation, and exploitation. They are a far cry from the nasty-style landscape paintings. Cai Guo- dreams of universal emancipation and working class power. Qiang’s 2014 exhibit The Ninth Wave included the manufacture of a contem- porary Noah’s Ark ‘carrying 99 fabri- cated animals in various states of decline’ Christian Sorace which ‘sailed along the Huangpu River’ Christian Sorace is a Postdoctoral before docking at the Power Station of Fellow at the Australian Centre on Art in Shanghai. Cai’s ship of tattered China in the World, Australian Na- stuffed animals followed the same course tional University. He is the author as 16,000 dead pigs, which mysteriously of Shaken Authority: China’s Com- floated down the river a year earlier in munist Party and the 2008 Sichuan March 2013. In these works, the mimetic Earthquake, scheduled for publica- tion with Cornell University Press relationship between art and nature be - in Spring 2017. He is currently comes recursive as we are no longer able conducting research on the urban- to discern human artifacts from natural isation of the grasslands in Inner processes. Mongolia, China and ger districts in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. MADE IN CHINA - ACADEMIC WATCH 44

Zhao Liang’s recent film Behemoth (beixi In the book you describe RETL as ‘a particu - moshou) is a cinematic meditation on the larly useful and flexible tool in policing dis - Anthropocene—the current geological sent and disruptive rights-asserting conduct’. epoch marking ‘a new phase in the his- This system was abolished at the end of 2013, tory of the Earth, when natural forces but is it really gone? What has filled the void and human forces become intertwined, when it comes to dealing with political dis - so that the fate of one determines the fate sent? of the other.’ Composed from documen- taryACADEMIC footage of natural and human life in Elisa Nesossi: We can definitely say that their devastated forms, Behemoth offers the abolition of RETL marked an impor- aWATCH dystopian view of our present reality tant symbolical change in the Chinese based on a script written by Zhao Liang justice system. As you mention, prior to its that is loosely adapted from Dante’s Di- abolition it was a very useful backstop for Elisa Nesossi on Legal vine Comedy. In an interview I conducted the police where legal reforms in other ar- withReforms the director and via Deprivation the popular Chinese eas restricted investigative and interrog- socialof Liberty media platformin Contemporary WeChat this past ative power. Still, it is important to point July,China taking a studied cynical tone, he de - out that the number of people detained in scribed his art as a technique of making the RETL because of political dissent and the ugly beautiful: ‘Most of the time, I threats to social stability constituted only take some ugly affair and make it “look a small number of detainees, with the ma- beautiful” on film. But isn’t our world of - jority being drug addicts. In the book, Sarah ten packaged to appear beautiful in this Biddulph explains very clearly that by the way, especially politics?’ time of its abolition in 2013, the majority of Zhao Liang’s aesthetic style is one of people detained in RETL were drug addicts. unflinching exposure, however, which This development caused a significant rise shares little in common with the theat - in drug-induced pathologies that placed ricality of state power and mystification an insurmountable strain on the system, as of sovereign violence. The gorgeous cin- it was not well equipped to provide drug ematography of Behemoth creates a new treatment and medical care. At the end of perceptual field of planetary destruction 2012, local police organs stopped issuing in a way that is unavailable to the prose RETL decisions, signalling the demise of of scientific description and political ar - the system and its partial replacement by gument. As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke compulsory drug treatment. For other de- Editedfamously by wrote Elisa in Nesossi, his Duino Sarah Elegies, Biddulph, ‘For tainees who are not drug addicts but may Florabeauty Sapio, is nothing and Susan but the Trevaskes, beginning Legal of ter Re- pose a threat to social stability, RETL has formsror, which and we Deprivation are still just of Libertyable to endure, in Con- not been substituted by one defined system. temporaryand we are China so awed offers because a series it of serenely analyses Some conduct—e.g. repeated petitioning— bydisdains prominent to destroy legal scholars us. Every on theangel complex is ter - can be punished through penalties provided itiesrifying.’ inherent We follow in the the process prophetic of reforming guide in the Criminal Law. Others are dealt with detentioninto the Inferno, institutions but wein China.do not It come also outdis- on an ad hoc basis, and are either diverted to cussesthe same. at length the development and subse- existing facilities for administrative punish- quentThe narrative abolition ofof Behemoththe re-education follows through what ment or may even be deprived of their lib - labourZhao Liang system describes (RETL), asa topic a ‘supply surely chain’ to be erty through non-legally defined measures. of(chanyelian) interest to ourof urban readers. construction. For our Academic The Watchfilm opens, we spokewith a withlong-shot the book’s of an open-pitco-editor In the book you refer to the abolition of RETL Elisacoal mine Nesossi, in Inner Australia Mongolia, Research explosions Council as a strategic ploy used by Xi Jinping to ‘draw Researchare heard Fellow in the at distance, the Australian coal ashCentre rains on a line in the sand between the new and the Chinafrom the in the sky World, into the The frame, Australian accompanied National previous Party leadership’s stance on stabil- University,by the rasping and regular of traditional contributor Mongolian to Made ity maintenance.’ Since the ascent of Xi Jin- inthroat-singing. China. The camera descends into ping, has there been any other significant sys - MADE IN CHINA - ACADEMIC WATCH 45

