International solidarity with chinese workers, activists and unionists arrested

International solidarity with chinese workers, activists and unionists arrested

“What workers should do are those things that they can achieve through their own power!”

—— F. Engels, The Conditions of Working Class in England

Release arrested strikers. Legalise the right to strike and to organise in China.

Laogaï camps, the chinese goulag

Over the last two decades of economic reform, millions of workers have been laid off without due compensation, while millions of others continue to be exploited, working long hours in hazardous conditions. Many legitimate workers’ protests seeking redress for these rights violations have been branded as “illegal demonstrations.” And, as a result, many ordinary workers have been arrested, detained and sentenced to prison terms.
To acknowledge and support workers who have been imprisoned because of their active participation in defending labour rights, every year on 4 June, CLB compiles a list of imprisoned worker activists. We have endeavored to gather as much information about each case as possible, but the lack of an independent news media presence at many worker protests and subsequent trials means that reliable information can be difficult to obtain. Hence, the following list is by no means complete.
As far as we can tell, very few worker activists were sentenced to long jail terms in this period. Rather the authorities used short-term detentions, intimidation and harassment to suppress workers protests, or turned a blind eye to beatings carried out by thugs hired by factory bosses. We only included workers who had been sentenced to reeducation through labour (RTL) or imprisonment but many more were excluded because the available information was unclear or inconsistent.

