Skip to main content

Conclusion: Compromise or Complicity?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Chinese Politics and Labor Movements

Part of the book series: Politics and Development of Contemporary China ((PDCC))

  • 220 Accesses

Abstract

The concluding chapter draws on the previous chapters’ analysis and argues that Chinese workers have not acquired sufficient cognitive strength to further develop labor activism into a sustainable social movement. Reflecting on this whole research’s subjective and psychological analysis and the debate in the literature, this chapter sheds light into the Chinese working class’s psyche of resistance, one that evolves from a political compromise to a strategic complicity. It raises several caveats to consider together with the central argument. The chapter then puts forth several questions that open up at the end of the research, including the practical question about what can be done to break the psychic trap upon the workers in order to develop a sustainable and healthy social movement for the emancipation of the workers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Arendt, H. (2002). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. In A. L. Hinton (Ed.), Genocide: An anthropological reader (pp. 91–109). Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (2000). Making the economic habitus: Algerian workers revisited. Ethnography, 1(1), 17–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Breen, K. (2015). Freedom, democracy, and working life. In A. Azmanova & M. Mihai (Eds.), Reclaiming democracy: Judgment, responsibility and the right to politics. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cai, Y. (2005). China’s moderate middle class: The case of homeowners’ resistance. Asian Survey, 45(5), 777–799.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chan, C. (2013). Contesting class organization: Migrant workers’ strikes in China’s Pearl River Delta, 1978–2010. International Labor and Working Class History, 83, 112–136. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0147547913000082.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chan, C., & Pun, N. (2009). The making of a new working class? A study of collective actions of migrant workers in South China. The China Quarterly, 198, 287–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, F. (2003). Industrial restructuring and workers’ resistance in China. Modern China, 29(2), 237–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, J., & Fleisher, B. M. (1996). Regional income inequality and economic growth in China. Journal of Comparative Economics, 22(2), 141–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chun, L. (2013). China and global capitalism: Reflections on marxism, history, and contemporary politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deng, Y., & Yang, G. (2013). Pollution and protest in China: Environmental mobilization in context. The China Quarterly, 214, 321–336.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, E. (2013). Insurgency and institutionalization: The Polanyian countermovement and Chinese labor politics. Theory and Society, 42(3), 295–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu, D. (2017). Mobilizing without the masses: Control and contention in China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Han, D. (2010). Policing and racialization of rural migrant workers in Chinese cities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(4), 593–610.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hand, K. J. (2006). Using law for a righteous purpose: The Sun Zhigang incident and evolving forms of citizen action in the People’s Republic of China. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 45, 114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollander, J. A., & Einwohner, R. L. (2004). Conceptualizing resistance. Sociological Forum, 19, 533–554.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jervis, R. (1976). Perception and misperception in international politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koopmans, R., Statham, P., Giugni, M., & Passy, F. (2005). Contested citizenship: Immigration and cultural diversity in Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lauesen, T., & Cope, Z. (2015). Imperialism and the transformation of values into prices. Monthly Review, 67(3), 54–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. (2007). Against the law: Labor protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C., & Zhang, Y. (2013). The power of instability: Unraveling the microfoundations of bargained authoritarianism in China. American Journal of Sociology, 118, 1475–1508.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leung, P. (2015). Labor activists and the new working class in China: Strike leaders’ struggles. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lu, X., & Lyell, W. (1990). Diary of a madman and other stories. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdam, D. (1982). Political process and the development of black insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Melucci, A. (1989). Nomads of the present: Social movement and individual needs in contemporary society. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meyers, J. M., & Vallas, S. P. (2016). Diversity regimes in worker cooperatives: Workplace inequality under conditions of worker control. The Sociological Quarterly, 57(1), 98–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Migdal, J. S. (2001). State in society: Studying how states and societies transform and constitute one another. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Migdal, J. S., Kohli, A., & Shue, V. (Eds.). (1994). State power and social forces: Domination and transformation in the Third World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nathan, A. (2003). China’s changing of the guard: Authoritarian resilience. Journal of Democracy, 14(1), 6–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ong, L. H. (2018). “Thugs-for-Hire”: Subcontracting of state coercion and state capacity in China. Perspectives on Politics, 16(3), 680–695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pei, M. (2006). China’s trapped transition: The limits of developmental autocracy. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pun, N., & Chan, J. (2013). The spatial politics of labor in China: Life, labor, and a new generation of migrant workers. South Atlantic Quarterly, 112(1), 179–190.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shambaugh, D. (2016). China’s future. Boston, MA: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snow, D., & Benford, R. (1992). Master frames and cycles of protests. In Morris and Mueller (Eds.), Frontiers of social movement theory (pp. 133–155). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tetlock, P. (2006). Expert political judgment: How good is it? How can we know? Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C., & Wood, L. J. (2009). Social movements, 1768–2008 (2nd ed). Boulder: Paradigm Publication.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tomba, L. (2014). The government next door: Neighborhood politics in urban China. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voss, K. (1993). The making of American exceptionalism: The knights of labor and class formation in the nineteenth century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xiao, J. (2015). China unraveled: Violence, sin, and art in Jia Zhangke’s a touch of sin. Film Quarterly, 68(4), 24–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waterman, H. (1990). Which way to go? Four strategies for democratization in Chinese intellectual circles. China Information, 5(1), 14–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, S. (2011). On violence and democracy. The Jacobin Spirit (3–4). Retrieved from https://www.jacobinmag.com/2011/05/the-jacobin-spirit/.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Lin, J. (2020). Conclusion: Compromise or Complicity?. In: Chinese Politics and Labor Movements. Politics and Development of Contemporary China. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23902-2_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics