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V. ANALYSIS

Reconciliation of two potentially conflicting goals--furtherance of economic restructuring and maintenance of social stability--has challenged the Chinese leadership ever since the reform process gathered momentum following Deng Xiaoping's 1992 tour of South China's special economic zones. But even as layoffs, inadequate re-employment, and shortfalls in social welfare programs fueled a rise in blue-collar militancy, China's leaders, cognizant of the argument of domestic and foreign advisors that there is "no alternative" to reform, however painful, expressed their determination to move ahead, confident in their ability to manage perceived threats to social order.226

Past policy for controlling protests has been to severely punish vulnerable members of the leadership, move aggressively to re-educate "diehard elements," and reintegrate rank and file followers into the social fabric. By so doing, religious activity has come under state control; opposition political parties have been destroyed as they surfaced; and the scope for ethnic nationality resistance has been significantly narrowed. But China's leaders also demonstrated their willingness to resort to overwhelming force: the 1989 massacre in Beijing and the on-going campaign to wipe out the Falungong being the two most recent examples.227

Worker protests represent a qualitatively different kind of problem for Chinese authorities. They challenge the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, which claims to rule in the name of the working class, in a way that other social movements do not. CCP leaders, moreover, are likely wary of the potential power of a united labor movement given the role of such movements in overturning regimes in, for example, Poland and South Africa. In its effort to avoid worker cohesion across occupations, industries, and regions, the Chinese government has tried to avoid fanning worker unrest; it has not, therefore, seized large numbers of labor protesters as soon as they took to the streets. Instead the government has managed protests through a seemingly successful low-key combination of limited force and limited payouts. According to a report, Beijing also instructed officials in the northeastern provinces to avoid coercion whenever possible.228 The provincial governments, in turn, instructed local governments to keep security forces on high alert.229

Although local governments deployed large numbers of security personnel to intimidate protesters, there were few clashes, arrests were selective, and formal charges limited to some few organizers. In Liaoyang, some 30,000 workers took part in protests; to date, four have been indicted. In Daqing, although workers were held for brief periods and some leaders may be in detention, no one has been formally charged.

The policy appears to be working, in part because much of the protest has come, not from still-employed workers who could shut down production and seriously jeopardize economic growth, but from laid-off (xia gang) or formally unemployed workers who have little, if any, ability to affect production even in key industries such as oil or coal.

Treatment of protesting workers in the northeast is not a reflection of a generalized hands-off attitude to unsanctioned labor organizing. During the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, the government singled out workers' autonomous federations for particularly harsh treatment.230 In 1994, labor organizers received unusually long sentences.231 Since then, treatment of organizers and representatives trying to instigate workplace-based protests has continued to be harsh. On May 30, 2002, Hu Mingjun and Wang Sen, both from Chengdu, Sichuan province, were sentenced to eleven- and ten-year terms respectively for helping steel workers win concessions related to wage arrears. The whereabouts of seven coal miners, Wang Changchun, Wang Fanghua, Wang Heping, Wang Liguo, Wang Qun, Zhang Jun, and Zhu Wanghong, from Damuhe coal mine in Neijiang city, Sichuan, are still unknown. They were detained in 1999 during a protest against the mine's closure.

A better explanation of the less aggressive response in the northeast relates to the government's understanding of the inherent power of militant, independent, and democratic unions, and its preoccupation with preventing emergence of a national labor movement. The key for the government is maintenance of divisions within the working class. Laid-off (xia gang), unemployed, and retired workers have been responsible for the vast majority of labor protests. With production unaffected, the authorities usually can afford to wait out demonstrations. In Daqing, Liaoyang, and Fushun, the government offered lump-sum payments and temporary compromises; detentions were sporadic; and formal arrests a last resort. Yet differences emerged in local government responses to demonstrations. In Liaoyang, where protesters received sympathy and support from most of the town's workers, their representatives were treated most harshly. At the same time, to further prevent an even more dangerous round of protests, officials promised to pay workers 50 percent of what was owed them. The city is reeling from unemployment estimated to run between 25 and 50 percent, and due to climb as more factories are closed.232 Officials have told the unemployed they had best go elsewhere to find jobs.233

Daqing, which still provides 30 percent of China's oil, thus making a key contribution to the Chinese economy, is a wealthier town. Its unemployment rate does not match that of Liaoyang, and oil workers who still have jobs could seriously disrupt the national economy.

Employed workers not directly connected to the oil industry expressed only qualified sympathy with the laid-off workers; no solidarity action from within the town has emerged. A bus driver in Daqing explained:

I am working. As far as these demonstrations by laid-off workers are concerned, I definitely stand on the side of workers who have a job. Sometimes it's very hard to get these things straight. Are there really some people among the laid-off workers who are smashing things up and deliberately causing trouble?234

A Daqing taxi driver told Human Rights Watch:

These guys [the laid-off workers] have a point and didn't really have any choice but to sign the severance agreements. But they got a lot of money.235 I can't risk supporting them. I've got two kids to feed and school.236

Nevertheless, the government was taking no chances, especially given the family ties among many laid-off and employed workers. The Daqing Oil Company was quick to blame the protests for its failure to issue March bonuses; former colleagues visited protesters to urge demonstrations be called off to protect future bonuses.237

As labor activist Lin Jin's report explained:

Right now the oil company is concentrating on public opinion and sowing discord among current and former employees. As of this writing, the March bonus has not been issued and the company's explanation to all employees has been, "this is a direct result of the demonstrations. Go ask the protesters."238

As the protests in the northeast have illustrated, however, government policy has emboldened workers. Instead of short-term, spontaneous protest limited to a group from one factory, one mine, or one school, worker leaders and representatives in the three cities reviewed in this report, through well thought out strategic goals and tactics, organized tens of thousands of protesters. Nor were the leaders-or the rank and file-reluctant to publicize that, yes, they had organized, and sufficiently so as to enable them to sustain their protests over weeks rather than hours. The risk to workers-escalation of the punitive element of the government's response-was obvious.

But escalation poses a well-understood risk to the regime as well, as is evident in their hesitation to move aggressively against protesters in the northeast. A crackdown of the intensity and ferocity that has characterized the Falungong campaign might well bring workers together sufficiently not simply to protest but to strike. In the Falungong case, the government's strategy appears to have been based on a careful appraisal of Falungong's limited capacity to seriously disrupt the normal running of the state and, despite a large membership, its limited support base.

Coordinated strike action, by contrast, threatens foreign investment and economic growth; and retaliation threatens stability and brings international condemnation. The fact that Chinese authorities did not launch an aggressive crackdown against the vocal protests of laid-off workers in the northeast may have been designed precisely to avoid such a scenario.

The grievances-economic and civil and political--highlighted during worker protests in Liaoyang, Daqing, and Fushun have not been addressed in any systematic way by government officials, ACFTU leaders, or enterprise managers. Until the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party ensure that workers have the right to freely form and join non-government sponsored trade unions, they will continue to lack a meaningful avenue for effective redress and may seek other more confrontational avenues to make their grievances known.239 As this report has indicated, workers who try such routes, risk severe retaliation.

226 The "TINA" or "there is no alternative" argument is popular among government officials in post-WTO entry China. The phrase was coined in the 1990s by then British Prime Minister as justification for large-scale lay offs and legislation widely perceived as anti-union.

227 For an overview of China's campaign against the Falungong, see Human Rights Watch, Dangerous Meditation: China's Campaign Against Falungong (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001).

228 "Ming Pao on Daqing, Liaoyang Worker Protests; Anti-Corruption Petitioning in NE China," FBIS, April 1, 2002, from Ming Pao (Internet Version-WWW), March 28, 2002.

229 Ibid.

230 See for example, Asia Watch (now Human Rights Watch/Asia), Punishment Season: Human Rights in China After Martial Law (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990), pp. 37-40; Asia Watch (now Human Rights Watch/Asia), Anthems of Defeat: Crackdown in Hunan Province 1989-1992 (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992), pp. 13-37.

231 See Human Rights Watch/Asia, "Economic Reform, Political Repression: Arrests of Dissidents in China since Mid-1992," A Human Rights Watch Report, Vol. 5 No. 4 (C), March 1993; "Human rights groups condemn China dissident trial" Agence France-Presse, December 17, 1994.

232 "Liaoning tongji nianjian" ("Statistical Yearbook of Liaoning, 2001"), (Shenyang: China Statistical Publishing House, 2001), pp. 66-68 and p. 92.

233 "China worker protests rekindled despite employment offer," Reuters, March 25, 2002.

234 Interview in pamphlet "Workers Remember," released by the International Confederation of Free Trade Union's International Hong Kong Liaison Office in memory of June 4, 1989.

235 As noted on page 29, the chief grievance of laid-off Daqing oil workers was not the amount of compensation in their severance contracts but the fact that management had unilaterally changed the terms of the accord.

236 Human Rights Watch interview, Daqing, March 6, 2002.

237 Lin Jin, "Daqing dangju jajin zhenya...," Xianqu Jikun.

238 Ibid.

239 See for example Keith Bradsher, "Factory Dispute Tests China's Loyalty to Workers Rights," New York Times, July 18, 2002.

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