Key Labor Activists Imprisoned in China
(updated September 2007)
1. Yao Fuxin (Liaoning) — Political charges
Leader of large-scale worker demonstrations after Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory declared bankruptcy and failed to make wage/benefit/ pension payments to workers. Leader of "All-Liaoyang Bankrupt and Unemployed Workers’ Provisional Union." Convicted with Xiao Yunliang of subversion by Liaoyang Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on May 9, 2003 to seven years’ imprisonment. Appeal was rejected by Liaoning Higher People’s Court on June 27, 2003. Serving sentence in Lingyuan No. 2 Prison, where he reportedly suffered a heart attack in August 2005.
Status: Due for release on March 19, 2009.
2. He Zhaohui, aka He Chaohui (Hunan) — Political charges
Former railway worker at Chenzhou Railway Bureau alleged to have provided information about Chinese labor protests to a foreign researcher. Reportedly participated in strikes and demonstrations and supported a group backing the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Convicted of "illegally providing state secrets or intelligence to overseas entities" by Chenzhou Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on August 24, 1999 to 10 years’ imprisonment. Sentence reduced by one year on Dec. 15, 2005.
Status: Due for release from Chenzhou Prison in October 2007.
3. Hu Mingjun (Sichuan) — Political charges
Political activist and labor organizer who communicated with workers on strike at Dazhou Steel Mill over unpaid wages. Led Sichuan unit of China Democratic Party (CDP). Convicted of subversion by the Dazhou Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on May 30, 2002 to 11 years’ imprisonment.
Status: Due for release from Chuanzhong Prison on May 28, 2012.
4. Hu Shigen (Beijing) — Political charges
Founding member of "China Free Labor Union." Academic at Beijing Foreign Languages Institute and leader of China Liberal Democratic Party. Arrested with 15 other activists from unofficial trade union and party who made up "Beijing Sixteen." Convicted of "organizing and leading a counterrevolutionary group" and "counterrevolutionary propaganda and incitement" by the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on June 14, 1995 to 20 years’ imprisonment. He received sentnce reduction of 7 months on Dec. 16, 2005 and of 17 months on Feb. 5, 2007.
Status: Due for release from Beijing No. 2 Prison on May 26, 2010.
5. Huang Xiangwei (Fujian) — Political charges
Organized "Labor and Employment Research Association," downloaded labor-union related materials from the Internet, and allegedly tried to form labor unions. Convicted of subversion by Sanming Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on October 30, 2003 to six years’ imprisonment.
Status: Due for release in April 2008.
6. Kong Youping (Liaoning) — Political charges
A former official trade union official in Liaoning Province, Kong Youping was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on 16 September 2004 by the Shenyang Intermediate People’s Court. Kong’s colleague and co-defendant at the September 2004 trial, Ning Xianhua, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. Kong, 55 years old, originally worked as the union chairman at a state-owned enterprise in Liaoning, but his support for protests by laid-off workers and his sharp criticism of government corruption and suppression led to his dismissal from both the factory and the union. In the late 1990s, a group of political dissidents, including Kong Youping, were working to establish a branch of the China Democracy Party (CDP) in Liaoning Province, and in 1999 Kong was detained and imprisoned for a year on charges of "incitement to subvert state power". Kong Youping and Ning Xianhua were convicted of "subversion" at their trial.
Status: Due for release on December 12, 2018.
7. Ning Xianhua (Liaoning) — Political charges
Labor activist and political organizer sentenced in the same trial as Kong Youping. Convicted of subversion by the Shenyang Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment on September 16, 2004. Codefendent with Kong Youping at the September 2004 trial, Ning Xianhua, was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment. Kong Youping and Ning Xianhua were convicted of "subversion" at their trial.
Status: Due for release on December 12, 2015.
8. Li Jianfeng (Fujian) — Political charges
Independent union activist and organizer of "Labor and Employment Research Association." Convicted of subversion and sentenced on October 30, 2003 to 16 years’ imprisonment by Sanming Intermediate People’s Court.
Status: Held in Jianyang Prison and Due for release April 2, 2018.
9. Li Xintao (Shandong) — Political charges
Garment worker who with Kong Jun led workers in petition protest against a Yantai factory’s failure to make wage and insurance payments. Convicted of "gathering a crowd to attack an organ of the state" by Mouping District People’s Court and sentenced in May 2005 to five years’ imprisonment.
Status: Due for release in November 2009.
10. Lin Shun’an (Fujian) — Political charges
Organized "Labor and Employment Research Association," downloaded labor-union related materials from the Internet, and allegedly tried to form labor unions. Convicted of subversion by Sanming Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on October 30, 2003 to eight years’ imprisonment.
Status: Due for release in April 2010.
11. Chen Wei (Hainan) — Non-political charges
Led a protest of workers laid off from a state-owned cement factory after it failed to pay compensation and retirement benefits. Convicted of "gathering a crowd to disrupt social order" by the Changjiang Li Minority Autonomous County People’s Court and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on April 8, 2005. Chen’s appeal was rejected by the Hainan Intermediate People’s Court on June 29, 2005.
Status: Due for release in May 2008.
12. Liu Jian (Hunan) — Non-political charges
Members of Xiangtan Workers’ Autonomous Federation involved in a large-scale strike in 1989 during which property was damaged. Convicted of hooliganism by Xiangtan Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced in October 1989 to life imprisonment. Liu Jian is only one of original four detainees in this case who has not had his life-in-prison sentenced reduced to a fixed-term sentence.
Status: Serving life term at Hunan Provincial No. 6 Prison.
13. Liu Zhihua (Hunan) — Non-political charges
Members of Xiangtan Workers’ Autonomous Federation involved in a large-scale strike in 1989 during which property was damaged. Convicted of hooliganism and aggravated assault by Xiangtan Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced in October 1989 to life imprisonment. Liu Zhihua sentence commuted to 15 years’ imprisonment in 1993, extended by five years in 1997, and reduced by two years in 2001.
Status: Due for release from Longxi Prison on January 16, 2011.
14. Wang Sen (Sichuan) — Political charges
Political activist and labor organizer detained May 3, 2001 for organizing workers in Sichuan. Convicted of subversion by the Dazhou Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on May 30, 2002 to 10 years’ imprisonment. Reportedly his health has deteriorated and he has diabetes.
Status: Due for release from Chuanzhong (Nanchong) Prison on May 2, 2011.
15. Yue Tianxiang (Gansu) — Political charges
Driver at Tianshui City Transport Co. who was laid off and not paid back wages. Won case at Tianshui Labour Disputes Arbitration Committee, but management refused to rehire him. Organizer of "China Worker Watch" newsletter raising labor rights issues. Wrote open letter to then-President Jiang Zemin asking for action on labor rights and arrested after letter was distributed to international news media. Convicted of subversion by Tianshui Intermediate People’s Court and sentenced on July 5, 1999 to 10 years’ imprisonment. Sentenced reduced by one year in 2005.
Status: Now due for release from Lanzhou Prison on January 8, 2008.
16. Zhang Shanguang (Hunan) — Political charges
Former secondary school teacher and labor activist. Helped organize the Hunan Workers’ Autonomous Federation in 1989 for which he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. Tried to form and officially register with authorities a labor rights group in 1998. Convicted of "illegally providing state secrets or intelligence to overseas entities" after giving interviews to Radio Free Asia about worker demonstrations and tax protests. Sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment by Huaihua Intermediate People’s Court on December 27, 1998. Suffers from tuberculosis and reportedly is in poor health.
Status: Due for release from Chishan Prison on July 21, 2008.
17. Miao Jinhong — Charges unknown
Miao Jinhong and Ni Xiafei led a group of migrant workers in Zhejiang Province in blocking a railway line and attacking a police station to protest unpaid wages. Both men were detained in October 2000 and were subsequently tried by the Zhuji City People’s Court on January 23, 2001 and sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment on charges of "Gathering a crowd to attack an organ of the state" and "Gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic or a public place."
Status: Due for release in October 2008.
18. Ni Xiafei — Charges unknown
Miao Jinhong and Ni Xianfei led a group of migrant workers in Zhejiang Province in blocking a railway line and attacking a police station to protest unpaid wages. Both men were detained in October 2000 and were subsequently tried and sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment (charges unknown.)
Status: Due for release in 2008.
19. Zha Jianguo — Political charges
In January 1998, Gao Hongming, a veteran of China’s 1978-79 Democracy Wall dissident movement, and his fellow activist Zha Jianguo, wrote to the head of the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), Wei Jianxing, and applied for permission to form an autonomous labour group called the China Free Workers Union. In a statement faxed to the National People’s Congress at that time, Gao said: "China’s trade unions at all levels have become bureaucracies, and their officials bureaucrats. This has resulted in the workers becoming alienated [from the official union]." In early 1999, after also playing a leading role in the formation of the now-banned China Democratic Party (CDP), both Gao Hongming and Zha Jianguo were arrested and charged with "incitement to subvert state power." On August 2 that year, Gao was sentenced to eight yearsÕ imprisonment and Zha to nine years.
Status: Due for release from Beijing No. 2 Prison on June 28, 2008.
20. Li Wangyang — Political charges
Served a 13-year prison term in 1990s for organizing workers. After his release he began a hunger strike protest his mistreatment in prison, seeing to recover medical expenses. Arrested June 6, 2001, and tried in closed court for incitement to subvert state power. Sentenced to 10 years in prison. Reportedly at Chisan Prison in Hunan province.
Status: Due for release in 2011.
21. Luo Mingzhong — Non-political charges
Born in 1953, Luo was laid off from his job at the Taiyuan Chemical Factory (part of Taiyuan Holdings), in Yibin, Sichuan Province in 2004. He led his fellow workers in fighting for proper compensation after the factory was privatized. On 22 March 2004, he was placed under administrative detention for ten days for blocking the road and obstructing traffic. In July 2005, Luo, together with fellow laid-off workers Zhan Xianfu, Zhou Shaofen and Luo Huiquan led other workers to block the main factory gate in protest at the insufficient compensation offered for their loss of livelihood. Yibin Public Security officers then arrested the four leaders for allegedly "assembling to disturb public order." In April 2006, the Cuiping District Court in Yibin convicted all four defendants on the charge of "assembling to disturb public order." Luo Mingzhong and Luo Huiquan were sentenced to two years imprisonment. Zhan Xianfu was given a one and a half year prison sentence, suspended for two years. Zhou Shaofen was given a one year sentence, suspended for one year. Luo Mingzhong and Luo Huiquan filed appeals, but the Yibin Intermediate People’s Court’s ruling rejected their appeals and upheld the original sentences.
Status: Due for release in August 2007.
22. Luo Huiquan — Non-political charges
In July 2005, Luo Huiquan, together with Luo Mingzhong led other workers to block a factory gate in protest at the insufficient compensation offered for their loss of livelihood. Yibin Public Security officers then arrested the four leaders for allegedly "assembling to disturb public order." In April 2006, the Cuiping District Court in Yibin convicted all four defendants on the charge of "assembling to disturb public order." Luo Mingzhong and Luo Huiquan were sentenced to two years imprisonment. Zhan Xianfu was given a one and a half year prison sentence, suspended for two years. Zhou Shaofen was given a one year sentence, suspended for one year. Luo Mingzhong and Luo Huiquan filed appeals, but the Yibin Intermediate People’s Court’s ruling rejected their appeals and upheld the original sentences.
Status: Due for release in August 2007.
23. She Wanbao — Political charges
A Sichuan native, She is a labour organizer and a member of the banned China Democratic Party (CDP). He was previously convicted of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement by the Guangyuan Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan Province, and was sentenced on 3 November 1989 to four years’ imprisonment. He was released in July 1993, but was rearrested July 7, 1999 in connection with his CDP activities and sentenced August 4, 1999. On 25 October 1999, the Sichuan Higher People’s Court upheld a conviction on "subversion" charges against She by the Guangyuan Intermediate People’s Court. He was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment, and has been held at the Chuanzhong Prison since 5 April 2000. On 9 September 2005, She’s sentence was reduced by six months.
Status: Due for release on 6 January 2011, after which his political rights will be suspended for three years.
24. Wang Miaogen
— Forced institutionalization. Not strictly a labor case.
A manual worker in Shanghai at the time of the May 1989 pro-democracy movement, was a leading member of the Shanghai Workers Autonomous Federation, which was formed that month. Detained shortly after the June 4, 1989 government crackdown, Wang then spent two and a half years in untried police detention undergoing "re-education through labour" on account of his involvement in the banned workers’ group. In April 1993, after he committed an act of self-mutilation (hunger strike) in front of a Shanghai police station in public protest against having recently been severely beaten up by the police for protesting detention of fellow labor activists, he was redetained and then forcibly incarcerated in the Shanghai Ankang Mental Hospital, a facility run by the Public Security Bureau to detain and treat "dangerously mentally ill criminals".
Status: Wang has now been held incommunicado at the Shanghai Ankang Mental Hospital for more than 14 years.
25. Zhao Changqing — Political charges
First arrested in June 1989 and detained for four months at Qincheng Prison, Beijing, for having organized a Students’ Autonomous Committee at the Shaanxi Normal University during the pro-democracy movement in May that year. He was arrested again in 1998 while teaching at a school affiliated with the Shaanxi Hanzhong Nuclear Industry Factory 813, after attempting to stand for election as a factory representative to the National People’s Congress and publicly criticizing the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) for failing to defend workers interests. In an open letter to his fellow factory workers, dated 11 January 1998, Zhao wrote: "You should treasure your democratic rights. Even if I cannot run as a formal candidate, if you believe I am capable of representing you and of struggling for your interests, then I ask you to write in my name on the ballot. If elected, I will be worthy of your trust and will demonstrate my loyalty to you through my actions." Before the workers’ ballots could be cast on January 14, Zhao was secretly detained by the police on suspicion of "endangering state security." In July that year, he was tried at the Hanzhong City Intermediate People’s Court on charges of "subversion" and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. After his release, in early November 2002 Zhao drafted and circulated an open letter to the National People’s Congress demanding, among other things, an official reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the release of all political prisoners. In due course, 192 other political dissidents signed the letter, thereby attracting widespread international attention to what was the most significant political action by Chinese dissidents in recent years. In December 2002, Zhao Changqing was arrested by police for the third time and was later sentenced to 5 years’ imprisonment for "incitement to subvert state power" by the Xi’an Intermediate People’s Court on July 17, 2003. Zhao has reportedly been held in solitary confinement for refusing to take part in military training and having contact with detained Falun Gong practitioners.
Status: Held in Weinan Prison and due for release in November 27, 2007. We believe Zhu Fangming has been released based on representations made to the ILO.
26. Cai Guangye (Jilin) — Charges unknown
A military doctor detained in April 2001 by the Jilin city police after taking part in a worker protest at the Jilin Chemical Company. He maintained contact with workers and was detained again in Decmber 2001. Cai was sentenced to 3 years reeducation through labor in Jilin in July 2003.
Status: Unknown.
27. Zhou Yuanwu — Non-political charges
A workers representative who lead protests at the Jingchu Brewery in Jingzhou in 2006. The Boxun news agency reported that on 18 August 2006 the Jingzhou police tried to forcibly bring Zhou to court without a subpoena. When he refused, Zhou was beaten up and arrested on the ground of assaulting a police officer. His case was heard by the Jingzhou District court on 6 April 2007, but Zhou was deprived of his advocate, Chen Xiongyan, after Chen was detained for violating court discipline. He was sentenced to 2.5 years imprisonment by the Jingzhou District People’s Court on May 15, 2007 for "disrupting official business."
Status: Due for release February 17, 2009.
28. Jiang Cunde
— Non-political charges. Not strictly a labor case.
Jiang Cunde, was a worker at the Dong Xin Tool Repair Works in Shanghai when, in 1985 and 1986, according to the authorities, he began to advocate "imitating the model of Poland’s Solidarity Trade Union to overthrow the present political powers." He reportedly also planned to establish a "China Human Rights Committee." In May 1987, Jiang and two others were convicted on charges of planning to hijack an airplane, and he was sentenced to life in prison for counterrevolution. In January 1993, Jiang was released from Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai on medical parole. In 1999 he was rearrested for having allegedly "joined a reactionary organization, written reactionary articles and sent them to news agencies, and used the occasion of the US bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade in 1999 to stir up trouble." Jiang was returned to Tilanqiao Prison in June 1999 to continue serving his life sentence. In August 2004, his sentence was commuted to 20 years’ imprisonment, and he is currently due for release in August 2024. [NB: Although Jiang was originally convicted of an internationally recognized criminal offence (hijacking an airplane), he has been included on lists of non-violent detained worker activists because the grounds officially given for his re-imprisonment in 1999 related solely to his exercise of the right to freedom of association and expression, and because of his earlier espousal of independent trade unionism in China.]
Status: Held in Tilanqiao Prison and due for release in August 2024.
Seven workers were added to the list last year (Ren Fengyu, Luo Xi, Yang Huanqing, Xue Mingkai, Zhao Dongmin, Tang Aimin, Hu Weimin). The most notable (presumed) release in this period was labour activist Li Xintao, who had been in prison for five years after being found guilty of “disrupting government institutions” and “disturbing social order” in 2005.

1989

Given the wealth of material, especially outside China, dealing with the mass democracy movement of 1989, why is this pamphlet written by socialists so important? Firstly, it includes the invaluable eyewitness account of Stephen Jolly, who was in Beijing representing the CWI in discussions with Chinese youth and workers at the culmination of this movement and during the terror of June 3-4. Secondly, because this is one of the few works on the subject that approaches the 1989 movement from the standpoint of real socialism – of anti-Stalinism/Maoism and anti-capitalism – and stresses the often understated role of the working class in these revolutionary upheavals. The observation that China stood at the door of revolution in 1989, with similarities to events in Egypt, Tunisia and across the Middle East at the present time, is also overlooked or flatly denied by many other histories of the 1989 movement.

Socialists do not deny the role of the students, with many examples of heroism and audacity, but we also highlight the insufficiency of any political movement based solely upon students – which, however, was not the case in China in 1989, although many commentators and historians wrongly present it in this way. Socialists point out that the working class, unfortunately viewed with suspicion by many of the 1989 student leaders, is the main force for revolutionary change in every modern society. This flows from the economic role of the working class and its daily experiences, which shapes its political outlook and prepares it to lead the struggle for a socialist society.

