2008-08-26

The Role of Trade Unions in China

Carl Finamore
August 25, 2008


The recently-concluded summer Olympics introduced China as a major player on the world stage in spectacular fashion.


No doubt about it, the country made a superbly dramatic entrance.


Of course there were the much-publicized disclosures that some elements of the production were staged - the embarrassing lip-synching episode and the use of pre-recorded fireworks fed to live television broadcasts.


But first-class, stellar performances by Chinese athletes on the field amply demonstrated there was nothing fake about the progress China has made in the last several decades.


A more valid criticism was that the Chinese government’s track record on human rights won’t win any medals. And to be sure, it must be recognized that some of those complaints were made by those with less than genuine motives.


This was the topic of a recent discussion between twenty northern California labor leaders and a visiting high-level Chinese delegation from the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions (GZFTU).


The delegation, which is affiliated with the state-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), surprised us a bit when they said this was the first visit of top Chinese labor officials with leaders of a AFL-CIO Central Labor Council.


Facing new challenges to organize multi-nationals, our guests emphasized they wanted to rapidly end their isolation from American unions.


GZFTU's Chairman Chen Weiguang began by acknowledging that China‘s unions had to be reformed. “We need to protect the rights and interests of the workers and elect leaders who will stand up for workers,” said Weiguang. “Of course, the bosses within the enterprises want a union chair who will be obedient to the company but we believe the union belongs to the workers, not the bosses.”


Chen speaks from his experience as a major planner of the successful unionization of Wal-Mart in China.


China's “Economic Miracle”

Currently the seventh largest world economy, the country of 1.3 billion is on track to become the third largest by 2015. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown at rates that are among the highest for any major country in the 20th century. (US Dept. of Agric., USDA 2004 report)


There are many internal factors contributing to China's economic "miracle" such as a more-skilled workforce and unprecedented capital spending on roads, utilities, buildings, machinery and equipment.


Over time, infrastructure improvements result in big increases in labor productivity and mass production of quality products, something U.S. policy makers do not appreciate. Substantial foreign investment in new technology since the early 1990s has also helped spur productivity.


Before the mid-1990s there were clear differences between state-owned "socialist" factories, which offered lifetime employment, housing, and medical care, and private sector factories, which provided little job security, low wages, and no fringe benefits.


Today, however, competition and persistent government efforts to privatize state-owned firms has led even these enterprises to offer less job security, fewer welfare benefits, and stricter labor conditions. (China Labour Rights Bulletin)


As a result, wages of Chinese workers have remained very low. Experts estimate wages at around 12% of US workers, thus providing China an extremely favorable trade advantage.


For example, the USDA reports that “furniture manufactured in China can enter the U.S. market at 25 to 35 percent of the cost of comparable furniture” made in the United States.


This imbalance is representative of most Chinese exports.


From these statistics, it should be clear that raising the wages and living conditions of Chinese workers is imperative. Solidarity is not just an abstract emotional impulse; it is an economic necessity that unites workers around the world.


Our goal should be to avoid divisive competition between ourselves by establishing uniform international labor standards.


A Conversation with Chinese Labor

Our meeting with the Chinese delegation proved to be a lively and frank exchange. I asked a question about the control of the Communist Party over the official trade unions.


As reported by Paul Burton in the May 28, 2008, Labor, the San Mateo County Central Labor Council newspaper, Chen responded to the question by explaining the history of unions under the Communist Party.


“For a long time China was a 'command economy' and unions were subservient to it. There was no distinction between labor and capital because we were all part of the nation,” Chen said. “The Party worked hard for the development of the working class and to educate workers. Things have changed with the move to a market economy and differentiation in factories between bosses and workers.”


Chen said that over the past 30 years of economic reforms, workers have made great sacrifices and now that capital had become too powerful the Communist Party was rethinking the balance of capital and labor, enacting new labor laws as part of that change.


Apparently some progress is being made.


Burton summarized the meeting by observing that “with the enactment of recent pro-worker labor laws in China, the situation may be changing as workers exercise their rights under these new labor laws.


“The China Labor Bulletin (CLB, online at www.china-labour.org.hk/en/) reported that 'the number of labor dispute cases in Guangzhou for the first two months of 2008 equaled the total number of cases in 2001. More than 60 percent of all cases involved non-payment of salaries and over-time.'"


