Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Chinese State Reactions to Labour Unrest

Abstract

What impact is the current rise in workplace conflict having on governance in China? This article argues that, over time, protests are driving the state in two directions at once: towards greater repression and greater responsiveness. Using an original dataset of strikes, protests and riots by Chinese workers between 2003 and 2012, along with government budgetary and judicial statistics, the article demonstrates that significant, positive correlations exist at the provincial level between increased unrest on the one hand and both increased spending on the People's Armed Police (repression) and increasing numbers of pro-worker and split decisions in mediation, arbitration and court cases (responsiveness) on the other. Feedback effects exist with regard to responsiveness, though: more cases in which workers win something in turn seem to spur greater unrest. The article closes by noting the changes since Xi Jinping took office and examining the implications of the findings for China's political development.

Editorial – Precarity, Platforms, and Agency: The Multiplication of Chinese Labour

“…This development might have created optimism over raising workers' consciousness and the potential of labour agency to pressure state and management (Pun and Lu 2009;Chan 2010: Froissart 2018. However, the Chinese labour movement has experienced "one step back," in the words of Elfstrom (2019), since President Xi Jinping took to power and the party-state adopted a hard-line policy over civil society (Howell and Pringle 2019). Meanwhile, the Chinese economy has slowed down since 2012, with many factories closing and relocating to Southeast Asia.…”

Different Demands, Varying Responses: Local Government Responses to Workers’ Collective Actions in South China

“…The finding from this chart resonates with those of other studies that have found that the Xi administration has adopted different approaches from the Hu–Wen administration in responding to workers’ collective actions. See, e.g., Fu and Distelhorst 2017; Elfstrom 2019.…”

Vanguard to Periphery: The CPC’s Changing Narrative on the Labour Question

“…The seeming advances made through the endowment of a growing array of individual rights for workers are, however, undermined by the continued absence of collective rights, namely the right to organise and strike (Chen 2007). In addition to this legal fix of 'rule by law', the Party-state also uses its 'responsive and repressive capacities'-welfare concessions and some experimentation with democratic elections to trade unions (such as in Guangdong), on the one hand, and the use of public security apparatus and agencies to quell protests, on the other-to meet labour unrest (Elfstrom 2019b).…”