The workers of China, and especially the working class of Beijing during the crucial days of martial law in late May and early June 1989, were the unsung heroes of this movement. It is estimated that more than half a million or more of Beijing’s factory workers, school students, housewives, office workers, civil servants and other citizens mobilised night after night to form a mighty ‘human wall’, blocking the passage of tanks and armoured detachments from reaching the youth in Tiananmen Square.

During this critical final phase of the struggle, in which Deng Xiaoping’s ruthless dictatorial regime was mustering its forces to crush the mass protests, but encountering massive problems including splits and defections, power hung in the balance in China. Workers were organising their own independent unions and discussing preparations for a general strike. Sections of youth in the capital were discussing the need for arms to defend the struggle against reaction. Attempts to fraternise and win over the army to the side of the people were on-going and making headway – as shown by the fact that only a small minority of the 200,000 troops amassed in Beijing could actually be used for the seizure of Tiananmen Square.

As our pamphlet explains, and as the CWI pointed out in its analysis at the time, the tragedy of these events was the non-existence within the mass anti-Stalinist movement of a party and programme – for genuine democratic socialism – that could show a way forward.

The political limitations of the student leaders’ approach became clear during these fateful final days when it was increasingly clear that a showdown was coming. The struggle had overstepped the bounds of a ‘protest’ movement – as the student leaders envisaged – and posed a revolutionary threat to the ruling party and bureaucracy. But this revolution lacked a revolutionary programme, a party and a fully conscious leadership, and because of this it was defeated with tragic consequences.

These were not just in terms of the horrific losses – still a ‘state secret’ in China – but also in that the victorious Dengist regime was able to steamroller ahead largely unopposed with its pro-capitalist ‘reforms’ – plundering state property in order to enrich the ‘princeling’ heirs of the old Maoist-Stalinist bureaucracy and enable the new generation to convert themselves into capitalist industrial and financial magnates while still wedded to an authoritarian state. This process, still relatively incipient in the 1980s, had been one of the triggers for the 1989 movement. The ‘princelings’ of 1989 – mere amateurs compared to today’s powerful figures – were universally vilified on Beijing’s mass demonstrations.

With the movement bloodily crushed and the spectre of mass protests thereby exorcised for a long period, the process of capitalist restoration from within the bureaucratic state apparatus would resume with renewed force after a temporary interruption in 1990-91, a period in which the Beijing regime reconsolidated its internal rule and repositioned itself internationally, assimilating the lessons of the collapse of other Stalinist bureaucratically planned economies in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The Chinese regime was able to profit from the political confusion that disorientated and stymied the organisational and fighting capacity of the working class worldwide after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes, widely and incorrectly presented by capitalist propaganda as the defeat of ‘socialism’. As this pamphlet explains, these dictatorial regimes were never socialist, although they rested upon state-owned economies, rather than capitalist economies. This was a crucial difference that imbued these societies with the potential to develop in a more balanced, rapid and planned fashion than any capitalist economy, but only on the condition that bureaucratic control was overthrown and a genuine socialist system of democratic planning and management installed. Unfortunately, this did not happen and the prolongation of stultifying bureaucratic rule sapped the planned economies of all dynamism and plunged these societies into economic regression and crisis.

1995

A July 16 press release from the Hong Kong solidarity group April 5th Action reveals that Beijing has clamped down on an attempt to organise and politically educate workers in the Shenzhen special economic zone in southern China. (April 5th Action is named after the date in 1976 when the first anti-bureaucratic protest took place in Tienanmen Square.)
The Shenzhen arrests occurred in April 1994, but came to light only this month. According to April 5th Action, Lee Man-ming, Kwong Lok-cheong and Kwok Po-sing were arrested for running an evening school for workers as well as for attempts to organise an independent union. The three have been in custody for all this period, incommunicado and without charges laid.
"The Chinese government has stepped up its repression, for fear that the movement might present a serious threat as social discontent and unrest were building up in the last few years", says April 5th Action. "We appeal to you all to send protest messages to the Chinese government to demand the release of these activists, who had done nothing but exercise the right to freedom of speech and the right of association."
The workers’ evening school, started in 1993, attracted a few hundred workers and, not long after, the police, who raided its office in September that year. The leaders fled to Beijing but were arrested soon after returning to Shenzhen last year.
Lee comes from the central province of Hunan, while Kwong is from Shanghai. Both were student activists in their home towns in the late ’80s but joined forces in 1993 to organise workers in Shenzhen.
Lee studied in Beijing in 1992 — after working for a youth magazine in Shenzhen the previous year, which put him in direct contact with Beijing activists. Kwong was a leader in the student mobilisation in Shanghai in 1986-87 and won respect for confronting the then Shanghai mayor, Jiang Zemin, who is now the president of China.
Protest letters should be sent to the Standing Committee, National People’s Congress, Beijing, China. (Send copies to April 5th Action, Front Portion, 2nd Floor, 103 Argyle St, Mongkok, Hong Kong. Email: tllau5@hkein.ie.cuhk.hk)
Beijing’s recent crackdown on political dissidents, especially the arrests in late May of activists who protested against the massacre in Beijing six years ago, has evoked protests around the world. But the government is answering them with more witch-hunts:
• Tong Yi, 27, the assistant and translator of veteran activist Wei Jingsheng until her arrest in April 1994, is to be subjected to "stronger measures" after allegedly failing to fulfil production quotas at the Hewan Re-education Through Labour Camp, Wuhan. Two police officers notified her family of this measure on July 13, in addition to the decision to deny her the right to be visited monthly as punishment for her "despondent" and "unruly" behaviour.
• Fifteen dissidents failed in an appeal last month to have their heavy jail sentences reduced. As a result, Hu Shigen will have to spend the next 20 years behind bars, Kang Yuchun 17, Liu Jingsheng 15, Wang Guoqi 11, Lu Zhigang, Chen Wei, Zheng Chunzhu and Wang Tiancheng five and Rui Chaohuai three. Li Quanli would be under surveillance for two years, while the remaining five would be detained to be "re-educated through labour" for three years.
• The Beijing professor Ding Zilin, whose son was killed in Tienanmen in 1989, is under close police surveillance and her visitors are being turned away by the police after she recently organised the mothers and wives of the Tienanmen victims to write the government an open letter.
• Liu Gang, 34, who was third on the post-Tienanmen "most wanted" list and released in June after six years in jail, was banned from holding a job with state firms or from receiving financial assistance from outside his immediate family. He must not travel outside his home place in Liaoyuan, Jilin province, for two years, must not speak to foreign reporters or have any contact with "enemies of the state" and must report every Saturday to the police his "ideological frame of mind".
• Chinese American Harry Wu, 58, is at the centre of a diplomatic row between China and the US after being arrested last month in Wuhan, central China. Wu, who spent 19 years in labour camps in China, had campaigned actively against the penalty — which is decided by administrators, not the courts — and the Chinese government’s selling of executed prisoners’ organs.
• Tibetan prisoner Lodroe Gyatso, 33, had six years added to his 15-year sentence for "instigating unrest in order to overthrow the government and split the motherland". He was found guilty for shouting slogans in Drapchi Prison in Lhasa, advocating independence for Tibet.
Some of the recently jailed have spent years in prisons. Wei Jingsheng is one of them. First jailed in 1979 for advocating greater democracy in China, Wei was rearrested last year following a brief spell of freedom after serving 14� years of a 15-year sentence. He was released at the height of bidding for the 2000 Olympics.
Wei was nominated by 58 members of the US Congress last year for the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize. Before being rearrested, he had been speaking to foreign journalists and publishing political writings.
Two campaigns were launched recently on his behalf. The Canadian Committee to Protect Journalists this month urged the Chinese government to release Wei without conditions. Six Nobel Peace Prize laureates also appealed to Beijing recently, demanding immediate legal and medical counsel for Wei.

1999

The ICFTU says that these are part of a series of recent attacks on independent trade unionism, and that it will be urging the UN Commission on Human Rights to adopt a resolution on China, at its next session which begins on March 22 in Geneva. The ICFTU will also be raising these cases with the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association
In the first of the two cases, Yue Tianxiang and Guo Xinmin tried to organise laid-off workers at a state company, and have been charged with subverting China’s communist-led government. If they are found guilty, they could be sentenced from 10 years to life imprisonment.
The two men had worked for the Tianshui City Auto Transport Company in western Gansu province for 20 years, but they, along with 1800 others were made redundant over the last three years. The company, which has debts of more than $US7million, stopped paying unemployment relief and medical benefits to the laid-off, or pensions to its retirees.
In January Yue and Guo began to organise the Chinese Workers Monitor to help colleagues demand overdue payments, but they were arrested by the police on January 11.
In another similar, but unrelated case, on January 20 Liu Tingchai and Yan Jinghong, two former railroad workers were sent to a labour camp for disrupting social order after they organised a large protest last year to demand unpaid salaries. The men have been sentenced to one and one-and-a-half years labour camp, respectively, to undergo re-education through hard labour. Both men had led a 500-strong protest on October 21 from the state-owned Peijiang iron and steel factory in Jiangyou town in Sichuan province demanding three months of back pay.
The subversion charges used against Yue Tianxiang and Guo Xinmin are increasingly used to punish dissidents. Courts used this to send three prominent democracy campaigners to prison in December in a Communist Party-ordered crackdown on dissent.
On December 21, a day after releasing labour activist Liu Nianchun from prison, two more dissidents, Xu Wenli and Wang Youcai, were sentenced to 13 and 11 years respectively for attempting to start the country’s first opposition party and calling for trade union freedom. Another dissident Xu Wangpin, was sentenced at the end of 1998 to three years in a Sichuan labour camp for disturbing the social order. Xu, a former factory worker, had already served eight years in prison for trying to organise an independent trade union during the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
Last November the ICFTU issued a report on Torture and ill-treatment of detained trade union rights and labour activists and their relatives, based on China’s reply to an ICFTU complaint at the ILO. The report described the standard procedure for dealing with independent trade union activists: arrest and sentence without any legal basis, followed by torture and denial of medical care in forced labour camps.
The ICFTU report, designed as an informal contribution to the EU-China human rights dialogue, was initially supposed to be discussed in Beijing by the ICFTU itself. But, last July, a top-level ICFTU delegation to China was called off at the last minute, when Beijing’s official trade union organisation said it would refuse to discuss the situation of trade union prisoners in China with senior international trade union leaders in the ICFTU delegation.
At the UN Commission, where the ICFTU will be raising the worsening situation of human and trade union rights in China, it will also be drawing the Commission’s attention to the grave trade union rights situation in 15 countries. These include South Korea, Burma, Belarus, Djibouti, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Guatemala and Ecuador.