CLB director Han Dongfang wrote encouragingly that “by developing collective bargaining at the grassroots level, enterprise-level unions will be transformed into labor organizations that genuinely represent the rights and interests of workers.”


Let's wish them well. We all should work toward this common goal in each of our unions. But some would say it is not possible to achieve while the Chinese government retains exclusive control of the unions.


The role of Trade Unions in China

Founded in 1925, ACFTU has around 170 million members. It is the only union legally recognized but its membership is shrinking as privately-owned companies become a larger share of the economy.


The numbers are staggering. In their Feb. 9, 2008, issue, ChinaDaily reports that 200 million were employed by 5.39 million registered private establishments in 2007. This is more than half of all companies in China. These firms alone generated 60 percent of the GDP.


ACFTU is responding to this challenge by mounting a huge organizing campaign in the private sector, especially among the foreign-owned. As a result, the Federation expects it membership to increase to 200 million by its September 2008 Congress. It also hopes to announce successful completion of a “100-day” bold unionization effort begun in June to organize 80% of the Fortune 500 firms.


This new thinking was forced upon Chinese unions after they encountered stiff opposition from notoriously anti union Wal-Mart. Labor officials, normally accustomed to dealing with state enterprises, were shocked when the company actually refused to even meet with union organizers, a tactic commonly employed in America.


ACFTU began a successful grass-roots organizing campaign, a first for the state labor body.


The union was finally recognized in 2006. Chen Weiguang played an important role confronting Wal-Mart as a hostile employer rather than as a friendly joint-venture partner with the government. The latter view has always compromised the union’s ability to represent workers.


For example, the ACFTU official website still clearly reveals its cooperation with management: "Trade unions of the foreign-invested enterprises in China have firmly centered on production and business operation to conduct activities and have given support to enterprises in their operation and management according to law; have educated workers to observe factory rules and regulations and discipline; organized workers to launch labor emulation campaigns; and aroused the enthusiasm of the workers for running the enterprises well, so as to contribute to the sound development of the enterprises."


Yet, soon after the Wal-Mart victory, the ACFTU website announced: “This successful experience in setting up Wal-Mart unions is groundbreaking in that we have discovered a new line of thinking. It not only will influence other foreign and private investors to quickly abide by the law to allow unions to be established, it also brings to trade unionists a new mission. Following the new logic in setting up unions, new adjustments in union work will be needed, be it in methods, in organizational structure, ways of identifying backbone activists, down to how to use union funds….”


We are obviously observing the wavering contradictions of a mass labor organization of millions trying to define for itself a new role and trying to discover for itself a new voice that speaks more sharply to the needs of Chinese workers.


The big question is whether the announced changes in union structure and purpose enacted from “above” will be sufficient to satisfy millions of Chinese workers “below” who so desperately need an organization representing their class interests.


So far, the government is walking a delicate tight rope of enacting reform without relinquishing control.


Fresh off the success of their grand Olympic production, the state retains the stage with the home crowd anxiously awaits their next major performance of reforming the trade unions.


Hundreds of millions of desperate workers still suffering under conditions most observers describe as horribly primitive have so far been relatively quiet.


Chinese officials hope they remain in their seats.


But a “thumbs down” review might end up with a rebellious audience itself taking over the stage.


( Carl Finamore was President (ret), Air Transport Employees, Local Lodge 1781, IAMAW. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com. )

2008-08-23

A Turning Point for China’s Trade Unions

http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/100294

(The following unsigned article appears on the English section of the China Labour Bulletin 中國勞工通訊. We have by far failed to find a Chinese version of the article.)


We may have reached a crucial turning point in the history of China’s trade union movement. For the first time since 1949, trade union officials are openly stating that the union should represent the workers and no one else, while new legislation in Shenzhen places collective bargaining – previously a no-go area – at the core of the union’s work.

“The trade union is a matter for the workers themselves,” Chen Weiguang, chairman of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions told a conference on 15 July 2008, adding that the role of enterprise unions must change from “persuading the boss” to “mobilizing the workers.”

Shenzhen’s Implementing Regulations (Shishi Banfa) for the Trade Union Law, enacted on 1 August, further define the union’s new role, creating a “responsible, empowered and battle-ready union” that can protect workers’ rights, according to Zhang Youquan, head of the Shenzhen Federation’s legal department. Zhang told a press conference to announce the new regulations that this was the first time the term “collective bargaining,” (jiti tanpan) as opposed to the previously-used but much weaker concept of “collective consultations” (jiti xieshang) had been applied in China’s local legislation.

