Academic freedom in China is unquestionably under threat from various quarters. Yet the assumption that only the logics of authoritarian Communist Party power shape the terrain in which scholars operate provides us with a limited perspective on these threats. The Chinese academy has become deeply entangled with transnational forces, and is increasingly driven by similar business logics to those in play in universities around the world. We argue that these forces too contribute to the context for the exercise of academic freedom and its restriction. As is the case elsewhere, discourses around developing the national ‘knowledge economy’ and related logics of securitisation around knowledge production create conditions in which some forms of academic research are prioritised over others. Echoing the ‘culture wars’ plaguing the academy in many other countries, the research agendas most under threat in China are ones that connect to transnational movements and struggles, especially those focussed on labour and class, gender and feminism, race and ethnicity and human rights. In this article, we outline what we see as the key forces shaping the landscape for academic freedom in China, with a concentration on areas of research and teaching in the social sciences and humanities that are most at risk in the current conjuncture.

Kong's pro-universal suffrage and anti-authoritarian movement (Hong Kong Democracy Movement hereinafter) was a highly complex social movement that lasted almost a year.The movement began in June 2019 in a successful mass collective response to a contentious Extradition Bill allowing the transfer of suspects to mainland China courts that operate under a different and opaque legal system.However, the Hong Kong government's early cancellation of the Bill did not end the Hong Kong Democracy Movement.Four more demands emerged, driven by "mass dissatisfaction with Hong Kong's lack of democracy and the police's performance" (Sing, 2020: 2).These were: universal suffrage; an end to the government's categorisation of the protests as riots; an independent inquiry into police violence during the protests; and an amnesty for arrested protestors.Twelve turbulent months later, this current stage of the struggle to uphold and, crucially, extend Hong Kong's limited democracy -already quietened by the pandemic -was ended by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) direct imposition of a draconian National Security Law (NSL) in June 2020.The NSL contains ill-defined crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces that carry sentences of up to life imprisonment.The implications for trade unions of such vague categories are clear, and two trade union leaders are currently in custody pending trial under the NSL.They have received widespread support from the global labour movement.Carol Ng, chairperson of the pro-democracy Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) and Winnie Yu, chairperson of the recently organised Hospital Authority Employees Alliance (HAEA) were both arrested on 6 January this year in a police sweep of democracy activists and charged with "subversion" on 28 January.They had taken part in an unofficial primary election to decide on candidates to Hong Kong's partially elected parliament known as the Legislative Council or LegCo.Unrelated to the NSL, HKCTU General Secretary Lee Cheuk-yan has been sentenced to fourteen months in prison for taking part in pro-democracy events in August 2019 and faces further charges.HKCTU Education Officer Leo Tang was sentenced to four months for possession of a retractable "baton" and cable ties.Trade unionists have been sacked from or harassed out of their jobs for declaring support for the Hong Kong Democracy Movement.Dragon Airlines Flight Attendants' 1 I write as a white British citizen with permanent residency rights in Hong Kong where I worked continuously for various labour and trade union organisations between 1996 and 2006.To my shame, I do not speak Cantonese beyond the level required for simple consumer purchases, but I speak Mandarin and read Chinese proficiently.Since leaving Hong Kong in 2006, I have returned over twenty times and spent many years researching labour and labour movement issues in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Although the literature on labour NGOs (LNGOs) in China has significantly expanded, few scholars have attempted to subject the work of these organizations to a Marxist perspective. This article draws on a recently developed Marxian theoretical framework on social movements to analyse the pioneering work of Hong Kong LNGOs and their partners in the province of Guangdong, China. Over the past 15 years, the Hong Kong groups, as they are known collectively, have been ideally placed to develop specific interventions in response to migrant workers’ pursuance of wage claims and improved working conditions during a time of increased rights awareness and widespread labour shortages. While consistently careful to remain the right side of China’s restrictive laws on freedom of association and demonstrations, the Hong Kong LNGOs were able to contribute to a narrative of class-based collective solidarity that has yielded significant gains for workers.