2001

According to reports from Chongqing in China, police in Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan province, made a number of arrests during a sweep of the city for illegal organisations. Police raided the offices of the Chengdu branch of the Chinese Industrial Workers’ Alliance, situated at 171 Dongfeng Road, Chengdu. They confiscated written materials, computers and printing equipment and arrested three people. A simultaneous sweep at a number of factories in the area led to a further 14 arrests. All are detained at the city’s No.1 Detention Centre.

According to police sources, the arrests were part of a drive against underground trade unions and other organisations carrying out activities in the name of student societies, literary societies and migrant associations. The police said that many of these associations aim was to overthrow or oppose the government and that the arrests would deal with the "ringleaders". Police said that the masses would be encouraged to report on such societies and that the media should follow the rules and not report on the existence of such societies.

2008

On the eve of 3rd September several thousand people who had given money to the developers to the state government office to present their case, and in order to attract attention some of the people deliberately laid down on the rail tracks in the train station at Jishou for more than an hour as a sign of protest. (Jishou is an important mid-point along the rail route between Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and the capital, Beijing). They were forced to leave after officials and policemen came. During the morning of 4th September, the people massed together again, and this time the number of people may have reached as many as 20,000. They sat down on the ground as a sign of protest at the train station as well as at several main roads in the city, and more than 100,000 people came to watch them. This obstructed the rail and road transportation at Jishou. The local government called in mobile police forces from the nearby cities of Changsha, Huaihua and Zhangjiajie as reinforcements. The armed police violently engaged with the masses, the people threw stones and bottles at the police, while the police suppressed the masses with batons and tear gas. At the very least more than 30 people were injured and according to reports, 9 protestors were arrested by the police. At the moment, the entire city of Jishou is still under the supervision and control of the police. The local government has made an initial statement that they will try to solve the issue of the lost funds within the next 3 months.
At the same time, another mass incident occurred at Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang. A 14-year old youth fell to the ground and went into coma at one of the clothing factories in the region. As a result his family and more than 500 people from his home village went to the factory to protest, and this led to up to 10,000 people coming to view at the incident. According to reports more than 20 people were beaten by the police that arrived at the scene.
On the same day in the city of Shenqiu in Henan province, more than 2,000 high school students protested at the attempt by local property-developers to commercially develop by force the sports ground purchased from the city educational department. The local government used the police force to suppress the students, leading to 2 female students be injured, and a dozen or so people arrested.
Judging from the quantity and magnitude of the "mass incidents", the so-called "harmonious society" of China’s regime is nothing but a laughing stock. According to official statistics, in 2006 there were more than 90,000 such incidents in China, and in 2007 the number of incidents continued to rise. After this, incidents continued to happen, only with even greater frequency. According to incomplete statistical data, from the Weng’an incident in Guizhou province which occurred on 28th June this year (above 30,000 involved), there occurred one after another the Fugu incident in Shanxi province on 8th (which involved more than 1,000 people), the incident at the county of Menglian in Yunnan province on 19th July (again, involving more than 1000 people), and the mass protest at the District of Chaoyang in Beijing due to the presence of a landfill site that posed an environmental threat to the local populace (with around 500 people getting involved). And on 4th September there occurred the large-scale mass protests in the three provinces of Hunan, Zhejiang and Henan mentioned above.
Hundreds of taxi drivers in the tourist resort of Sanya, in Hainan province, went on strike for four days last week. In Yongdeng, a county in Gansu Province, another 160 cab drivers ended a similar action after 48 hours, having received assurances from the county government that it would crackdown on unlicensed cabs.
“There were no taxis in service in Sanya on Wednesday, and dozens of cab drivers were still gathered at the government headquarters,” the official Xinhua news agency reported. As in Chongqing, where 8,000 drivers staged a highly visible strike the week before, clashes took place between strikers and drivers who refused to take part in the strike. In Sanya, 20 vehicles were reported damaged, and 28 strikers were arrested by police. Official media reported 103 taxis were damaged and three police vehicles in Chongqing. The release of the arrested strikers became one of the main demands of the Sanya strike.
Thousands of workers from the Aigao Electronic Plant in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province went on strike on November 27 to protest raised food prices without consulting them. More than a thousand police arrived on the scene with dozens of dogs to repress them. Many workers were injured by the dogs and arrested.
A worker from the factory interviewed by The Epoch Times on November 28 said that workers left the plant on strike in the morning. He saw hundreds of police armed with anti-riot equipment blocking the road around the factory, and forced the workers back into the factory. Afterwards, the police went into the factory and stationed police on every floor of all the buildings. They forced the workers to resume work. During the day, the police beat some workers’ heads with batons and captured a dozen strike leaders.
Mr. Huang, one of the workers, said that many police vehicles arrived that day. There were many kinds of police, including special police, armed police, anti-explosive police, and public security officers. Police also instructed the dogs to bite workers and used batons to beat workers, including female workers. “The police seized the strike leaders, kicking and punching them and then dragged them into the police vehicles. Just during the time I was on the spot, I witnessed the police fill 7 or 8 police vehicles with workers and drive away, each car carried about a dozen workers.” He said.

2009

Tue, 17 Mar 2009. Yao Fuxin, 58, was released on Monday from a prison in Liaoning province
Vincent Kolo, chinaworker.info
Yao Fuxin (姚福信) was sentenced to seven years jail time for his part in massive workers’ protests in the northeastern industrial heartland of Liaoning province in the Spring of 2002. These protests by so-called xiagang (laid-off) workers from former state-owned enterprises (SOEs), shook the ‘communist’ authorities and were met with massive repression, hundreds of arrests, and the imprisonment, following closed trials, of Yao and another independent trade union activist Xiao Yunliang, who received a four year sentence.
Yao and Xiao were initially charged with “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order,” but that was later changed to the more serious charge of “subversion of state power”. In Yao’s case this was based on his alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party.
Labour rights campaigners, including the Committee for a Workers’ International and chinaworker.info, have protested about the inhuman treatment of both prisoners. On his release yesterday, Yao, who suffered beatings while in detention, had difficulty walking. Yao suffered two heart attacks and a stroke in prison. As the website Human Rights in China reports, "In the Liaoyang Detention Center, he and 19 other inmates were made to sleep on one bed. There, a guard named Lang arranged for two death-row prisoners to watch Yao. Every time Yao closed his eyes to sleep, the two prisoners would step on him.”
On his release yesterday, his daughter Yao Dan told reporters. “He is very happy to be out of prison. Right now he has no real plans other than recovering his health and treating his heart illness.”
“When he got out of prison, workers gave him a big banquet and thanked him for all the suffering he has gone through,” she said. Despite his release, Yao will still serve a three year deprivation of political rights, including the freedoms of speech, assembly and association. Given that these rights are non-existent in China, it means he will remain under continual surveillance and be prevented from speaking publicly about his case.
Gothenburg, Sweden 2004 : Protest in support of Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang and for independent trade unions in China, on the occasion of Vice Premier Wu Yi’s state visist to Sweden. Protest arranged by Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden).
2002 : “Beginnings of an independent labour movement”
The spring of 2002 saw mass workers’ struggles break out in the northeastern provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjang. This was the biggest mass movement in China since 1989, involving over 100,000 xiagang workers and their families in waves of demonstrations, sit-ins, road and rail blockades and mass meetings. As Human Rights Watch explained in a report, Paying the Price : Workers’ Unrest in Northeast China :
“It was the first time so many well-organised, laid-off workers and their sympathisers – in the tens of thousands – took to the streets simultaneously and sustained their protests for weeks rather than days... Instead of short-term, spontaneous protest limited to a group from one factory, one mine, or one school, worker leaders and representatives... through well thought out strategic goals and tactics, organised tens of thousands of protesters. Nor were the leaders – or the rank and file – reluctant to publicise that, yes, they had organised, and sufficiently so as to enable them to sustain their protests over weeks rather than hours”.
The most significant feature of these events was the appearance of unofficial – illegal – union committees or ‘provisional’ trade unions at the head of a mass movement. The Washington Post called this “the beginnings of an independent labour movement”.
The struggle in Liaoyang
In Liaoyang a movement led by Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang against the fraudulent closure of the state-owned Ferro-alloy Factory, spread to xiagang workers from at least 20 factories. This city of 1.8 million people experienced almost daily demonstrations over a ten-week period, starting on 11 March when an estimated 17,000 workers marched behind such slogans as, “The army of industrial workers wants to live !” and “It is a crime to embezzle pensions !”
On that day, the city’s mayor enraged workers when he told the press : “There is no unemployment in Liaoyang”. According to the demonstrators, 80 per cent the city’s workforce was either unemployed or xiagang.
Rather than a spontaneous outpouring, the protests of 2002 showed a degree of organisation and coordination. Underground committees were formed and representatives were elected. In Liaoyang organised links were established with xiagang workers from other industries. Worker activists undertook mass propaganda work using leaflets in some cases, but mainly posters, which were set up, illegally of course, in workers’ districts and at factory gates.
On 18 March, 30,000 Liaoyang workers demonstrated with placards declaring, “We have a government of hooligans”. This was following the arrest of Yao Fuxin, their union representative. This was also the beginning of a wave of repression with hundreds of arrests and detentions. From this, the Public Security Bureau selected two activists, Yao and Xiao, to make an example of. Their subsequent trials were a sham, with even their families denied access to the court sessions.
18 March 2009:
The ITUC, together with the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), welcomes the release of Mr. Yao Fuxin, a labour activist from Liaoning province, after serving his seven years’ prison term on conviction of “subversion of State power”.
On March 16, 2009, Mr. Yao Fuxin was released from Lingyuan n°2 Prison, Liaoning province, considered as one of the harshest prisons in China and where most detainees are political prisoners.
Before his detention, Mr. Yao was one of China’s most outspoken labour activists. In 1998, he joined others to petition the central government against corruption at the Liaoyang Ferro-Alloy Factory. In May 2001, the factory’s workers alleged that the robbery of 2,000 tons of iron ore at the factory had been led by local court officials and that the subsequent bankruptcy of the factory had been orchestrated by the factory’s leaders in collusion with the local government. Mr. Yao and other workers had demanded a full investigation that was never conducted.
In March 2002, Mr. Yao, then spokesperson of the newly founded All-Liaoyang Bankrupt and Unemployed Workers’ Provisional Union, was arrested along with Mr. Xiao Yunliang (who was released in February 2006, three weeks before completing his four-year prison sentence) for having led a peaceful demonstration against corruption and the non-payment of overdue wages and pensions – a demonstration that gathered at least 5,000 workers from six factories in Liaoyang (Liaoning province). According to Human Rights in China (HRIC), Mr. Yao was initially charged with “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order” and then sentenced in May 2003 to seven years in prison for “subversion of State power” for alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party.
“We welcome the release of Mr. Yao, but we regret that such release occurred following the completion of his seven years’ prison term, and came along with a period of three years of deprivation of political rights, including freedoms of speech, assembly, and association. We further urge the Chinese authorities to release immediately - and without conditions - all human rights defenders in the PRC currently deprived of liberty because of their human rights activities. Such detentions are arbitrary, and contrary to the 1998 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders,” said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.
“It is also important to point out that throughout Mr. Yao’s detention, the latter was held in precarious conditions, sustained serious acts of ill-treatment and witnessed a deterioration of his health status. We recall that torture and ill-treatment constitute a violation of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which China is a State party and which triggers individual criminal responsibility. Accordingly, we urge the Chinese authorities to take meaningful action to prevent and punish the use of torture so as to conform with China’s international human rights obligations,” added Eric Sottas, OMCT Secretary General.
Throughout his detention, Mr. Yao sustained two heart attacks and a stroke, and suffered from malnutrition and from cold in winter. Mr. Yao was also obliged to sleep with 19 other inmates on one bed, and was watched by a guard who ordered two death-row prisoners to step on him every time he was about to sleep.
“We welcome the release of Yao Fuxin,” said Guy Ryder, ITUC General Secretary, “but at the same time we have to bear in mind that many other labour rights activists remain in detention in China, often in appalling conditions. The fundamental rights of Chinese workers to freedom of association and collective bargaining are still being denied by the authorities, and we call upon them to respect these rights, enshrined in ILO Conventions, in full."
The ITUC and the Observatory urge the Chinese authorities to release all human rights defenders arbitrarily detained in the People’s Republic of China, to put an immediate end to any kind of harassment against them, and to investigate all cases of torture or ill-treatment so that those responsible can be brought to justice and sanctioned according to law.

