Migrant Labor in China E-Book

Pun Ngai

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: China Today
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 322

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Long known as the world's factory, China is the largest manufacturing economy ever seen, accounting for more than 10% of global exports. China is also, of course, home to the largest workforce on the planet, the crucial element behind its staggering economic success. But who are China s workers who keep the machine running, and how is the labor process changing under economic reform? Pun Ngai, a leading expert in factory labor in China, charts the rise of China as a world workshop and the emergence of a new labor force in the context of the post-socialist transformations of the last three decades. The book analyzes the role of the state and transnational interests in creating a new migrant workforce deprived of many rights and social protection. As China increases its output of high-value, high-tech products, particularly for its own growing domestic market of middle-class consumers, workers are increasingly voicing their discontent through strikes and protest, creating new challenges for the Party-State and the global division of labor. Blending theory, politics, and real-world examples, this book will be an invaluable guide for upper-level students and non-specialists interested in China s economy and Chinese politics and society.

Leseprobe

Series page

China Today series

Greg Austin,

Cyber Policy in China

Steven M. Goldstein,

China and Taiwan

David S. G. Goodman,

Class in Contemporary China

Stuart Harris,

China's Foreign Policy

Elaine Jeffreys with Haiqing Yu,

Sex in China

Michael Keane,

Creative Industries in China

Joe C. B. Leung and Yuebin Xu,

China's Social Welfare

Hongmei Li,

Advertising and Consumer Culture in China

Orna Naftali,

Children in China

Pitman B. Potter,

China's Legal System

Pun Ngai,

Migrant Labor in China

Xuefei Ren,

Urban China

Judith Shapiro,

China's Environmental Challenges 2nd edition

Alvin Y. So and Yin-wah Chu,

The Global Rise of China

Teresa Wright,

Party and State in Post-Mao China

You Ji,

China's Military Transformation

LiAnne Yu,

Consumption in China

Xiaowei Zang,

Ethnicity in China

Copyright page

Copyright © Pun Ngai 2016

The right of Pun Ngai to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2016 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7174-1

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-7175-8(pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pun, Ngai, 1970-

    Migrant labor in China : post-socialist transformation / Pun Ngai.

        pages    cm

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    ISBN 978-0-7456-7174-1 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-7456-7175-8 (pbk.)    1.  Migrant labor–China.    2.  Labor market–China.    3.  Manpower policy–China.    4.  Rural-urban migration–China.    5.  China–Economic conditions–2000-    6.  China–Economic policy–2000-    I.  Title.

    HD5856.C5P864 2016

    331.5′440951–dc23

        2015032717

Typeset in 11.5 on 15 pt Adobe Jenson Pro

by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clay ltd, St Ives PLC

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

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Chronology

1894–95

First Sino–Japanese War

1911

Fall of the Qing dynasty

1912

Republic of China established under Sun Yat-sen

1927

Split between Nationalists (KMT) and Communists (CCP); civil war begins

1934–5

CCP under Mao Zedong evades KMT in Long March

December 1937

Nanjing Massacre

1937–45

Second Sino–Japanese War

1945–9

Civil war between KMT and CCP resumes

October 1949

KMT retreats to Taiwan; Mao founds People's Republic of China (PRC)

1950–3

Korean War

1953–7

First Five-Year Plan; PRC adopts Soviet-style economic planning

1954

First constitution of the PRC and first meeting of the National People's Congress

1956–7

Hundred Flowers Movement, a brief period of open political debate

1957

Anti-Rightist Movement

1958–60

Great Leap Forward, an effort to transform China through rapid industrialization and collectivization

March 1959

Tibetan Uprising in Lhasa; Dalai Lama flees to India

1959–61

Three Hard Years, widespread famine with tens of millions of deaths

1960

Sino–Soviet split

1962

Sino–Indian War

October 1964

First PRC atomic bomb detonation

1966–76

Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution; Mao reasserts power

February 1972

President Richard Nixon visits China; “Shanghai Communiqué” pledges to normalize US–China relations

