{"article":{"id":20719,"heading":"Class Struggle in China -Organise! AF (Britain\/Ireland)","author":"Al","created":"2002-10-27 04:31:29","modified":"2002-10-27 04:31:29","last_modified":"Sun, 27 Oct 2002 11:31:29","article":"

A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E

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__________________________________________

Ever since the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in

1842, the most advanced sections of capital have

sought to integrate China into the world market. The

first steps towards definitively starting this process

appear to have finally been taken, with China?s

December 2001 entry into the World Trade Organisation

(WTO). We can safely assume that this would not have

occurred had not both parties seen benefits to making

this move - on the one hand access to untapped markets

and vast reserves of cheap labour, on the other a

chance to build up modern technologies and

infra-structure and solve a few social problems. But

this decision has also opened up a space for a

resurgence of mass class struggle that had not existed

prior to the restructuring of the last few decades.

This opening follows from two separate but

complementary dynamics: The destruction of the old

state-owned and centrally-planned heavy industries of

the north east, and the introduction of foreign

capital to the coastal areas and the south.

The restructuring process began in the 1970s with the

dismantling of the huge collective farms, and the

development of small scale household plots, and the

gradual introduction of competitive markets. In the

1990s these family farms had largely been pushed aside

by the growth of large-scale agri-business and the

parallel rise of rural wage labour. This has also led

to the creation of around 200 million unemployed

landless peasants and a fall in the standard of living

in the rural inland areas - current estimates put

rural income at half that of the urban coastal areas.

With entry to the WTO and consequent international

competition, this number is expected to rise even

further, as the China Daily remarked \"The country is

facing a serious oversupply of labour with the number

of people coming into the labour market reaching an

unprecedented peak.\"

In scenes reminiscent of the enclosures associated

with early industrialisation, these dispossessed

workers have no option but to move to the newly

developing urban areas, to take up sweat shop labour

for the many new factories that have sprung up

following the easing of restrictions on foreign

investment, and state sanctioned tax and human rights

exemptions. Often working 12 hours a day, seven days a

week and with no legal rights, as many of them are

?illegals?, having flouted the States internal

passport system to reach the cities, these are the

workers that ?the new China? of 7% annual growth is

being built on. The various ?Zones? the state has set

up (Economic, High-tech, Finance and Trade, export

processing, etc) are in fact statements to foreign

investors of the Chinese state?s willingness to solve

its rural problems by allowing these people to be

ruthlessly exploited. Unsurprisingly, the workers are

none too happy with this situation.

The second phase was to deal with the old inefficient

areas of the state controlled economy, this basically

entailed privatisation, mass sackings, the lifting of

the state monopoly on trade and the phasing out of

?cradle to grave? social security. 10 million jobs a

year are being lost, and this is expected to continue

as previously ring-fenced areas such as telecoms and

banking are opened up. A ?rust belt? has developed in

the old industrial heartland of the northeast, which

has seen the collapse of huge swathes of industries

that whole regions were based around - 75%

unemployment is not uncommon in many towns.

So, having identified the state?s plans, what

resistance is the working class putting up to these

frontal attacks on their living conditions? The

official strike statistics show that the number of

declared strikes rose from 8150 in 1992 to 120,000 in

1999, all illegal. Undoubtedly these figures are too

low as they fail to record undeclared or wildcat

strikes, and the blocking of roads and railway lines

that have become increasingly common tactics.

The ?rustbelt? areas of the northeast have seen the

largest amount of open class struggle since 1949,

prompting the commander of the People's Armed Police,

the main anti-riot force, to say police must prepare

for an increase in \"mass incidents\". The most visible

struggle has been that at Daqing Oilfield where 50,000

workers have besieged the management offices for

months in a redundancy and benefits dispute, clashing

with paramilitary police and overturning cars. The

shrinking oil industry is seething with conflict

elsewhere as well. Disputes over severance terms led

to large protests at the Huabei field in Hebei

Province and the Songjiang field in Jilin Province.



These workers are symbols of the ?old China?. Most of

them are middle aged or nearing retirement, many of

them had been on the ?xiagang? system, that is they

were on the company books but did no work but were

paid a living wage. That has now gone, and with cuts

in pensions and heating allowances, these people are

understandably worried how this will effect them as

there is little chance of finding new work - hence the

militancy of their actions.

This is mirrored in the protests in nearby Liaoyang,

where large industrial disputes are common. In March

this year workers from six different companies

co-operated on a scheme to protest about benefit and

wage arrears. They blocked the main roads and chanted,

?We are the working class!? Soon workers from another

fourteen companies joined the protest; again the

overwhelming majority were middle aged or nearing

retirement. A steel worker in his 50s, in a statement

that could have been made by an Argentinean piquetero,

claimed that they must use militant tactics, as ?we

have no other hope now?.

In March 2001 2000 miners in the northern city of

Datong barricaded roads and fought the police, as they

protested over lay-offs and pay reductions. 10.000

Miners also occupied the centre of Fushun, blocking

roads and railways (again, a tactic that is often used

in Argentina). This form of protest has also been used

in Wuhan, Sichuan and Sheyang.