2010

Shaanxi: Support the arrested Maoist trade unionist activist Zhao Dongmin

Calling for leftist forces everywhere to support Zhao Dongmin, as he was secretly sentenced to 3 years in prison by the Chinese government

Shi Chuan, Chinaworker

According to the reports on the internet and by the "Voice of Americe" (VOA), the Zhao Dongmin case that was originally planned to continue on 25 October has already received a final verdict in secret. On Wednesday 20 October the lawyer representing Zhao Dongmin received the final verdict from the court, which has given a 3 year sentence to Zhao on the grounds of his "crime" of "disrupting social order". Zhao has already been transferred from the local police station to the prison.

Zhao Dongmin was originally arrested last August due to his creation of the "Masses’ Congress (Preparatory Stage) for the Trade Unions of Public and Private Enterprises in Shaanxi Province" and his direct participation in the collective appeals by the workers of state-owned enterprises in order to defend their rights. During the subsequent year or so he was held illegally by the police, and his case has caught the widespread attention of Maoists and other leftists in general when it formally opened on 25 September this year. The local government acted as if it was facing a major enemy force and arrested several people who went to the court to protest against Zhao’s arrest.

After the conclusion of the first stage of the trial, many leftist forums within China continued to voice their support and protest, and several focus groups supporting Zhao were also created around the country. According to certain reports, as of yet there are already more than 10,000 people who signed the petitions for Zhao’s release, including retired Maoists within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), unemployed workers, peasants who lost their lands in China, and leftists from Taiwan and other parts of the world. During the last 2 weeks, in cities such as Luoyang and Zhengzhou, Maoist activists organised several mass meetings to support Zhao Dongmin. On 18 October, Zhao’s family went to Beijing to meet with a few old retired Maoist cadres of the CCP, and hired the head of the Yitong legal agency in Beijing, Li Jinsong, replacing Zhao’s original Shaanxi-based defence lawyer. Li Jinsong is a lawyer famous for defending worker’s rights in China, he once acted as the defence lawyer for Yang Jia as well as for other similar cases. On 19 October, Li Jinsong met with Zhao Dongmin who was under arrest.

Recently the various supporters of Zhao Dongmin not only created a propaganda base on the internet, but also planned to organise people to go to Xi’an to show their support for Zhao once the case re-opens on 25 October. Perhaps due to its fear of another mass demonstration, the local government reached a final verdict in secret days before the first planned second stage hearing date of 25 October, so that another "mass incident" can be avoided. Now Zhao’s family has already arrived in Xi’an, and is currently discussing how to further deal with this case with his defence lawyer.

For more information on Zhao Dongmin’s case please see the report published on 28 September by Chinaworker: The Case of Zhao Dongmin in Shaanxi: State repression in China: The Case of Zhao Dongmin, leftist trade unionist

In recent years, faced with the massive gaps between the rich and the poor, rampant corruption as well as social disorder that has been brought about by the capitalist "opening up reforms", the masses of China have already for a long time been filled with the sentiments of anger and indignation. But in order to preserve their own rule the one-party dictatorship of the bureaucratic regime of the CCP has continued to brutally suppress any kind of social or mass power that can potentially challenge itself. Regardless of whether it’s right-wing liberals like Liu Xiaobo or left-wing Maoists and trade unionists like Zhao Dongmin, a harsh and secretive court procedure is followed at all times. Due to severe income inequality and social disorder, among certain sections of the masses in China, especially among the workers of ex-state-owned enterprises, there is a growing skepticism against the current regime and a yearning sentiment for the old Maoist era. This phenomenon is especially evident in the "second tier" industrialised cities of China, such as Zhengzhou, Taiyuan, Luoyang and Xi’an. Maoists in these places often hold meetings and other activities on the special anniversary dates for Mao Zedong, the People’s Republic of China and the CCP, in order to protest against the capitalist opening-up reforms. As a result of this, the police forces of the Chinese government also keep a very careful eye on the Maoists and their political activities, especially those that are relatively organised. Since the arrest of Zhao Dongmin and members of the Maoist Communist Party of China (MCPC) last year, this year there were further clashes between Maoist masses and the police in places like Zhengzhou and Luoyang.

Although Chinaworker does not agree with the ideas of Zhao Dongmin and other Maoists and their call for a return to the dictatorial regime of the Maoist era and the restoration not only of the planned economy but also the bureaucratic one-party dictatorship of the CCP, we firmly oppose the actions of the current CCP regime and its violation of basic democratic rights of the Chinese working class and the masses in general, as well as its suppression of workers’ movements across China. We also support the activities of Zhao Dongmin and other leftists that promote grassroots level workers’ rights and organisations.

According to the reports of the Japanese newspaper "Asahi" on 30 July, from mid-May to late-July this year, there were at least 43 strikes in China, 70% of which (32 strikes) occurred in Japanese enterprises. This figure doesn’t include the "chain strikes" that involved more than 20 enterprises in the industrial zone of Dalian that continued for more than a month, including much of July. This recent wave of strikes is the most significant and influential one in China ever since the big wave of privatisation of state-owned enterprises and the massive lay-off of workers that happened in 2002. Therefore, some leftists in China have called May this year "Red May", and different political tendencies have engaged in various analyses and debates around this strike wave both within and outside of China.

On 17 May, more than 1000 workers at the Honda plant in Foshan engaged in strike action, and raised the demands of "increasing wages and restructuring the trade unions". After a period of strikes that stretched for over half a month, it only ended just before the ultra-sensitive date of June the 4th and the anniversary for the Tiananmen incident. Through resisting against the local government, the capitalists and the government-run trade union and their actions of harassment and suppression, this strike action achieved certain positive results in a limited sense. The workers acquired a 24% - 32% increase in wages (around 500 RMB). After this, from Guangdong to North China, from the coastal regions to the great interior, from foreign-capital companies to state-owned enterprises, strike waves have spread around the entire country like wild fire.