September 1976

Death of Mao Zedong

October 1976

Ultra-Leftist Gang of Four arrested and sentenced

December 1978

Deng Xiaoping assumes power; launches Four Modernizations and economic reforms

1978

One-child family planning policy introduced

1979

US and China establish formal diplomatic ties; Deng Xiaoping visits Washington

1979

PRC invades Vietnam

1982

Census reports PRC population at more than one billion

December 1984

Margaret Thatcher co-signs Sino–British Joint Declaration agreeing to return Hong Kong to China in 1997

1989

Tiananmen Square protests culminate in June 4 military crack-down

1992

Deng Xiaoping's Southern Inspection Tour re-energizes economic reforms

1993–2002

Jiang Zemin is president of PRC, continues economic growth agenda

November 2001

WTO accepts China as member

2002–12

Hu Jintao, General-Secretary CCP (and President of PRC from 2003)

2002–3

SARS outbreak concentrated in PRC and Hong Kong

2006

PRC supplants US as largest CO

2

emitter

August 2008

Summer Olympic Games in Beijing

2010

Shanghai World Exposition

2012

Xi Jinping appointed General-Secretary of the CCP (and President of PRC from 2013)

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the Chinese migrant workers who have been actively involved in many of the research projects. I am grateful for the trust and confidence of Chinese migrant workers who have shared their experiences, stories, and struggles not only with me, but also my colleagues and students. Many of the research projects were carried out with an enthusiastic team of colleagues and students. Lu Huilin, Guo Yuhua, and Shen Yuan are the most important collaborators who participated in the joint research projects over the past five years. Without their unfailing support, it would have been impossible to carry out most of the research projects.

I cannot imagine that I would have had enough courage to complete these years-long studies without the joys and tears shared with my students and colleagues, especially Zhang Huipeng, Li Dajun, Liang Zicun, Su Yihui, Fan Lulu, Li Changjiang, Tang Weifeng, Jin Shuheng, Deng Yunxue, Chen Hangying, Liu Ya, Wu Xiongwenqian, Anita Koo, Jack Qiu, Yan Hairong, Ben Ku, and many others.

In the course of research and writing, Chris Smith, Michael Burawoy, Peter Evans, Ralf Ruckus, Ferruccio Gambino, Devi Sacchetto, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Anita Chan, and Jonathan Unger have always provided critical thought, informed commentary, and warm encouragement. I am deeply grateful to their intellectual support and encouragement.

I am very grateful to SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior), CWWN (The Chinese Working Women Network), and supporters including Debby Chan, Yiyi Cheng, Pui Kwan Liang, Parry Leung, Sophia So, Vivien Yau, Ken Yau, Yun-chung Chen, Kenneth Ng, Choi Suet-wah, Lau Ka-mei, and Leung Shuk-mei. I am also thankful for the support of Emma Longstaff, Jonathan Skerrett, Elen Griffiths, and Ian Tuttle of Polity Press, who offered help throughout the production process of the whole manuscript.

Earlier versions of the chapters have been published in Modern China, China Journal, Global Labour Journal, Work, Employment and Society, and Cultural Anthropology, and I would like to thank the editors and reviewers of those journals. I also would like to acknowledge academic funding support from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University-Peking University China Social Work Research Center, and Hong Kong Research Grant Council for the project, “A New Age of World Factory: Capital Expansion, the Role of State and Foxconn Production in China” (2012–2015).

Last but not least, I would like to thank deeply my family, especially my mother and my two brothers who never fail to provide me support in times of need.

1China and Its Labor in the Neoliberal World

Let's enter the workshop of the world with the guidance of Chinese migrant workers who are now the protagonists of the new working class. The new working class, comprising mainly internal rural migrant subjects, is of an entirely different nature to that of Maoist China, and these subjects are the sole concern of this book. I owe this writing to the new working class as she has continuously revealed her rich, reflexive, and sometimes contradictory lived experiences to me over the past two decades. The rich and vividly lived experiences of this class in terms of work organization, dormitory labor life, feeling of class and class action are key to understanding China in the neoliberal world. Unlike most postmodern literature, which criticizes Karl Marx's ideas about class, class is still the central concept of this book, providing an effective analytical weapon with which to discern the lives of the working class under the major contradictions of contemporary capitalism.