As the experience of the labour movement in many other countries has shown, collective bargaining is the most effective way to protect workers’ rights and bolster the role of the trade union. Above all, it is a means of resolving labour disputes through peaceful social dialogue. Such an approach is sorely needed in China today, and China Labour Bulletin Director Han Dongfang congratulated the Shenzhen authorities on this important new initiative:

“After three decades of economic reform, we’ve reached the point when something had to be done. Today in Shenzhen we can see the worst excesses of capitalism, but also the desire of the people for social justice and – with these new regulations – the willingness of the government to move towards capitalism with a human face.”

Han pointed out that although the new legislation was “state-directed” reform, it would still have a positive effect if it enabled workers to engage in genuine collective bargaining. “At present, the most pressing need for the official union is independence from the bosses,” he said.

Significantly, the whole of chapter three of the Implementing Regulations (The Rights and Obligations of Trade Unions) does not contain a single reference to the traditional tasks outlined in the 2001 Trade Union Law, such as helping the enterprise to restore normal production in the event of a work stoppage or slowdown. Rather the regulations make it very clear that during a labour dispute the role of the trade union is to represent workers in negotiations with management. Moreover, for the first time in China, the regulations (Article 36) stipulate that grassroots trade union officials should receive a small monthly subsidy from the municipal federation that will go some way toward lessening union officials’ dependence on the enterprise for their operating funds.

Article 18 (Paragraph 3), Articles 27 to 31 inclusive, Article 44 and Article 45 all stress that collective bargaining is the core responsibility of trade unions and provide clear guidelines on how the process should work. These provisions effectively transform collective bargaining in China from a vague concept into, potentially, a genuine right that can be utilized by ordinary workers to improve their terms and conditions of employment.

Of course, the regulations are far from perfect; they still emphasize the supervision or control (jiandu) of grassroots unions by higher level unions, rather than a system of mutual supervision. Article 11, for example, specifies that workplace union officials will be elected by the union committee only after a list of candidates drawn up by the committee has been approved by the higher-level union. Also, grassroots unions still need the approval of higher level unions before they can officially register, and there is no mechanism by which lower-level officials can supervise or control irresponsible higher-level union officials.

However, the Implementing Regulations – together with the Shenzhen Labour Relations Regulations, due to go into force at the end of September – have effectively opened the door for the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions to transform itself into a much more effective representative of workers’ rights and interests.

Han Dongfang said: “We hope the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions can take practical steps to create a successful bargaining model that others can follow, thereby making collective bargaining a key part of China’s emerging civil society.”

Han stressed that change will not happen overnight but, step by step, progress is already being made. And in retrospect, 2008 may well turn out to be one of the most important years in the history of China’s trade union movement.

“Earlier this year, we saw the implementation of three new national labour laws, and now we have the introduction of collective bargaining in Shenzhen. This has all come from two factors: the growing determination of Chinese workers to stand up for their rights, and the government’s willingness to respond in a practical and positive manner,” he said.

2008-08-20

Democracy within the Communist Party is the New Answer

China: the middle kingdom's middle way
Le Monde diplomatique

August 2008

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Despite the Olympic spotlight on China, we hear little of the Chinese Communist Party. To retain power and maintain stability, the party knows it must accommodate the new consumerist middle classes. But it has to balance carefully to avoid potential revolution by the many left outside by the enormous changes in the nation.

Jean-Louis Rocca

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The Chinese government has not much revamped its image recently, given last October's National Congress of the Communist Party, the disastrous handling of the Tibet troubles and this year's earthquake. This top-down conservatism contrasts with wide social protest across the nation. Protest is almost established practice in China today, although this is not the result of social pressures outside the party, but carried out by people and groups at the heart of the system. This obliges analysts to think outside the usual political frame of an all-powerful, unscrupulous regime versus a society that is seen as static or on the brink of revolt.


Between 2002 and 2006, nearly 12 million people joined the Chinese Communist Party or CCP (see "A middle-class party"). Why? For cadres and government officials it is a way to get a position and build up a power base. For others, motives vary. "It's a formality for me if I want to climb the ranks," a teacher told me. In a leading university, 80% of the teaching staff are party members. Despite that, party membership does not guarantee social mobility; a network of relationships, professional success and wealth can do that just as efficiently.


