Dear Colleagues
I am glad to announce the publication of the latest issue of Made in China, the open access quarterly on Chinese labour and civil society supported by the Australian Centre on China in the World, the Australian National University. You can download the pdf for free and subscribe at this link: http://www.chinoiresie.info/made-in-china-quarterly/. Below you can find the editorial of the new issue:
Chinese Labour in a Global Perspective
In today’s globalised and interconnected world, Chinese labour issues have become much more than merely a local matter. With China’s political and economic power increasing by the day, it is imperative not only to assess how this growing influence affects labour relations in other countries, but also to abandon an ‘exceptional’ view of China by engaging in more comparative research. In this sense, the study of Chinese labour indeed provides a powerful lens—or perhaps a mirror—to further our understanding of the contemporary world and our potential futures.
With this aim in mind, in this issue of Made in China we publish a series of essays that either frame Chinese labour comparatively or examine its transnational implications. In Chinese Multinational Corporations in Europe, Zheng and Smith challenge the widespread perception that Chinese investments are undermining labour standards in Europe. In Liquid Labourscape, Diana looks into the governance experimentations in a Chinese special economic zone in Laos. In Outsourcing Exploitation, Franceschini compares wages, expectations, and needs of Chinese and Cambodian garment workers. In Trade Union Reform in Two One-Party States, Chan assesses the prospects for union democracy in China and Vietnam. Finally, in Prospects for US-China Union Relations in the Era of Xi and Trump, Quan reconstructs the bumpy history of exchanges between American and Chinese unions, and suggests possible ways to foster mutual engagement in the current political climate.
In the spirit of adopting a ‘global’ line of inquiry, we include a Forum consisting of three pieces that deal with the future of research on contemporary China in the West. In Treating What Ails the Study of Chinese Politics, Hurst makes an argument for freeing political studies of China from isolation by engaging in comparative research. In Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, Sorace responds by arguing that in addition to making China more relevant to global political studies, we should also consider how the study of China can help us rethink the study of comparative politics at a more basic level. In Beyond the Great Paywall, Loubere and Franceschini argue that commercial academic publishing poses a fundamental challenge to academic freedom when it comes to research on contemporary China, and propose open access publishing as a viable alternative.
This issue also includes essays related to labour and civil society. In The Mental Health Costs of Repression, Macbean looks at the toll that the latest crackdown is taking on the psychological wellbeing of human rights lawyers in China. In Collective Bargaining and Universal Basic Income, Lin compares these two strategies in relation to the empowerment of Chinese workers. In #iSlaveat10, Chan reviews ten years of struggles at Foxconn, the Taiwanese-owned contractor of Apple. The Window on Asia section includes an essay entitled In the Shadow of Kem Ley, in which Norén-Nilsson considers the recent politicisation of Cambodian civil society. The cultural section comprises two essays. In Ai Weiwei’s #Refugees, Strafella and Berg offer their take on the latest endeavours of the Chinese artist. In Collecting the Red Era in Contemporary China, Williams looks into the archival practices of Chinese collectors of Maoist memorabilia and how they relate to historical memory. We conclude by interviewing Maria Repnikova about her new book on Chinese journalism, Media Politics in China.
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The Editors
Ivan Franceschini (ivan.franceschini@anu.edu.au) and Nicholas Loubere