China
Content about workers' struggles and events in China.
Residents in central China clash with police over canal project
The Hong Kong Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that a protest involving 3,000 people in Wuhan, capital of the central Chinese province of Hubei, against a planned canal ended in confrontation with the police. 50 people were injured and 100 arrested, their whereabouts unknown.
Events are reported as follows:
Quote:
At around 0730 on the 21st of August, more than 3,000 people from the Wuhan Heavy Machine Tool Group Company and Wuhan University, including workers, teachers, and retired personnel, began to block Zhongbei Road and Donghu Road, paralysing the traffic in the surrounding areas.
China pollution protesters storm lead smelter
Hundreds of Shaanxi villagers force their way into factory that poisoned more than 600 children.
Protesters on Monday 17 August broke into a smelting works responsible for poisoning hundreds of children. Trucks were smashed and fences ripped down according to state news agency Xinhua, and around 100 policemen were sent to the scene, along with the mayor of nearby Baoji city who appealed for calm.
Various protests from Cambodia to Malaysia, and Sweden.
Here are some links to articles on various protests that have taken place recently in Cambodia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and a strike by Vietnamese workers in Sweden.
Villagers in Cambodia have sent representatives to the government baring a petition asking for action over land grabs, which are becoming more common. 80% of the population live in rural areas, and there is no safety net, but as over 90% of land has no legal title (mostly destroyed under the Khmer Rouge) it is easy for companies, the rich and powerful etc. to simply take land.
New report on the state of the worker's movement in China
China Labour Bulletin published a report based on a study of 100 different workers' protests, which found that workers there are becoming more effective in organising outside union structures.
Covering two years of struggles, the study found the following trends:
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* Workers took matters into their own hands. Bypassing the largely ineffectual official trade union, they used public protest as a means of forcing local governments to intercede on their behalf. And, in many cases, workers were successful.
Taxi strikes in North and South East China
Taxi drivers in the northeast city of Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, struck and staged sit-ins outside Communist Party and government offices, whilst in the southeast city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, a militant strike by cabbies got immediate results.
The strike in the north began on the 23rd of July over proposals to limit the length of operating rights, and continued at least until the 30th. Zhao Shiyuan, secretary general of Mudanjiang City Government, said the city government had to mobilize taxi drivers from neighboring cities to offer taxi services.
Protests in China over pollution
.jpg "Xianghe Chemical Factory poisoned the water supply, making at least 500 people sick")
Authorities closed a chemical plant after local residents in central Hunan Province protested against cadmium pollution, which killed two people and affected hundreds of others, media reported on Monday, 3rd of August.
The closure follows a number of recent high profile "mass incidents" which turned violent and prompted media criticism of officials' failure to respond quickly.
Two villagers near the Xianghe Chemical Factory, which had produced zinc sulfate for six years, died in May and June. Autopsies found high levels of cadmium in their bodies, the semi-official China News Agency said.
Recent events in China (July)
Taxis strikes, environmental protests, sit-ins and the aftermath of other events previously reported on libcom.
Two taxi strikes in the last week, in north and south east China. One in Heilongjiang:
http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=3949
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/30/content_11797814.htm
And a more aggressive one in Zhejiang:
http://www.tibetanreview.net/news.php?cat=2&&id=3926
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/29/content_11794282.htm
Land seizure in Eastern China leads to clashes
More than 3,000 villagers in Zhejiang province of eastern China blocked a highway and clashed with police as they protested against alleged official corruption in a land compensation deal according to a human rights monitor and a witness.
Ten residents of Shipu town were injured in the clash with more than 300 riot police on the 25th of July, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a faxed statement.
Chinese workers beat capitalist to death
Workers afraid of privatization beat investor to death.
Thousands of angry steel workers clashed with police during demonstrations against the takeover of their company.
Uyghur commoners against the new enclosures in Xinjiang, China
The latest popular riots in Xinjiang highlight not only the ongoing contradictions within current Chinese-style neoliberal capitalism but also the historically long-standing opposition among various minorities against an ethnically dominant state power in China.
The July 15, 2009 edition of the Japanese Ashahi Newspaper has an article pointing candidly to the underlying reason behind the recent popular riot by ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang (Ürümqi riots) and the Chinese state’s brutal suppression of it, with now nearly 200 people dead, mostly Han Chinese, and about 1500 people injured.