Strikes have occurred in at least 9 Honda plants around China, as well as in Toyota and Nissan plants. For instance, on 17 June, a strike action occurred at the Xingguang rubber and plastics company in Tianjin that is owned by Toyota; on 18 June, strikes occurred at a Toyota synthesis plant in the same city. At the same time, a strike happened at the Gaowei metallugy factory in Wuhan that services Honda plants, as well as a factory that produces componenets for Nissan cars located in Zhongshan of Guangdong province. In mid-June at a subsidary IPO enterprise of Foxconn located in the Pudong district of Shanghai, there emerged a "quasi-general strike" against the plan to relocate the factory. Several hundred workers in the rubber industry working for KOK International in Kunshan of Jiangsu province engaged in a strike on Friday 4 June. In Shaanxi province, 900 workers at the Japanese-owned Brothers company that produces industrial sewing machines engaged in a street demonstration that lasted from 3 June to 10 June. At the moment, strikes have not just happened in foreign-owned multi-nationals, but also in state-owned enterprises such as the Qianjiang gear transmission factory in Chongqing, at which a strike action occurred at around the same time as the strikes in Foshan.

Since the end of June, "chain strikes" that have lasted for several months and involved tens of thousands of workers have occurred at more than 20 enterprises in the special economic zone in Dalian. This is the biggest wave of strikes ever since the "chain strikes" that happened at the same location in September 2005. The strikes in 2005 happened due to the lack of wage increases for over a decade at the numerous Japanese-owned factories and enterprises within the Dalian special economic zone, which led to massive anger among the working class there. The strike at the time also touched on many basic issues of workers’ basic political and economic rights, such as the mechanism for changing wages, collective contracts and the rights of trade union representatives etc. None of these had been successfully solved at the time. According to online reports and relevant statistical figures, ever since June this year, most of the strike waves in Dalian involved world-famous Japanese enterprises, such as Mabuchi Motors, Yiguang Towels, Nidec Machinery, Mattel, Star Micronics, Roybi, Cnailisi, Toshiba, Toto, Canon, YKK, Float Glass, Yas-Yamatake, Fuji Plastics, Asahi Keiki, Mitsukoshi, Hayakawa, Nakamura-Tome Precision Industry, Tostem Construction and Takachiho.

In fact, this new round of strikes did not just occur in China. As "Voice of America" reported, this summer low-wage slaves across many south-east Asian countries engaged in struggles to fight for basic economic rights. The minimum wage has not been increased in Bangladesh for the last 4 years and the working conditions there are extremely harsh. The massive inflation that occured in 2006 meant an actual reduction in real income for most workers. In July this year, massive strike waves by workers that demanded wage rises turned into mass riots. In addition, multiple instances of workers’ strike actions occurred in India, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam, which forced their respective governments to raise the minimum wage levels. During the periods of rapid economic progress in these regions, capitalists and governments have acquired massive profits, but workers have yet to see any real benefits from it. On the other hand inflation and the current economic crisis have caused direct problems for the lower layers of workers, especially in areas such as food and housing which are the most basic necessities of life.

In China itself, due to extreme neo-liberal capitalist economic policies, workers’ wages as a proportion of GDP have decreased continuously for 22 years, from 67% in 1983 to 37% in 2005. These figures show which class has really paid for these "capitalist reforms". According to the figures released by China’s own government-controlled trade unions, nearly a quarter of Chinese workers have received absolutely no increase in their wage levels over the last 5 years. In fact, labour costs are only a very small amount of the overall costs of multi-national companies based in China.

In 2008 the economic crisis began, and in order to reduce the risk to capital, the CCP regime and the capitalist class freezed the minimum wage, reduced overall wage levels and began to lay-off workers. This meant that Chinese workers who have already been massively exploited faced the brunt of the crisis. As the first stage of the economic crisis drew to a close, due to the fact that it became very difficult to find high-profit sectors for investment and the expansion of production, capital due to its intrinsic nature of forever chasing after profits must begin to invest in relatively low-risk sectors, therefore the property market as well as the daily circulation of ordinary consumer goods became venues for opportunistic investment by capitalists, and as a result this has caused significant levels of inflation.

Although the official CPI index published by the National Statistics Bureau in July 2010 is only 3.3%, but according to the views of Finance professor Michael Pettis at Beijing University, during the first half of this year the actual rate of inflation in China is as high as 6% or more. Committee member Yu Yongding at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has also commented that the official CPI figure does not really reflect the actual inflation of goods prices in China. Therefore, people in China have commented about how due to opportunistic investment, the prices of very basic goods like garlic, green peas and black beans can increase by several times on the Chinese market, and the prices of many fruits and meat products have raised by 20%. Since the start of this year, costs of medical products and housing rents have also increased significantly.

Under this kind of situation, struggles for basic rights can only occur within the workplaces, and therefore strike action has become the primary vehicle for struggle. Due to differences in education levels, social views and economic prosperity, we can see from the latest wave of strikes the vibrant new spirits of the new generation of workers who were born in the 1980s and 1990s in China. The internet, computers and mobile phones are an integral part of the communication tools used by the new generation of youths, and various internet chat rooms and forums have become a basic platform for new workers to interact with one another. At present there are over 200 million users of the chat program QQ, and most of these are from the ordinary and young wage-earning classes. Mobile QQ and text messaging have become important tools for workers to exchange information and to communicate. Through talking with some workers who have participated in the strikes, one can discover that they have some knowledge of the relevant labour laws as well, and have a clear consciousness to seek out the opinions of the media and specialists. Some workers also have some understanding of the importance of trade unions and the need for independent unions in China. For example, during the strikes by Honda workers at Hainan, many workers have repeatedly raised the slogans of "restructuring the trade unions" and "elect trade union representatives". Although the majority of workers have not really accepted socialism in general, there is already a class-wide consciousness based on united struggle.

An employee at the Taiwanese-owned KOK enterprise in Kunshan of Jiangsu province clearly wrote in his "The heart-felt opinions of an employee": "Solidarity equals strength, and only through struggle is there hope. At far we have the "end of year" prizes, nearer there are the examples of Honda and Foxconn. These all serve as our exemplars and symbols of strength for us." From this one can clearly see the spirit of class solidarity and struggle, and the clear consciousness workers possess of the importance of fighting for basic rights. If leftists cannot recognise these clear signs of consciousness, then it would be a mistaken understanding of the Chinese workers’ movement in general.

According to the views of orthodox Maoists in China, these economic struggles by the "new workers" of China do not challenge the basic ownership rights of capital, and they are at most a kind of "trade unionist" consciousness, a manifestation of "proto-revolutionary awareness". Also these young workers are generally "individualistic, short-sighted, slothful, selfish and disorganised". They are different from the "old workers" who have experienced the Maoist period, who are much more "class-conscious" and "politically aware". But aren’t this kind of discriminatory views towards the "new workers" of China similar to how the capitalists view workers? The negative views some new workers in China have towards "the old stagnant Maoist socialist flag" indeed reflect Maoism’s own problems.

In addition, the "revolutionary old workers" promoted by Maoists are getting old both individually and as a class, and are weakening politically, and will eventually exit the arena of history. Capitalists with the aid of time is silently destroying them, they are the remanent memories of the last instance of deformed revolution and the swan songs of the last defeat of class warfare. Even when, in the future, genuine socialism where workers democratically control all enterprises is truly established, these enterprises would still be very different from the "state-owned enterprises" of the Maoist era. But now we wish to give our utmost respect to the "old workers" of China who are "roaring their last" and continuing the struggles against capitalism. Their determined struggles during this most difficult period have demonstrated the fighting spirit of the Chinese working class which possesses a glorious revolutionary tradition.

Of course, the "new workers" have yet to develop a fully mature class consciousness, but at the same time they have not been influenced by the old bureaucratised workers’ movements and Maoism. As the primary force of the Chinese working class in general both today and in the future, they shall become the main fighting force of the Chinese worker’s movement. As Lenin pointed out: "We are the party of the future, and the future belongs to the youth. We are a party of innovators, and it is always the youth that most eagerly follows the innovators. We are a party that is waging a self-sacrificing struggle against the old rottenness, and youth is always the first to undertake a self-sacrificing struggle."

As the "Socialist" magazine already pointed out in related articles published in 2009, the class structure of Chinese society has undergone the most fundamental changes as the largest capitalist industrialisation and urbanisation in all of human history is occurring in China as we speak. Although the hukou system that segregates urban and rural populations which was created to better control the flow of labour still exists, and in theory rural populations still comprises 60% of the Chinese population, but the actual percentage of rural populations in China is only around 30%, and agriculture only consists of 5% of the overall GDP. Around 300-400 million people with rural hukou are already increasingly separate from rural production and living styles in the concrete sense, this is especially true for the tens of millions of "new workers" (the second or third generation of rural migrant labourers born in the 1980s and 1990s). These youths around 20 years of age have had a medium level of education, and although their hukou is still officially rurual, many of these people have never really experienced what it is like to live in the villages. More importantly, subjectively they will never define themselves as "genuinely rural". Indeed, due to discrimination they would usually not identify themselves as "urban dwellers", but this does not affect their self-identification as "workers". According to a report published in 2009 in Guangdong province, around 81% of all "new workers" identify as workers.

As Engels described to his letter addressed to Sorge, "China remains to be conquered by capitalist production. But when it finally conquers China, it will find that it can no longer exist in its own country. In China millions of people will be forced to live their home. They will migrate to Europe, and in great amounts. And as competition among the Chinese increases in scale, it will rapidly radicalise the situation where you are and where I am. This way, as capitalism conquers China it will also cause the collapse of capitalism in Europe and the Americas."

Engels’ prediction is largely correct. In the neo-colonial world led by China, including India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in Asia as well as Africa and Latin America, and parts of Eastern Europe, one could indeed see that hundreds of millions of people have left their original homes to be concentrated at the production bases in coastal industrial regions where global capital is at its greatest focus. But relatively speaking only a small minority of labourers have actually been exported both legally and illegally to developed industrial nations. Due to the "low labour cost enslavement" placed upon them by capital and the "race to the bottom" effects that is evident on the international level, radicalisation has been initiated in the advanced Western nations, as well as massive scale de-industrialisation, but so far none of these are sufficient for the economic collapse of capitalism in advanced Western nations.