This article examines the case of the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT) to consider under what conditions unions can provide effective workplace representation in China. The authors draw on semi-structured interviews to analyze how and why the union was effective, despite rigid prohibitions against organizing outside of the Party-led All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The authors argue that the YICT union developed a system of annual collective bargaining that tamed the power of militant dockworkers and helped prevent strikes. This outcome required an effective enterprise-level trade union that was nevertheless able to influence and manage members' somewhat ambiguous acceptance of its role. Ultimately, workers' interests were partially represented and their acquisition of associational power-in the form of trade unions-increased.

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This paper argues that a class against capital emerged in Guangdong province between 2007 and 2014. I base my arguments on data drawn from significant strikes in the province and the processes of collective bargaining that partially resolved them. I observe that the formation of a working class against capital in Guangdong, made up primarily of migrant workers, has at least partially overcome fragmentary pressures it continues to face. I argue that it is the self-activity of workers themselves that is chiefly responsible for the significant improvement in wages and, to a lesser extent, working conditions that unfolded during this period. While collective bargaining remains mostlybut not exclusivelyoutside institutional norms, workers' agency pushed the practical application of forms of collective bargaining on to both the political and labour relations agenda in Guangdong and beyond. Continued pressure from below will keep it there.

China's construction boom is the largest national construction programme in human history.Workers have built the tallest buildings, longest bridges and poured almost unimaginable oceans of concrete.In 2010, Swider tells us, China "used 57 percent of the world's production of cement for less than 20 percent of the world's population" (p. 1).Even more astonishingly, between 2008 and 2010, China used more cement than the USA used during the entire twentieth century!And yet ethnographic research into the employment conditions that this extraordinary boom has generated remains the exception.This short but intense book is an important breakthrough -at least in the English language -and makes an important contribution to our understanding of labour relations and employment in China's construction industry.Swider's research was conducted in three fieldwork trips over eight years between 2004 and 2012 -boom years for the Chinese economy.Her primary data is drawn from 130 interviews, mainly with migrant construction workers and labour contractors.But she did not stop there.Despite being a "white woman who grew up around farmers in one of the whitest states in the United States" (p.ix), Swider managed to gain employment on two of the construction sites she researched.It's been a long time coming, but Swider's decade-long project has been worth the wait.Building China is organised into seven chapters.The first contextualises labour in China's construction industry with a discussion of the "new working class" it has helped to create drawing on the work of Pun Ngai, Ching Kwan Lee and Guy Standing, among others.Chapter Two continues setting the scene by explaining the connections between China's construction industry, internal ruralurban migration and hukou -China's "internal passport system that links citizenship rights and welfare benefits to birthplace" (p.21).Swider explains the different types of migrant worker in China before homing in on the category most pertinent to her study -temporary registered migrants and especially temporary unregistered migrants.Approximately one-third of their combined numbers of 131 million in 2000 work in construction (p.27).Unregistered migrant workers are mostly "missing" from official statistics despite the fact that they "make up roughly 12 percent of the urban population" (p.27) -testament, if more was needed, to the importance of the author's research in uncovering their working lives.The introductory section is followed by three chapters that present the book's chief contribution to our understanding of labour relations and employment in the industry: the concept of employment configuration.The final two chapters discuss how construction workers are able to resist these "restrictive regimes" (p.101) under conditions of "precarious authoritarianism" (p.123).

China's Workers under Assault: the Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy (Chan A. 2001) wurde vor fünfzehn Jahren veröffentlicht.Im Zentrum des Buches stand eine Reihe von übersetzten Zeitungsartikeln, welche die schrecklichen Bedingungen der vorwiegend migrantischen ArbeiterInnen in Chinas "globaler Fabrik" (Chang 2009: 164) beschrieben.Der wohl düsterste Aspekt dieser Artikel war die augenscheinliche Hoffnungslosigkeit jeglichen Widerstands in einer Situation, in der KapitalistInnen und Lokalregierungen zusammenarbeiteten, um investorenfreundliche und besonders ausbeuterische Bedingungen für die Kapitalakkumulation sicherzustellen

British Journal of Industrial RelationsVolume 53, Issue 2 p. 380-381 Book Review Law and Fair Work in China, by Cooney Sean, Biddulph Sarah and Zhu. Ying Routledge, London, 2013, 194 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-67407-2, £85.00, hardback. Tim Pringle, Tim Pringle University of LondonSearch for more papers by this author Tim Pringle, Tim Pringle University of LondonSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 May 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12120Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume53, Issue2June 2015Pages 380-381 RelatedInformation