Examples abound. A party secretary in a public institution waited years for a promotion only to see his deputy, married to a high-ranking cadre in another institution, promoted over his head, despite a lack of professional qualifications. A rich businesswoman, who was not a party member, succeeded in placing her son in the senior management of a public enterprise. He had no qualifications, although he spent three years in a foreign university.


For intellectuals, party membership provides leeway. According to a journalist: "Being a party member gives you greater freedom of speech." There is no paradox here. Party members have access to an inner circle in which discussion is freer. That was a theme of the party democratisation issue raised at the 17th Party Congress - which might be empty rhetoric by a party that has failed to democratise society, and so offers token liberalisation. However, there are different realities behind the official party line, starting with the discussions that began a few years ago in the party schools about a "conservative democracy".


There is a great deal at stake: how can the party retain power (personal interest) and maintain stability (collective interest) while creating a space for expression and political choice? The answer lies in the formation of intra-party trends, which will give a voice to social classes. The CCP will always maintain its centralised hold, but in the manner of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party after the second world war, an example explicitly mentioned. Or possibly, as in Europe and the United States, within a system controlled by two main political parties who agree on the basic issues and ensure consensus in conflict, and therefore stability. Democracy within an elite circle would reform the regime and avoid political instability.


Party leaders have pursued this discussion since 2002. Their use of slogans (harmonious society, clean wealth and, more recently, the science of development) shows that they are taking account of the demands of society. There have been concrete measures, such as the limited but genuine extension of the social security system, a reduction in the tax burden on farmers and a less brutal control of migration and social movements.


Change is occuring behind the facade
Behind the static facade, a reforming gradualism is altering the political balance. There is no question of organising elections in the short or medium term. Party democratisation means limited experiments that provide a narrow framework for reform. Just as the controlled democracy granted to villages a few years ago is restricted to internal village matters, so intra-party democracy limits the space for discussion and protest to a select audience of responsible individuals. It is a question of damage limitation.


The conservative democracy scenario does not seem much when compared with the second democratic wave (after the second world war), or the third (that of the former eastern European bloc). But it is possible to compare it with the first democratic wave in western Europe. All the 19th-century political debates concerned the contradictions between democratisation (seen by the elite as inevitable and even desirable), and the fears it provoked among the ruling classes. Alexis de Tocqueville praised the people (honest reasonable citizens), but held the populace in contempt (the crowd, the masses, the revolutionaries). The major democratic systems grew out of a fear of revolution, but a greater fear that bad leaders might be elected (demagogues, and also ignorant and inexperienced leaders) long prevented any radical change.


If fear of revolution is replaced with fear of social unrest, we have the Chinese dilemma. The ruling elite is trying to find a formula for a trouble-free democratisation that ensures "correct" leaders. "What is more dangerous," asked a cadre in charge of village elections, "an unstable society deprived of the vote (unstable in part because it has no means of expression) or a society in chaos because it has the vote?" The ruling classes and most party members are doing what they can to avoid both pitfalls.


Democracy is often mocked, sometimes by the Chinese, but it is not an empty threat. Beside social protest, or rather behind it, party members are taking political action. Lawyers, deputies, civil servants, teachers, entrepreneurs and heads of mass organisations such as the All-China Women's Federation or the All China Federation of Trade Unions, act in the media and in NGOs, as well as behind the scenes in government, to defend underprivileged social classes. Some inform newly arrived migrants of their rights (1) or publish articles linking the protest movements to social injustice and the defence of civil rights. Others support or even finance initiatives to help the poor or those whose homes have been expropriated, or defend national heritage, or promote the redistribution of profit.


Recently, some public figures have supported associations of co-owners who have been the victims of embezzlement by property developers and unscrupulous building managers with connections local government. What is at stake is the important issue of recognising the rights of the middle classes to enjoy that cornerstone of their aspirations: property ownership. Now the large Beijing high-rise housing projects can elect their own representatives. Local authorities have been quick to find ways of making these elections ineffective, but the reform marks the recognition of homeowners' rights.


Several journalists have denounced scandals relating to pollution or the treatment of migrant workers or farmers, or the plight of city-dwellers who have lost their homes. This new activism owes a great deal to a rigid elitist party membership faced with young people, business people and graduates (see "A middle-class party").