Capital, as the primary force for the entire capitalist market, can indeed flow everywhere, but it is not omnipotent. Capital has as its primary goal the maximisation of profits, and centred around this key principle it would seek to manage the various other major productive elements, but at the same time it is inevitably limited by the boundaries of the nation-state as well as by geographical conditions, technological development levels and resource availability. Due to the division of the world into various capitalist nation-states and the competition between the capitalist classes of different nations, labour power cannot truly flow freely on an international basis. This means although capital can flow freely in the world, labour cannot, but rather they are all concentrated in certain newly emerging coastal industrial areas that have both cheap labour costs and efficient transportation systems. In order to cut down labour costs as much as possible to extract as much surplus value as it is possible to do so, in the millions of "sweat-and-blood" factories in these areas, it is almost as if we have returned to the industrial age of more than 100 years ago. Extremely low wages, difficult to maintain the production cycle beyond the most basic of living costs; extremely bad working conditions and simple repetitive labour tasks, more than a dozen hours everyday, without a single day off for many weeks; dozens of people squeezed together in cheap dormitories, with bad quality food; no proper employment contracts; no proper health and safety measures, so that if accidents do happen, in most cases one can only admit that he/she is just "unfortunate". This kind of conditions is indeed possible to make people mad or even drive them to suicide, as demonstrated by the chain of suicides by workers at Foxconn.

As the "communist" bureaucratic Chinese government lost economic vitality due to the deformation produced by the Maoist planned economy, in order to find a way forward the bureaucratic bloc in the government embarked on a path of complete capitalist restoration as it allied itself to global capital. In order to guarantee both its political reign and the process of capitalist restoration, the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese state has banned all possibilities of any organisations challenging its rule or its policies. It is especially aware of the potential power and energy of the organised working class. This is why as the 1989 Tiananmen democratic movement developed to the stage of workers going onto the streets, the Chinese government decided to suppress it bloodily using military force.

Therefore, in order to further develop the capitalist economy and to guarantee the interests of the bureaucratic ruling bloc, the regime is using suppression to limit any kind of fight-back by the working class. Not just strikes and demonstrations, but even demands for wages, going to court and suicides would be deemed as "evil" and be brutally suppressed. The capitalist rulers of various other nations have also used their co-operation with the Chinese dictatorial bureacuratic government to maximise their own profits and interests. Today, the People’s Republic of China that still flies a "socialist banner" is the largest modern "sweat-and-blood factory" in human history, and hundreds of millions of workers have been enslaved, oppressed and exploited. The capitalist economic development of China has also become the main experimental arena for global neo-liberal capitalist policies as well as the main driving force behind capitalist globalisation in general.

Before the current historical economic crisis, the bureaucratic regime of China and the various capitalist nation-states of the world believed that they can continue to exploit and oppress the working class without any need to pay anything back, and the restoration of capitalism in China will continue to deepen. The "Socialist" magazine and the Committee For a Workers’ International (CWI) have always recognised that the current economic crisis is of the highest historical importance. It would continue in the long-term and will probably also experience several dips and repeated economic shocks. Just like the global economic crisis in 1929 that continued for over a decade, and due to the defeat of the global proletarian revolution at the time, in the end the capitalist system used the most barbaric mechanism of a world war to get itself out of the economic crisis. What severe consequences today’s economic crisis can cause would to a large extent depend on the balance of power between the struggling classes on a global scale.

Workers who have continuously been heavily oppressed and exploited will certainly not be satisfied to forever remain in these conditions. Labour power comes from workers with subjective self-awareness, not just machines that can be manipulated at will by capitalists. Faced with their inevitable role as "wage slaves", it is natural that the working class will continue to fight back. In today’s environment of capitalist globalisation, faced with the global economic crisis and the attempts by capitalists to make workers pay for it, the working class of the neo-colonial countries of Asia have produced a clear signal through their collective struggles: workers do not wish to become the sacrificial victims of rapid economic development, they shall work together in solidarity and fight against the capitalists who are trying to make workers bear the burden of the current economic crisis.

Socialists should follow what Trotsky has always stressed in his "Transitional Programme": "As the capitalist system is facing collapse, the masses are continuingly living under the conditions of oppressive poverty, and now more than ever face the prospects of the depths of extreme poverty. The masses must fight to protect their every mouthful of bread, even if they cannot at present increase its amount or improve its quality. In the struggle for partial and transitional demands, the workers now more than ever before need mass organizations, principally trade unions. The powerful growth of trade unionism in France and the United States is the best refutation of the preachments of those ultra-left doctrinaires who have been teaching that trade unions have “outlived their usefulness.”

The Bolshevik-Leninist stands in the front-line trenches of all kinds of struggles, even when they involve only the most modest material interests or democratic rights of the working class. He takes active part in mass trade unions for the purpose of strengthening them and raising their spirit of militancy. He fights uncompromisingly against any attempt to subordinate the unions to the bourgeois state and bind the proletariat to “compulsory arbitration” and every other form of police guardianship – not only fascist but also “democratic."

Yes, brutal exploitation and bloody suppression will continue, and there will be temporary set-backs, but none of these would in the end stop the progress of society, and obstruct the awakening of the proletariat and their fight-back. We of course cannot expect the final class war to be decided overnight in a single battle, but to hold out like forest trees the hundreds of millions of fists of labour to declare the awakening of this giant, the new generation of workers in China will fulfill their historical destiny through incomparable courage and wisdom, and through their struggles for their own rights and the solidarity of the proletarian class as a whole.

2011

China: ‘Jasmine Revolution’ threat rattles one-party dictatorship
Wednesday, 23 February 2011.
“The party is very, very nervous, way beyond their normal level of anxiety.”

Dikang, chinaworker.info

These were hardly the actions of a secure, self confident regime. The call on Chinese language micro-blogging sites for gatherings last Sunday, February 20, to support a “Jasmine Revolution” brought forth an overwhelming pre-emptive show of force by state security forces. Tens of thousands of police were mobilised in more than 20 cities. Dozens of lawyers, activists and dissidents were arrested, and internet censorship was stepped up. This was the biggest crackdown since October when dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Despite this, incredibly, there were small protest gatherings in Beijing and Shanghai. Otherwise the event was more of a ‘shadow’ of potential unrest rather than the real thing. Still this ‘shadow’ clearly rattled the state apparatus.

The mysterious online initiative, which first surfaced on US-based Boxun.com, sought to emulate the revolutionary movements in the Arab world and put forward the slogans, “we want food, we want work, we want housing, we want fairness” – all of which are common grievances in China.

“Whether you are the parents of kidney stone babies, relocated households, retired soldiers, private teachers, buy-out offer employees, laid-off workers, petitioners... we are all Chinese. You and I still have a dream about China’s future. We should be responsible for the future of our own and children,” the posting on the Boxun site said.

Net censorship – more to come

Despite massive censorship and a block on keywords like “Egypt” and “Jasmine Revolution”, millions of internet-savvy Chinese are scaling the regime’s “Great Firewall” controls and eagerly following the mighty revolutionary tide against despotism in North Africa and the Middle East. This sympathy and excitement about these revolutions does not of course automatically translate into a movement on the streets, even inside the world’s biggest dictatorship, with its own stark inequality not so different to that which is fuelling revolt in the Arab world. China is different in one crucial respect: the degree and sophistication of internet and telecommunications controls exceeds anything seen elsewhere. Mobile SMS messages and not just the internet can be filtered by authorities to block kewords and to monitor and intercept those calling for mobilisation. Relieved by Sunday’s “no show” by protesters in most cities, official media mocked the small turnouts in Beijing and Shanghai as no more than “street theatre”. But the real attitude of the ruling Communist Party was spelt out by Li Datong, a retired editor with the party-run China Youth Daily: “The party is very, very nervous, way beyond their normal level of anxiety.”

Sunday’s call to the streets may even have been a hoax (some suspect the security forces themselves). Most likely the anonymous call to action came from overseas Chinese dissidents. These groupings are mostly bourgeois liberal and pro-US in outlook, and have no real connection with the spontaneous protest movements that have developed inside China in recent years. But then again, similar currents of opinion have been one of the many strands involved in the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere.

In several cities named in the Boxun.com posting nothing seems to have happened, which is not surprising in itself. But it is the massive repressive response of the police and security forces to this first flicker of protest linked explicitly to Middle Eastern events, that says most about the current psychology of China’s rulers. It is clear they have been shaken by the speed and audacity of the mass movements in Egypt, Tunisia and now Libya, and consequently are taking nothing for granted.

“The uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya have shaken some Communist Party leaders in showing how quickly autocrats can lose control in the face of overwhelming populist anger,” noted the Los Angeles Times.

Top-level meetings

A high-level meeting of Politburo members took place already on February 12, the day after Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was toppled. This was to discuss how to manage the effects of the crisis in the Middle East in propaganda terms. Among the measures to come out of this conclave were plans for even tighter internet controls and “the possibility that part of the Internet will be shut down”.

This was followed by an even more significant gathering of top leaders on Saturday and Sunday, February 19-20. To this meeting all provincial, ministerial and military leaders were summoned by the central government. “This is not the kind of meeting they hold if everything is going well,” said Beijing-based China expert Russell Leigh Moses.

President Hu Jintao and Vice President Xi Jinping were present and sought to impress the urgency of the new situation on provincial bosses. The latter should “properly understand the new changes and characteristics of the domestic and international situation,” Xinhua quoted Hu Jintao as saying. The president listed eight measures to be taken, including beefing up controls and management of cyberspace aimed at “perfecting our mechanisms for the channelling of public opinion online”. He also reminded his audience that despite double-digit GDP growth, the economy faces risks from “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development”, and warned the country is “still at a stage where many conflicts are likely to arise”

Addressing the same conference on Sunday, China’s top security minister Zhou Yongkang urged officials to improve “social management” and “strive to defuse conflicts and disputes while they are still embryonic”. Zhou called for the establishment of a national database to store basic information on all citizens. This heralds even greater government spending on state repression. Since 2008 the Beijing regime’s spending on internal security has risen dramatically and is now almost on a par with defence spending. It is more than the total health budget.