In Lanzhou 5000 taxi drivers attempted to storm the

government offices in protest at increases in fines

and licences - 3000 police were needed to save the

party officials. Sheyang workers took a more direct

approach in the Sheda Toy Factory, taking hostage the

factory owner and his wife. They were held for twenty

days until back pay they had been promised was

forthcoming. Importantly, the police refused to

intervene, as, in their own words, they ?did not wish

to provoke the workers?.

Maybe they could have passed this advice on to their

brothers in Shuikou city, Guangdong province, where

workers from the privately owned Nanxuan Wool Textile

Factory fought running battles with police and company

security guards for three days running in June this

year. This is a significant development as this

represents one of the first (reported at least) fights

against the new foreign-owned companies, rather than

the defensive battles being fought out in the old

state run centres. The workers here were the classic,

newly arrived to the city escapees from rural poverty,

prepared to put up with intensive exploitation out

fear of the (very real) consequences of not doing so.

The private security guards, who are notorious for

their bullying behaviour, manhandled workers in the

queue at the canteen, 800 workers then walked out in

protest, only to be attacked by security with iron

bars. Photographs of the clashes published in the

Yangcheng Evening News showed blood trails around the

factory grounds. The remainder of the 15,000 workers

then turned on the guards, who were only rescued by

the intervention of the paramilitary police. Three

days of rioting followed with all the factory windows

being smashed, company cars and police trucks being

torched. A Guangzhou labour correspondent remarked,

\"There is nothing unusual now about labour protest in

Guangdong but these events are unprecedented.\"

There has also been a spate of boss-killings,

particularly in Hubei province in central China,

another of the ?rustbelt? provinces. Children are now

said to play a game called ?Kill the Boss? in which

they re-enact managers deaths, pretending to stab and

throttle each other.

So what are the chances of these disputes breaking out

of their isolation and linking up with other

autonomous working class actions? Unsurprisingly, the

vastness of China is helping the state to keep these

struggles cordoned off from each other, as is the

state news and broadcasting monopoly - something which

the government has been very keen to safeguard

recently, allowing satellite channels to broadcast

only approved material and restricting news coverage.

Any wider link up, leading to a sustained period of

struggle, is going to have to develop

counter-information networks, such as those that

sprung up in the Stalinist states: news of the

dispersed disputes, how the state reacted, what

tactics were successful or useless etc need to be

circulated and developed by those in struggle.

Permanent links will depend on how successful each

sector (new industry or old) can be in supporting the

others; this is the key question at the minute.

Isolated disputes can be dealt with easily - bloodily

or peacefully. What will really worry the state and

foster working class confidence, is when struggles

break out in one area and are followed by solidarity

actions in another.

It is noticeable though, that the older workers are

fighting for things like more generous redundancy

packages or guarantees for pensions or other social

security issues such as heating allowances and lower

rents: essentially things to soften the blows of the

remainder of their life, whilst the workers in the

newer industries are looking for higher wages and

fewer working hours. The former could possibly be

characterised as a limited struggle, as one that will

pass as China continues to integrate further into the

world market, and the latter as a struggle that is

open-ended and only going to reach it?s full

development in the years to come.

The question of the elderly is one that is very

rapidly evolving into a class issue. The elderly

population is presently 130 million, but is expected

to more than double in the next generation, and this,

combined with the effects of the ?one child? birth

control policy, (less young adults to look after

parents) is leading to serious battles to safeguard

pensions and related health schemes now before

conditions get any worse. This can be seen in the

trouble in the old industrial heartlands; the

(ex)workers are trying to protect themselves before

the state restructuring worsens conditions any

further. We should recognise that this is a class

struggle even if it doesn?t appear in the usual forms.

What?s more, this is one of the few issues that

concerns the whole of geographic China, and might

possibly help the emergence of the counter-information

networks mentioned above.

We should not be complacent about the role that China

is being given in the class struggle in the other

countries either. At the minute the stability and

developed infra-structure of the west continues to

make it a worthwhile area to invest in - a rapidly

developing and technologically advanced China will be

used as stick to beat other workers with. The threat

of shifting work to one of the new ?economic zones?

will offer bosses the opportunity to introduce

measures designed to increase the already monstrous

productivity levels. Flexibility, casualisation, new

organisations of work with constant supervision so

that not a second of the day is not spent working are

all already being introduced against fierce resistance

- all under the cover of competition with cheap labour

zones meaning there is little choice.

The answer is not to oppose Chinese workers and accuse

them of ?stealing our jobs?, but to recognise that we

are all part of a global working class, and that our

needs are one and the same, and that by linking our

struggles and raising them to an international level

(as capital has already done) we can effectively block

capitals plans, which can in turn allow us to develop

the space to articulate a positive expression of these

collective needs, directly and a higher level than the

nation state, and so more effectively.

One thing is clear though: class struggle continues in

China, and the state?s plans are only serving to

further advance the antagonism. What happens next

depends on how far the workers are prepared to act in

each others defence and outside of any state or

official organs, on what forms of working class

communication evolve, and on how far they are prepared

to challenge the state locally, nationally and

internationally.

******************************************************

>From Organise!, thrice yearly magazine of the

Anarchist Federation (Britain\/Ireland), now available

in PDF format at:

http:\/\/www.afireland.cjb.net<\/a>

contact@afireland.cjb.net<\/a>

http:\/\/www.afed.org.uk<\/a>

http:\/\/flag.blackened.net\/af\/alba<\/a>



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