These "reformists" are not revolutionaries or dissidents, but they do share a militant past. They are in their fifties and most lived through the major Maoist upheavals, such as the Cultural Revolution and the movement to send educated youth to the countryside, as well as periods of opposition, especially 1979 and 1989. They have long mastered the official jargon as well as ways of disputing it; but having experienced crackdowns, have no desire to be sacrificed again. They can be found in all areas of government and sometimes have surprising affinities with the arts or government, education or business, because their paths crossed in the Maoist era.


Take Zhang, once an educated young man sent into the countryside, who is now director of the administrative offices of a major municipality. He has remained close friends with a well-known artist with whom he spent three years in Mongolia. Or a former Red Guard turned businessman, who is a close friend of one of his former adversaries. All these people have a certain empathy, share similar responses and a common language. "Most of us have discarded the myth of revolution as well as a belief in democracy and elections," one told us. "That is all dangerous stuff, we need to find a middle way."


Their own experience has led them to democratic conservatism, and a belief that political reform means evolving towards a process that guarantees order and the reproduction of the elite, but with a strong dose of social mobility. They toe the party line but support a reinforcement of the legal system, especially to guarantee the fundamental rights of the disadvantaged: those whose homes or land have been expropriated, exploited migrants, that segment of the urban population which has lost out in the economic reforms, home owners battling against property companies, or residents protesting against air pollution and dirty water.

They want to find legal channels for expressing their discontent and they teach people to use lawful means of protest against unscrupulous businesses and corrupt bureaucracies. Social classes (such as landowners, the expropriated, the poor, migrants) must assert themselves by protecting their rights (weiquan).


None of these "reformers" will risk stepping out of line. The revolutionary era is over, they say, do not interfere in politics. They will do anything to avoid direct confrontation with the regime. That choice is not purely tactical, since many of them are part of the system and belong to the social categories that have most benefited from the economic reforms: technicians, managers of major companies, business people and teachers. Like their leaders, they promote stability and are afraid of losing their hard-won privileges, which are all the more valuable since they came so late. Their actions show courage but require discretion - for their status (if not their freedom) depends on it.


The results of their actions are meagre, but important. The image of migrant workers has considerably improved in popular opinion and it is now rare for them not to be paid. More people are taking legal action and there is more awareness of pollution. Homeowners' rights are considered legitimate. These may be modest achievements but they far exceed anything achieved by outright dissidence, which has little popular support and runs the risk of severe repression.


This reformist trend has its enemies but they are not in government, nor are they party members. They are individuals within the administration, business and universities who want to continue milking the system but refuse to provide a framework (legal, formal, legitimate) for their prerogatives. They have yet to learn that if they want to hold on to their privileges, government methods must evolve and integrate all of society's aspirations.


Appearance of a middle class
The emergence of new social strata, gathered in that nebulous category, the middle class, forms another piece in the political jigsaw. This new class includes many communists who now have enough income to buy a home and car and to travel. But their political stance is ambivalent. They are critical of wealth accumulated bribery or through the privileges (tequan) of family connections, while they depend on their own merit and salaries, which are heavily taxed. Yet they favour improved legal protection of property and greater freedom of speech and association.


They are opposed to elections, which they view as a potential source of social tensions, violence and political fragmentation. Their view may be summed up as "Who can say that elected leaders will be any better than the people governing China today?". Members of this new middle class stress the importance of migrant workers' contribution to current prosperity and support measures to improve their living conditions. But they also insist on the need to "civilise" those peasants before granting them urban citizenship (2).


The new political context is a response to the major contradictions in contemporary Chinese society. The frenzied pace of growth with its consequent social problems has generated frustrations and desires that cannot be satisfied by economic growth alone. The eternal promise of a better future is no longer enough; people want guarantees.


The political trends that have emerged since the 1990s do not provide an adequate response. The return to tradition in the form of neo-Confucianism is hardly in line with economic growth and is at odds with the desire to experiment with new lifestyles.


The groups and individuals that make up China's "new left" advocate a national renewal, but their desire to re-collectivise the economy and return to social egalitarianism does not attract a population hooked on the pleasures of consumerism. As for political liberalism, both the intellectuals and the Chinese man on the street feel that smacks of Tiananmen-type chaos.


