Capitalism in China: The Case for International Solidarity

Abstract

There is controversy in the UK labour movement over China. Arguments range from assertions that China remains a socialist state albeit in the primary stages to support for China on the grounds that a strong China is a counterbalance to US-led economic imperialism and military adventures. Putting the controversy aside, this article instead makes the case for the solidarity with Chinese workers and citizens on the receiving end of capitalist exploitation and state repression in the hinterlands and heartlands of this emerging global power. We equate resistance in China to resistance to authoritarianism in general, whether in the form of right-wing populism or one-party rule. Capitalist labour relations exist in China. Their reintroduction was a cornerstone of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s neoliberal strategy allowing a minority to get rich first. Which they did: the share of income earned by the top 10 percent of the population went from 27 percent in 1978 to 41 percent in 2015. In the same period, the share of the bottom 50 percent dropped from 50 percent to 27 percent1. China’s adoption of capitalism has lifted millions of people out of absolute poverty. But the cost of this transformation in terms of environmental degradation and social inequality must be a core concern of the international labour and trade union movement. Neoliberal globalisation teaches us that solidarity is not a national undertaking as capital and ideology cross borders with ease in search of new markets and opportunities for accumulation. We need to do the same. For example, trade unionists and activists everywhere can learn from the extraordinary strike wave in China’s auto parts industry in 2010 that generated wage rises of 20-30 percent. The global rise of populist authoritarianism and its nationalist ideologies renders global resistance even more important. In China, authoritarian rule has taken on an altogether more dangerous shade under Xi Jinping’s leadership as labour activists, feminists, minorities and human rights defenders and others have found to their cost2. Labour stat In China, capitalist labour relations are governed by laws that look reasonable on paper and indeed appear to buck the global neo-liberal trend of labour market deregulation. But they are widely ignored. The absence of core trade union rights such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining backed up by protection of the right to strike are collective rights denied to the Chinese working class. The notional right to strike was deleted from the Constitution of China in 1982 at precisely the time when China embarked on her journey from a command economy to a market economy. Nevertheless, it is not the case that capitalist labour relations in China allow predatory capitalists and their agents to operate at will. Labour scholars from different disciplines and perspectives such as Ching Kwan Lee, Pun Ngai, Chang Kai and Chris Chan acknowledge that the activism of the Chinese working class, including a reserve army of ruralurban migrants that numbers up to 250 million, has been central to a gradual tempering of capitalist exploitation in China. Capitalist exploitation has been institutionalised. A watershed moment in this process was the passing of three important labour-related laws in 2008 that most commentators agree were a response to rising levels of strikes and labour protests. The Labour Contract Law, the Labour Disputes Mediation and Arbitration Law and the Employment Promotion Law were testament to both the universalisation of capitalist labour relations in China; and Chinese Communist Party’s concern that the militancy and social unrest could develop into a threat to its one-party rule. In other words, the 2008 laws were an outcome of the growing capacity of a dramatically expanding working class to get its voice heard. The only legal trade union in China, the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), has failed to make its presence felt in capitalist firms and remains largely restricted to its traditional role as a welfare arm of the state in what is left of a restructured state sector i.e. good on picnics and birthdays for model workers; absent on collective bargaining and organising. Little wonder then that workers often take matters into their own...