Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Workers’ riots catch on in the “workshops of the world”

Last weekend, in Zengcheng district in Guangzhou, an industrial city of Guangdong province, thousands of migrant workers hit the streets, burning cop cars and confronting the anti-riot police. The act that lit the fuse of the workers’ riots took place Friday night, because of the beating that provincial security personnel gave the young woman Wang […]

Left Voice

July 3, 2011
Facebook Twitter Share

Last weekend, in Zengcheng district in Guangzhou, an industrial city of Guangdong province, thousands of migrant workers hit the streets, burning cop cars and confronting the anti-riot police. The act that lit the fuse of the workers’ riots took place Friday night, because of the beating that provincial security personnel gave the young woman Wang Lianmei, a twenty year old street vendor, who was pregnant. The rumors that she was seriously injured caught on among thousands of workers. On Saturday, more than 1,000 demonstrators burned cop cars and confronted the anti-riot police. On Sunday, despite increased repression, more than 2,000 workers again hit the streets, setting fire to government offices and confronting the cops. “It was the spark that ignited an explosion of fury, that highlights the frustration that a great part of the Chinese population harbors” (El País, June 15).

Some days before, 200 migrant workers in Chaozhou had demonstrated their rejection of the rise in prices in front of the town hall, ending in a riot by thousands of workers. In a different mobilization, 2,000 workers attacked the government building in Lichuan city in Hubei province, protesting because of the murder of a former legislator who had been investigating government corruption cases. In Changchun, more than 400 workers from a tire factory led a strike from June 8 to June 12 against low wages. Last month, in Inner Mongolia, the biggest ethnic conflicts against the authorities developed.

The increase in the price of foods and housing (in May, official inflation was 5.5%, the highest since April 2008), corruption and abuses that prevail in the state apparatus and municipalities, are triggering social unrest that is beginning to become increasingly obvious. In the cities of southern China, where the “workshops of the world” are located, thousands of workers who migrated from the countryside are going out to struggle, from the new generation of 150,000,000 workers considered second-class citizens, lacking even basic rights, like access to education for their children. Already last year, thousands of Chinese workers went out to fight for wage raises in numerous factory revolts.

The increase in social unrest is worrying the authorities. In the most recent meeting of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, the authorities called for encouraging better “social management,” by seeking to contain the spread of social unrest. To that end, they have combined fierce repression of any struggle and arrests of bloggers, with slight wage increases to compensate for the fall in wages from inflation. Strong Chinese economic growth (9.7% in the first quarter), enormously uneven and unstable (sustained by Chinese exports and foreign consumption) is feeding strong social contradictions, unrest and some riots, while the first tensions are being experienced among the authorities about a political opening-up of the regime and the search for a new pattern of growth, less dependent on the outside. China is confronting the biggest contradictions in the last 30 years.

June 16, 2011

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Archive

The Unknown Paths of the Late Marx

An interview with Marcello Musto about the last decade of Marx's life.

Marcello Musto

February 27, 2022

The Critical Left in Cuba

Frank García Hernández discusses the political and economic situation in Cuba and the path out of the current crisis.

Frank García Hernández

February 27, 2022

Nancy Fraser and Counterhegemony

A presentation from the Fourth International Marxist Feminist Conference.

Josefina L. Martínez

February 27, 2022

Who is Anasse Kazib?

Meet the Trotskyist railway worker running for president of France.

Left Voice

February 27, 2022

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024