temic change concerning issues related to the ern countries), and an exceptional non-res- deprivation of liberty? idential form used to deal with offenders that the authorities consider to be a serious EN: So far, I think that the abolition of RETL threat to the socio-political order. In this at the end of 2013 has been the most impor - second form, non-residential surveillance tant change to the deprivation of liberty sys- can be carried out in any (often undisclosed) tem during the Xi era. As this book outlines, location and has been used as a fairly flexi- reforms within the criminal justice system ble tool to detain people in order to conduct (we distinguish here between administra- criminal investigation, or even as a form of tive and criminal forms of deprivation of summary punishment. In addition to these liberty) have clearly been lagging behind. two practices, there are also other forms of While reforming prisons has never been deprivation of liberty that are defined by considered a high priority, there have been Party documents and are legally ‘non-exis- significant discussions concerning changes tent’, as they are developed experimentally in the system of pre-trial detention. There to cope with ad hoc circumstances or cases. is a sort of consensus, especially among le - So it is important to distinguish residential gal scholars, that the management structure surveillance—which is a legal measure pro- and the legislation governing these facilities vided by the Criminal Procedure Law—and need to be reformed, as they are still run ac - the form of ‘soft house arrest’ under which cording to regulations that date back to the people like Liu Xia are deprived of their lib - 1990s. Discussions about reforms started erty by being placed in legal limbo. almost fifteen years ago but it appears that under Xi Jinping the prospects for reforms Q: The chapter by Flora Sapio discusses the have stalled, as this is not considered a high limits of conventional western approaches priority at the moment. toward the Chinese correctional system. Can you briefly outline these limitations to our The chapter by Joshua Rosenzweig deals with readers? the system of residential surveillance. Can you briefly explain how this system works EN: In her chapter, Flora Sapio explains and why it has caused so many concerns in that Western approaches have generated the past few years? Is Liu Xia, the wife of No - a ‘Gulag narrative’ whereby individual de- bel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, under residen- scriptions of the Chinese carceral system tial surveillance? have been used as examples of a ‘living hell on earth’. She shows that since early days, EN: I think that there is a bit of confusion Western narratives have constructed a fairly about the various forms of detention in stereotyped and orientalised image of China China, and I believe that misunderstand- that primarily serves political and geo-stra- ings are inevitable because of the variety tegic imperatives. In the late nineteenth of ways in which people can be deprived of century, this narrative was used to justify their liberty in the PRC. Joshua Rosenzweig the imposition of extra-territorial powers; explains that the ways in which residential during the Cold War to orientalise the Com- surveillance has been used have been highly munist enemy; and in the 1990s, to justify contested during the amendment process of the exportation of human rights values. On the Criminal Procedure Law in 2012. Some the whole, Sapio’s analysis is a valid and even asked for its abolition. The key problem strong exhortation to contemporary schol- is that residential surveillance involves two ars to change their perspectives and develop different forms of detention: an ‘ordinary a study of the Chinese correctional system form of residential surveillance’ intended based on the disciplinary structure of crimi- as a non-coercive alternative to pre-trial nology and penology. detention (similar to house arrest in West- 46

No expertise comes without constant doubt and a willingness to challenge established truths. Chinoiresie.info is a new website that attempts to question some of today’s understandings and certainties about China. Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | RSS

LATEST ESSAYS

Simone Dossi Still Waters: One Belt, One Road and the End of a Geopolitical Debate [Read on Chinoiresie]

Thomas David DuBois China’s Religion Law and the Perils of Counting Consciousness [Read on Chinoiresie]

Désirée Remmert Hope and Disenchantment: Shifting Outlooks on Life among Chinese Youths and Their Taiwanese Peers [Read on Chinoiresie]

Tessa Morris-Suzuki Rethinking the Cultural Politics of Globalisation: Where Do We Go from Here? [Read on Chinoiresie]

TIANXIA PODCAST

Igor de Rachewiltz: Of Tartar Princesses, Poets, and Great Khans of the Mongols [Listen to this Episode] MADE IN CHINA 2016 A Quarterly on Chinese Labour, Civil Society, and Rights

ISSUE 3, 2016