The new reformist current has a different viewpoint. It does not promote a recipe from the past or from outside China, but seeks a solution to the stalemate caused by economic growth. Its proponents believe that social discontent is on the rise because it has no legitimate channels of expression. Social advancement is paralysed. If a downturn in the economy were to deprive people of their faith in a better future, their frustrations could result in political meltdown.


According to the sociologist Chen Yingfang, "if an urban middle class, with a capacity for legal action and a political rationale, does not have the means to defend its interests efficiently, or if the government systematically prevents it from doing so by using the law or political action, or even by threats and violence, then citizens may decide on revolutionary action. That is a more costly option in terms of social subversion and political risk" (3).


To ward off this danger, the new reformists suggest that the scattered social movements and associations involved in the protests should unite. Together they could alter the flow of social mobility without stepping into the political arena. That would entail forcing the state, and especially local administrations, to adopt social policies and laws. A former professor, now a businessman, told me: "Society is the only force that can modernise the country and expand the scope for liberty and social justice."


This tactic fits in with recent analyses by economists who want to boost domestic demand by increasing the revenues of the least favoured segment of the population and protecting their standard of living in order to stimulate consumption. Understandably, that argument finds favour with the leadership. A society that feels understood, with modernised institutions, would maintain the status quo.


Such a project is hardly revolutionary and would bypass any issue of regime change while reinforcing the CCP. It establishes a close connection between political options and individual interests, it preserves both adventurism and repression while leaving a space for social issues.


And, undeniably, that fits in with sociological evolution. The most active social strata, the middle class, may be vocal in defending its interests, but it is not advocating any brutal change to the political system.


However, the strategy of circumventing the political sphere (not touching the cornerstone of power) by means of the social sphere (respecting individual rights and social justice) is not without pitfalls.


Defending rights does not guarantee the same treatment for all. The law is the product of political struggle. The middle class would have the necessary legitimacy, if only because they are consumers, to become the pillars of this conservative democracy. Disadvantaged social classes, such as the migrants, would have trouble making their voices heard and might be tempted by more revolutionary action.


There is another potential obstacle: resistance to change by local bureaucracies and part of the top echelons of government. The exploitation of migrants and land control generate such substantial profits that it may not be easy for central government to reform current practices.

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(1) These internal "migrants" came from the countryside more or less clandestinely and have jobs requiring few qualifications. Their rights are not often respected.


(2) See "The Imaginary of Urban Executives in Contemporary China: some findings", paper by author to the conference "Asian Societies in Comparative Perspectives", Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, 26-27 October 2007.


(3) Chen Yingfang, "Power of action and institutional limits: the middle strata in urban movements", unpublished study in Chinese.


Translated by Krystyna Horko
Le Monde diplomatique


A middle-class party
Jean-Louis Rocca


The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has 70 million members, mostly older males with a high educational level: 77% of members were aged over 35 in 2006, 80.9% were men and 29% were graduates (1). There is a high renewal rate and nearly 12 million new members joined between 2002 and 2006. Party leaders appear to be no more interested in women today than they were in the past, but they have targeted the country's youth in a major promotion campaign and 80% of new members are now aged under 35.


However, not anyone can join and the selection process is arduous. In Shandong University, for instance, 91.9% of undergraduates applied to join, but only 13.5% were accepted, although the acceptance rate rose to 40% in the case of graduates.


Students say that to get in you need to be a good student, show an interest in organising collective activities and be socially at ease; outlandish clothing and unorthodox behaviour are frowned upon.


Another membership campaign targeted the new social classes, especially the employees of the 600,000 foreign companies operating in China (2). The CCP already counts 2.86 million employers and employees from private enterprise in its ranks and 810,000 independent entrepreneurs, as well as 40% of all heads of private and individual enterprises. The party cadre of a small firm told us: "We want to transform it into a middle-class (zhongchan jieceng) party composed of top level citizens, entrepreneurs, employees and civil servants with responsibilities, but also migrant workers who have proved their worth."

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Jean-Louis Rocca is a researcher at the Centre d'estudes et de recherches internationales (CERI-Sciences-po) in Beijing and author of La condition chinoise (Paris, Karthala, 2006) and La Chine vue par ses sociologues(Paris, Presse de Sciences-Po, 2008)


(1) Xinhua, Beijing, 19 June 2006. Xinhua (the Chinese news agency) is the source for most of the figures given here.


(2) Chinese TV station CCTV5, 19 October 2007.


Translated by Krystyna Horko