When people talk about “bearing a cross,” they usually mean being oppressed, going to jail and suffering physical torment, so it’s surprising to hear a Taiwanese tycoon who lives in luxury and flies in a private plane saying he is “bearing a cross” because some employees at his factories in China have killed themselves. Even if he is as upset as he claims, the phrase is poorly chosen. If those workers could enjoy even 1 percent of the tycoon’s daily comforts, they probably wouldn’t want to jump off roofs.
Living in luxury and bearing crosses — this strange combination highlights how businesses investing in China are entangled in a heartless and contradictory world. On the one hand, these employers provide impoverished Chinese with employment opportunities, while on the other they rely on the Chinese government’s repressive policies to help them exploit the workers and amass great wealth for themselves.
For government and business to connive in bullying workers in a country that continues to call itself “socialist” and “communist” is the scandal of the century. While China’s so-called reforms under the successive leaderships of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) have been carried out in the name of “socialism,” they have created a gap between rich and poor that is wider than that of the US. Whatever social safety net China once had has been stripped away, leaving no relief from exploitation.
While the path taken under Jiang and Hu is essentially capitalist, China lacks the freedom, democracy, legal system and other checks and balances needed to keep an otherwise ruthless capitalist system in check. China lacks independent labor unions, free and fair media and a social welfare system. China’s reforms have deregulated the economy, allowing unbridled exploitation of labor, while the political system remains as rigid as ever. Independent unions are not allowed and there is no right to strike.
When a free market operates under a developed legal framework, the rules of the game are set, ideally, through a democratic process. The path to wealth depends on an individual’s ability, so it is not a sin to be rich. US software tycoon Bill Gates is wealthier than many nations alone, but he uses his wealth for philanthropy. There hasn’t been news of any Microsoft employees being abused to the point that they jump off buildings.
It is different in China, where the law counts for much less. There, you may only get rich if you have special privileges and the right connections. This is as true for overseas investors as it is for those Chinese who have made fortunes through the restructuring of state-owned enterprises.
While the rich get richer, workers live in internment camp-like conditions. Toiling day and night and selling their labor for low pay, there is no way out for them. These are the very conditions that Karl Marx predicted would lead to a workers’ revolution.
The suicides at Foxconn and strikes against low wages at Honda and elsewhere in China show that Chinese workers have had enough. The Chinese government, for its part, does not publicly dare to go on suppressing the workers and protecting employers’ interests. Rather, it is quite happy to shift the blame for exploiting workers onto overseas investors.
By conceding big wage hikes, Foxconn and Honda may be writing a new page in the history of China’s reforms. They are bringing to an end the stage in which China offered ultra-low wages. As these events unfold, Chinese workers are waking up and are now ready to break out of a contradictory system that thrives, at its core, at the expense of their rights.
James Wang is a journalist based in Washington.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Nvidia Corp’s plan to build its new headquarters at the Beitou Shilin Science Park’s T17 and T18 plots has stalled over a land rights dispute, prompting the Taipei City Government to propose the T12 plot as an alternative. The city government has also increased pressure on Shin Kong Life Insurance Co, which holds the development rights for the T17 and T18 plots. The proposal is the latest by the city government over the past few months — and part of an ongoing negotiation strategy between the two sides. Whether Shin Kong Life Insurance backs down might be the key factor
RSS