MADE IN CHINA YEARBOOK 2016 DISTURBANCES IN HEAVEN Edited by Ivan Franceschini, Kevin Lin, and Nicholas Loubere © The Australian National University (as represented by the the Australian Centre on China in the World) First published February 2017 by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Title: Disturbances in heaven / edited by Ivan Franceschini, Kevin Lin, Nicholas Loubere. ISBN: 9781760461072 (paperback) 9781760461089 (ebook) Series: Made in China Yearbook 2016. Subjects: Labor policy--China. Civil society--China. China--Politics and government. Other Creators/Contributors: Franceschini, Ivan, editor. Lin, Kevin, editor. Loubere, Nicholas, editor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. This publication is made available as an Open Educational Resource through licensing under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 3.0 Australia Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/ Note on Visual Material All images in this publication have been fully accredited. As this is a non-commercial publication, certain images have been used under a Creative Commons licence. These images have been sourced from Flickr, Wikipedia Commons and the copyright owner of each original picture is acknowledged and indicated in the source information. Design Concept by Tommaso Facchin; Illustrations by Marc Verdugo. Typesetting by Sharon Strange. The Australian Centre on China in the World is an initiative of the Commonwealth Government of Australia and The Australian National University. 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. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION (PP. 6–9) DISTURBANCES IN HEAVEN (P. 6) Ivan Franceschini BRIEFS (PP. 10–13) JANUARY–MARCH 2016 STEER YOUR WAY (PP. 14–39) THE CHINESE WORKING CLASS: MADE, UNMADE, IN ITSELF, FOR ITSELF, OR NONE OF THE ABOVE? (P. 16) William Hurst REMOULDING THE STATE SECTOR: BACK TO THE 1990s? (P. 20) Kevin Lin LAYING OFF RESPONSIBILITY: MICROCREDIT, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, AND CHINA’S INDUSTRIAL RETRENCHMENT (P. 24) Nicholas Loubere MIGRANT LABOUR AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF CHINA’S WELFARE SYSTEM (P. 28) Beatriz Carrillo FORUM: INTERPRETING CHINESE LABOUR: INFORMALISATION OR EMPOWERMENT? (P. 32) Anita Chan, Kaxton Siu, Sarah Swider BRIEFS (PP. 40–43) APRIL–JUNE 2016 HAMMER TO FALL (PP. 44–73) REVISITING CHINESE LABOUR NGOs: SOME GROUNDS FOR HOPE? (P. 46) Ivan Franceschini THE RESISTANCE OF WALMART WORKERS IN CHINA: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY (P. 50) Anita Chan WHAT DOES WUKAN HAVE TO DO WITH DEMOCRACY? (P. 56) Luigi Tomba THE FOREIGN NGOs MANAGEMENT LAW: A COMPENDIUM (P. 60) Ivan Franceschini, Elisa Nesossi FORUM: A CIVIL SOCIETY UNDER ASSAULT (P. 68) Ellen David Friedman, Kevin Slaten, May Wong BRIEFS (PP. 74–77) JULY–SEPTEMBER 2016 EYE IN THE SKY (PP. 78–105) THE NEGLECTED SIDE OF THE COIN: LEGAL HEGEMONY, CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS, AND LABOUR POLITICS IN CHINA (P. 80) Elaine Sio-ieng Hui CHINESE WORKERS AND THE LAW: MISPLACED TRUST? (P. 84) Ivan Franceschini CHINESE WORKERS AND THE LEGAL SYSTEM: BRIDGING THE GAP IN REPRESENTATION (P. 88) Aaron Halegua CHINA’S RELIGION LAW AND THE PERILS OF COUNTING CONSCIOUSNESS (P. 92) Thomas David DuBois FORUM: INTERPETING THE RULE OF LAW IN XI JINPING’S CHINA (P. 98) Joshua Rosenzweig, Ewan Smith, Susan Trevaskes BRIEFS (PP. 106–109) OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2016 HEART OF DARKNESS? (PP. 110–125) FIGHTING THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM: REGULATING CHINESE INVESTMENT IN ZAMBIAN MINES (P. 112) Mukete Beyongo Dynamic THERE AND BACK AGAIN: CONCEPTUALISING THE CHINESE GOLD RUSH IN GHANA (P. 116) Nicholas Loubere, Gordon Crawford A CHINESE EMPIRE IN THE MAKING? QUESTIONING MYTHS FROM THE AGRI-FOOD SECTOR IN GHANA (P. 122) Jixia Lu SOUL SACRIFICE (PP. 126–141) PARADISE UNDER CONSTRUCTION (P. 128) Christian Sorace THE COW AND THE GOAT DESCEND THE MOUNTAIN: FIGHTING MODERNITY WITH POEMS (P. 132) Ivan Franceschini CHINESE DREAMS OF HAPPINESS: WHAT ARE THE CHANCES? (P. 136) Gerda Wielander BIBLIOGRAPHY (P. 142) 6 MADE IN CHINA - INTRODUCTION DISTURBANCES IN HEAVEN ‘There was a rock that since the creation of the world had been worked upon by the pure essences of Heaven and the fine savours of Earth, the vigour of sunshine and the grace of moonlight, till it one day split open, giving birth to a stone egg, about as big as a playing ball which then turned into a stone monkey.’ hese words, translated by is nothing but a failed rebel. Having taken Arthur Waley, open the offence at not being assigned an office high classic sixteenth-century enough in the heavenly hierarchy, he had novel Journey to the West, a dared to challenge the supreme divinity of masterpieceT of Chinese literature. This is the the Chinese pantheon, the Jade Emperor, story of the monk Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to creating disturbances in his celestial palace. India to collect Buddhist sutras for the court For this reason, he had been imprisoned of the Tang emperors. One of his escorts is under a mountain for five hundred years, the Monkey King—Sun Wukong, ‘Aware- until Buddha had decided to give him a of-Vacuity’—a mischievous and ambitious chance at redemption: he was to accompany character born out of a primordial stone. At and protect Xuanzang in his travels. Even the beginning of the journey, Sun Wukong then, the Monkey King proves unruly and MADE IN CHINA - INTRODUCTION 7 the only way to control him is to trick him governments to erode labour protection into wearing a magic metal headband that by freezing minimum wages and lowering causes him terrible pain whenever he does the rate of social security contributions not obey the orders of his master. shouldered by companies in order to According to the traditional Chinese prevent capital flight. However, Chinese zodiac, 2016 was the year of the fire workers have continued to be restless, as monkey. What better character than Sun they see their very livelihoods threatened Wukong to inspire this inaugural volume by these new developments, but in absence of the Made in China Yearbook? In this past of any meaningful representation they have year, Chinese workers and rights activists been largely unable to resist these trends. from all walks of life have struggled under This Yearbook aims at tracking the heightened repression by the Chinese party- changes that have been taking place in state, but showed remarkable endurance the realm of labour and civil society in even under these dire circumstances. With China in the past year. All chapters have their fights, however small or short-lived, already appeared during 2016 either in they repeatedly challenged the message the open-access journal Made in China: A of ‘harmony’ of the Chinese authorities, Quarterly on Chinese Labour, Civil Society, creating ‘disturbances’ in the imaginary and Rights, or in the Essays section of the heaven engineered by the party-state. All of website Chinoiresie.info, but they have been this is nothing else but proof of the survival updated to reflect recent developments of the monkey spirit in Chinese society. and references have been included. The Even when trapped under a mountain whole project—journal, website, and book— of repression, or in terrible pain due to stems from a belief in the need to bridge the curse of the magic headband of state the gap between academic research and control, the monkey still manages to briefly the general public. We also believe that wriggle free, reminding us that not all is recent developments in China call for well and not everything is predictable. more serious analysis from both scholars However, what happened in 2016 leaves and practitioners, as well as for critical little room for optimism concerning the engagement with a broader international future of the labour and rights movements audience interested in forging international in China. Although the Chinese government solidarity. More pragmatically, we were has never been reluctant to repress dissent, compelled to re-edit this material and in this past year we have witnessed an compile this volume because we think authoritarian drift that only a few years that such a book will be a useful reference ago would have been unthinkable. Not only for a wide audience—especially scholars, have labour activists fallen victim to more activists, unionists, policy-makers, and regular and severe forms of intimidation students—with an interest in Chinese by the party-state, but new laws and labour and civil society. regulations have also been passed in order Besides a series of ‘briefs’, in which we to curtail civil society space by, among summarise some of the most important other things, restricting international events that took place in China over the sources of funding for labour and rights past year, we have regrouped the chapters NGOs while at the same time limiting their into five general sections. The first abilities to register as social organisations section, ‘Steer Your Way’, focuses on the or charities and raise funds domestically. relationship between the party-state and This happened in concomitance with an workers, offering some perspectives on economic slowdown, prompting local how the Chinese authorities have navigated 8 MADE IN CHINA - INTRODUCTION the uncharted waters of labour politics in Wukan village, challenging some widely- a time of global economic uncertainty.