Small protests, big crackdown

Zhou’s pre-emptive approach was very much in evidence as small crowds responded to the online appeal for a “Jasmine Revolution”. At 2pm on Sunday, several hundred people reportedly gathered outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Wangfujing, a busy pedestrian shopping area close to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The crowd was dispersed within an hour, with two men arrested according to Xinhua. In Shanghai a crowd of around 100 gathered at a cinema near the People’s Square.

“I’m here to demand that they end one-party rules soon as possible… so they won’t be able to carry out arbitrary arrests,” a Shanghai protester was quoted in the South China Morning Post (February 21). “The government are all hooligans”, shouted a woman at the same gathering.

In other cities targeted in the online appeal, such as Tianjin, Chengdu and Guangzhou, little seems to have happened apart from huge police mobilisations. Human rights groups estimated that up to 100 activists in cities across China were detained by police, confined to their homes or have gone missing. The Hong Kong-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said it had received information that universities in Shaanxi and Jiangsu had been ordered to close their gates and prevent students from leaving campus. The text messaging service of China Mobile was out of action in Beijing on Sunday – for an ‘upgrade’ according to the company. It has been a normal tactic to suspend such services in politically tense areas to frustrate organisation. This was the case with mass anti-pollution protests in Xiamen in 2007 and in last year’s unrest in Xinjiang.

Beijing human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping, whose law firm represented Liu Xiaobo, said he had been visited at home by state security officers on Sunday who asked him about his “opinions on Egypt and Tunisia.”

“I said if we don’t speed up political reform, it’ll be very dangerous,” he said.

The official media are already cranking up their propaganda response to such calls for faster “reform”. An editorial in Monday’s Global Times newspaper urged patience, saying the government has the goal of becoming “a modern country governed by political democracy. It just needs several more decades to realise this ambition.”

Such promises of change “later” fool few people in China. Another favourite theme of the regime-controlled media is to dwell on the “instability” and “violence” of the mass movements in the Middle East, and the negative effects on business in particular. One would think China had never had a revolution. Yet this October sees the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Xinhai revolution, which ended China’s imperial dynasty and established Asia’s first republic. This was overshadowed by the even more powerful revolutionary movement of workers and peasants in 1925-27 and the revolution of 1949 which overthrew feudalism and also for a period capitalism. The Chinese regime’s stress on “harmonious development” echoes the propaganda of Arab dictators Mubarak and Gaddafi, that they are all that stands between “civilisation” and “anarchy”.

A social time bomb

“This shows just how nervous and how insecure the Chinese government is,” says Wang Songlian, of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group in Hong Kong. “It is aware of how many forms of grievances are in society that are simmering despite the prosperity on the surface.”

The Chinese leaders are sitting on a social time bomb, no different fundamentally from the situation of Mubarak, Ben Ali and other beleaguered dictators. There is huge accumulated anger everywhere after decades of privatisations, neo-liberal attacks, an unprecedented wealth gap and rampant corruption. This is the “fuel” along with the hatred of autocratic rule that is driving the revolution in the Arab world.

In China there have been more than 90,000 “mass incidents” in each of the last four years according to official data. Peasant protests against corrupt officials in league with property tycoons have skyrocketed in tandem with soaring land prices – last year struck a new record of over 50,000 illegal land grabs. At the same time the gap between rich and poor is more extreme in China even than in Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia. The economic “miracle” which has become a legend of our time excludes huge sections of the population such as the rural majority.

Government figures released on January 20 show that rural per capita net income rose 10.9 percent to 5,919 yuan last year. This is hailed as great progress. But it still means that 750 million rural Chinese must eke out a living on 898 US dollars per year – or 2.4 dollars a day! And this is the average figure. A minority (some millions of wealthier farmers) get considerably more than this while the majority (some 100s of millions of ordinary poor peasants and landless rural labourers) actually get less. A survey published this week by the puppet official trade union shows that average salaries for “second generation” migrant workers, the backbone of last year’s historic strike wave, are 10 percent lower than “first generation” of migrants earned in the 1980s and early ‘90s, in real terms.

The Chinese regime is frantically stocking its state armouries and expanding the technical capacities of its more than 40,000 internet cops. But if the last seven weeks or revolution in the Middle East have taught anything it is that once the people lose their fear, no amount of repression can succeed against them.

Strike and blockade by Shanghai truck drivers
Friday, 22 April 2011.
Blockade at world’s biggest container port • Mass arrests and police repression

Chinaworker.info reporters

Up to two thousand truck drivers have staged a three-day strike over rising fuel prices and cargo fees at the world’s busiest port in Shanghai. The drivers set up a blockade in the Pudong district of the city on 20 April, a particularly daring action in the midst of a state crackdown driven by the Chinese regime’s fears that a Middle Eastern-style popular uprising could develop out of smaller localised protests.

The drivers are in angry mood following several fuel price rises in recent months. About 2,000 truck drivers battled baton-wielding police at a road intersection near the port, reported Reuters, quoting two drivers who were at the protest. Strikers reportedly smashed the windows of trucks belonging to non-strikers on Wednesday, the first day of their action.

There were reports of several arrests and of strikers being beaten by police. Amid signs the strike action has already affected exports from the giant port, there are indications police will step up repression in a bid to end the strike. An AFP report, Friday 22 April, quoted a witness saying, “It’s chaotic here now. Policemen are coming with police cars ... they tried to disperse the people.”

Rising fuel prices and fees

The drivers, mostly private contractors, say their incomes have been squeezed by four increases in the government-set price of diesel since October. They are also protesting against the high handling fees charged by private logistics companies at the port. Drivers accuse the firms of price-fixing and complain bitterly that these increases undermine their possibilities to make a living. The most recent fuel price increase of 5.5 percent came two weeks ago, and this seems to have been the ‘final straw’ for the drivers. The government said the increases in diesel and gasoline prices – lifting them to a record high – were due to rising global crude oil prices as a result of uncertainty in the Middle East.

“The market is just a mess now,” one driver told Reuters. “We cannot make any money anymore,” said another.

Rumours have circulated to the effect that negotiations have been initiated but at this stage this appears not to be the case. “We are continuing our strike,” a 38-year-old truck driver surnamed Liu told Reuters. “There has been no response from the government or anybody else. There’s nothing we can do.”

On Thursday it was reported that 500 truck drivers headed to another Shanghai port, Yangshan, to spread the protest. State-controlled media has typically refused to report on the strike fearing such protests could spread to other sectors. A handful of online news sites that carried reports had deleted them after a short time, under orders from the propaganda office. Global Times – a government mouthpiece published in English for foreigners – did report the strike, quoting a denial from Shanghai police of claims on the Internet that three drivers had been beaten to death by police.

Possible effects – economic and political

The strike has already demonstrated the potential power of united action by workers, despite the difficulties this poses in a repressive police state like China. An executive based at the port told Reuters on Friday that the strike action was already having an effect on exports.

“The strike has delayed exports and many ships cannot take on a full load before leaving,” said Wei Yujun, of China Star Distribution Center (Shanghai) Co.

“For example, if one ship carries 5,000 containers en route to Hong Kong and the US, now they can only carry 1,000 or 2,000 containers,” Wei added.

Shanghai overtook Singapore last year to become the world’s largest container port by volume. The publicly listed Shanghai International Port (Group) Co Ltd is 44.23 percent owned by the Shanghai Municipal Government.

China’s rulers are intensely nervous about public unrest over rising prices, particularly following recent events in the Arab world. The consumer price index rose 5.4 percent year-on-year in March, which is the fastest pace for almost three years and well above the government’s 2011 target of 4 percent.

This is the second incident of large-scale unrest in Shanghai in a week. Last week saw a tense standoff between around 4,000 angry youth and police in the suburb of Jiuting. This shows the rising discontent – over price rises, unaffordable housing, aggressive policing and corrupt officials – even in China’s richest city.

As the New York Times commented, the Shanghai strike “also suggests that tensions are growing in China over the gulf between the nation’s tiny elite and its poor majority. Incomes are rising, but inflation is squeezing families and small business people like self-employed truckers, while profits at major state-owned companies are higher than ever.”

Taxi strikes 2008

There are similarities with this strike and the taxi drivers’ strike that erupted in the western city of Chongqing in 2008. That also centred on private contract drivers, although in reality these ‘independent’ operators – following the privatization of much local urban transportation – are virtually slaves of the big taxi companies and a harsh regime of licensing fees, which means most of their daily fare income is passed on to the bosses. The Chongqing strike triggered a wave of copycat strikes by taxi drivers and even bus drivers in over a dozen cities across China including Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Clearly, the authorities fear something similar may happen in this case. Shanghai media said Friday that car-rental fees paid by the city’s taxi drivers to taxi companies would be reduced starting May 1, in an apparent bid to keep the protests from spreading. Shanghai taxi drivers will pay their companies 8,200 yuan (US$1,262) each month, a reduction of 300 yuan, the Shanghai Daily reported.

The central government is also wary of a new wave of industrial strikes like those that shook the country’s export industry one year ago. Yet as many commentators point out, there is quite a high likelihood of more strikes this year.

“Workers have still not won the right to set up independent unions and this was the main demand of last year’s strikes in the motor industry,” said Chen Lizhi of chinaworker.info. “Now, price increases are cancelling out a large part of the wage rises that some workers have won in recent times. Food price inflation is officially 11.7 percent, and this alongside the rising fuel cost is what hits workers hardest, so a new outbreak of industrial unrest is only a question of time,” he said.