Social Movements in China and Hong Kong

Social Movements in China and Hong Kong Publications Series Edited Volumes 9 Movements in SocialSocial Movements Movementsin Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Sociology of the University of Hong Kong. in China Gilles Guiheux is Professor of Sociology at the Department Chinaof Orientaland Languages and Civilisations of the UnivHongersité China and Hong Kong Paris Diderot. and Hong Kong Kuah-Pearce | Guiheux (eds.) Over the last two decades, China and Hong Kong have The Expansion of been testing grounds for protest movements in rural So- and urban settings. As a result of the changing socio- Protest Space economic landscape, the building of a legal state and globalisation, Chinese on the mainland are increasingly Edited by defending their rights and local interests. Likewise, in Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Gilles Guiheux Hong Kong, with the change of sovereignty from British colonial rule to Chinese rule, Hong Kong Chinese have become politically active and willing to protest for their freedom and interests. Social Movements in China and Hong Kong: The Expansion of Protest Space provides a comprehensive view, from multi-disciplinary perspectives, of economic issues such as labour rights, labour unions, anti-globalisation, individual entrepreneurship and the law; and those that concern cultural, religious and gender matters that are considered pertinent by the citizens in mainland China and Hong Kong and hence worthy of their protest actions, despite the inherent risks. Such actions have resulted in the expansion of protest space. ฀ ฀ www.aup.nl ISBN 978 90 8964 131 1 Social Movements in China and Hong Kong Publications Series General Editor Paul van der Velde Publications Officer Martina van den Haak Editorial Board Wim Boot (Leiden University); Jennifer Holdaway (Social Science Research Coun- cil); Christopher A. Reed (The Ohio State University); Anand A. Yang (Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and Chair of International Studies at the University of Washington); Guobin Yang (Barnard College, Colum- bia University) The ICAS Publications Series consists of Monographs and Edited Volumes. The Series takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of interregional and multilat- eral importance for Asia in a global context. The Series aims to stimulate dialo- gue amongst scholars and civil society groups at the local, regional and international levels. The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) was founded in 1997. Its main goals are to transcend the boundaries between disciplines, between nations studied, and between the geographic origins of the Asia scholars involved. ICAS has grown into the largest biennial Asia studies event covering all subjects of Asia studies. So far five editions of ICAS have been held respectively in Leiden (1998), Berlin (2001), Singapore (2003), Shanghai (2005) and Kuala Lumpur (2007). ICAS 6 will be held in Daejeon (South Korea) from 6-9 August 2009. In 2001 the ICAS secretariat was founded which guarantees the continuity of the ICAS process. In 2004 the ICAS Book Prize (IBP) was established in order to cre- ate by way of a global competition both an international focus for publications on Asia while at the same time increasing their visibility worldwide. Also in 2005 the ICAS Publications Series were established. For more information: www.icassecretariat.org Social Movements in China and Hong Kong The Expansion of Protest Space Edited by Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Gilles Guiheux Publications Series Edited Volumes 9 Cover design: JB&A raster grafisch ontwerp, Westland Layout: The DocWorkers, Almere ISBN 978 90 8964 131 1 e-ISBN 978 90 4851 055 9 NUR 761 © ICAS / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or in- troduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Table of Contents Acknowledgements 7 Note on Romanisation 8 1 Framing Social Movements in Contemporary China and Hong Kong 9 Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce & Gilles Guiheux 2 Social Protests, Village Democracy and State Building in China: How Do Rural Social Protests Promote Village Democracy? 25 Baogang He 3 Social Movements and State-Society Relationship in Hong Kong 45 Ngok Ma 4 Social Movements and the Law in Post-Colonial Hong Kong 65 Albert H.Y. Chen 5 Defining Hong Kong as an Emerging Protest Space: The Anti-Globalisation Movement 91 Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce 6 ‘Old Working Class’ Resistance in Capitalist China: A Ritualised Social Management (1995-2006) 117 Jean-Louis Rocca 7 Justifying the New Economic and Social Order: The Voice of a Private Entrepreneur 135 Gilles Guiheux 8 The Rise of Migrant Workers’ Collective Actions: Toward a New Social Contract in China 155 Chloé Froissart 6 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN CHINA AND HONG KONG 9 Grassroots Activism and Labour Electoral Politics under Chinese Rule, 1997-2008 179 Ming K. Chan 10 Hong Kong’s Trade Unions as an Evolving Social Organisation and Their Prospects for the Future 205 Sek Hong Ng & Olivia Ip 11 Non-governmental Feminist Activism in The People’s Republic of China: Communicating Oppositional Gender Equality Knowledge 227 Cecilia Milwertz & Wei Bu 12 The Hong Kong Catholic Church: A Framing Role in Social Movement 245 Beatrice Leung 13 Religiosity and Social Movements in China: Divisions and Multiplications 259 David A. Palmer Contributors 285 Bibliography 287 Index 309 Acknowledgements The journey from the conception of the idea of this book to its final product was a long and arduous one. The idea first came out of the de- bates on the emergence of social movements in both China and Hong Kong at the end of the twentieth century. The excitement surrounding these developments was discussed between the two editors which cul- minated in a conference jointly organized by the Centre for Anthropo- logical Research at the University of Hong Kong and the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (Hong Kong). We are grateful to the authors for their contributions that were first presented at this conference on March 23rd and 24th, 2005. Along the way, we have benefited from various people who have walked this journey with us and helped us realise the publication of this book. We would like to express our gratitude to the Faculty of So- cial Sciences and the Centre for Anthropological Research at the Uni- versity of Hong Kong; the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (D’Alembert scheme) for their financial support. We would also like to express our appreciation to colleagues at the Department of Sociology for administrative assis- tance. In the production of this book, we are indebted to Huang Yedan who painstakingly helped to edit the stylistic contents of all chapters. We would also especially like to mention the anonymous reviewers for their comments that helped sharpen the arguments of the various chapters in this volume. We would like to thank Paul van der Velde and Martina van den Haak for their faith in our work and the editorial team at Amsterdam University Press for turning the manuscript into this wonderful book. As editors, we have had the pleasure of working closely on this volume, and in this process we have come to appreciate our strengths and limitations and scholarship from different traditions. The editors have worked in equal partnership on this volume. Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce and Gilles Guiheux May 2009 Note on Romanisation Chinese terms and place names in the text are transliterated using the hanyu pinyin system, unless otherwise stated. 1 Framing Social Movements in Contemporary China and Hong Kong Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce & Gilles Guiheux Introduction Since 1979, economic reforms have led to a radical transformation of Chinese society. At the time of the planned economy, individual lives were being taken care of, and the citizens did not have to worry about their present and future livelihood, over which they did not have much influence anyway. Jobs, accommodation, education and health care were provided by the State or State-related institutions. Besides, society was almost static as social status was quasi-inherited from one genera- tion to another and jointly decided by political factors and the position of the individual in the production system. It was considered, and stated in the Chinese constitution as such, that the People’s Republic of China was ‘based on the alliance of workers and peasants’. Rapid industrialisation and urbanisation together with the progres- sive institutionalisation of a market economy has put the society back on the move. Chinese society is now fluid. Individuals are free to move from one location to another, and although the hukou system control- ling population movement is still in place, it has been largely eroded. Masses of people have moved from the interior to the coastal cities in search of employment, resulting in a large floating population. Follow- ing Deng Xiaoping’s tour of the south in 1992 and the relaunching of the economic reforms, civil servants and Party members have turned into entrepreneurs, with some of them becoming incredibly wealthy. On the other hand, some have experienced downward social mobility. Massive lay-offs started in the middle of the 1990s in the State sector, and many workers in their

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