WEBVTT - Workers Protest in Modern China, Part 1 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to Dick Bappen here a podcast about it happening 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:12.600 somewhere else, you know. Okay, the theme, the theme of 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.439 this show has gone slightly slightly off the rails since 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.639 it was first conceived. However, Comma, I do think this 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.799 is something that is very important to talk about, which 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.520 is getting some more sort of background information and an 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:31.000 understanding of what the history of sort of labor in 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:33.320 general protest is in China as we look at a 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.640 certain the sort of current protest wave that is going 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.760 on there. And with me to talk about this is 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.440 Eli Friedman, who teaches at Cornell University and is the 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.920 author of the book The Urbanization of People, The Politics 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.560 of Development, Labor, markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City. So, Eli, 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.280 welcome to the show. It's good to be here. Yeah. 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.200 So I'm excited to talk with you about this UM 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:04.160 partially because I think, Okay, so insofar as you've gotten 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.400 sort of mainstream coverage of it, there's been a lot 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.600 of focus UM in term in terms of this sort 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.120 of current way of protests, there's been a lot of 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.760 focus on like the A four paper stuff and people 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:21.520 sort of you know, hanging signs up and as As 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.720 the coverage has gone on, there's been a lot less 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:27.800 about the fox Con stuff. There's been a lot less 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.040 about the broader trajectory of what protests looked like in 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.000 China in the last twenty years, as everyone sort of 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:38.880 like immediately reaches back for their stock tienem in comparisons. 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:44.800 I don't think you're very good. Yeah, yeah, So I 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.280 guess I guess we could in some sense start with 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.520 genomen because I think this is this is has nothing 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.000 really to do with it. But I guess we could 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.760 start with why why are the channe in comparisons bad? 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:05.640 And why is everyone still reaching for them thirty years later? Yeah, 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.840 I mean there there's maybe a couple of reasons why 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:15.079 so um, the the the unsympathetic take on it is 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.760 that you have a lot of people outside of China, 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:21.440 particularly in the United States, who hope for things to 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.680 go poorly in China as part of our imperial competition. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:31.720 And so UH was a bad year for China, whichever 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.960 side of of that movement you you were on UH, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.200 and so they believe that it heralds, you know, the 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.480 downfall of the Communist Party, and you know, therefore America 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.600 can march into the rest of the century without any 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:48.359 real competitors, so that that is a real thing, right UM. 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:53.240 And that I think the somewhat more sympathetic take on 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:58.320 this is that the Chinese government, and particularly under Stigent Ping, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.880 sets a ridicul u lesslie high standard for what qualifies 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:10.160 as social stability. Right. So minor deviations from um absolute 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:14.200 harmony as conceived of by the state, which means, you know, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.120 no street protests, it means relatively little descent online. And 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:20.600 to the extent that you do see forms of collective action, 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:25.119 they remain pretty small scale and fractured UM. And so 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.040 when you see deviations from that, that suggests that, well, 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:30.680 they've kind of lost control because they do want to 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:36.640 maintain this, you know, absolute image of placidity UM. And 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:40.080 if we look at the whole sequence of events that 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.240 led up to where we are now, I think we 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.200 have to trace it back. Well, there's a bunch of things, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.839 but one of them is the setone bridge protest um, 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.320 which is just a single person hanging banners off a 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:58.119 bridge in Beijing, UM, and a single person hanging banners 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.320 or holding sign in any other big city around the 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.400 world does not create that kind of a stir right. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:07.960 I mean, you know, you're you're in Washington, d C. 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:10.800 Or or you're in Berlin or or Tokyo or whatever. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.000 You know, nobody cares, right, So that but that just 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:15.800 shows a little bit of a crack in the system, 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.560 and so then people let their imaginations kind of run wild. Um. 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.520 And we're clearly not in a nine situation right now. 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.839 It's not inconceivable that it would develop in that way 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.120 in the future. Um. At the same time, I don't 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.560 think it's particularly likely for for all sorts of reasons. 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.720 And we can get into that if you want. Yeah, 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:41.440 I mean one of the things that I think, I 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.640 don't know one of the things that I've been looking 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.040 at with these protests versus eight nine. I partially it's 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:51.480 just the sort of class composition is just very very different. 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.719 Like there are student protests, but it's it's they're like 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.000 these these the students now, like are not the nineteen 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.400 nine students, Like this is just if this is a 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.560 very different sort of like it's it's very different student body. 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.520 It's a very different like the class competition that those 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.039 people are different. The experience that they've had in the 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.240 Chinese system is very different. And then also I think 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.120 someone more interestingly is like, it's it's not the same 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.000 working class that showed up in because that class doesn't 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.920 really exist anymore. And yeah, and I guess that that's 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.880 another part of this that I think, I don't know. 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:28.359 There is definitely extent to which these protests are weird 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.839 in that it is like it's it's it's it's a 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.200 bunch of people in different places who are protesting about 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.320 the same thing which hasn't which you know, hasn't really 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.520 happened for a long time. But also like I don't know, 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:42.800 there seems to be this reluctance to talk about the 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.760 fact that there have been like not in significant protests 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.960 in the last thirty years, like especially in the nineties, 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.000 there are these huge protests against sort of like the industrialization, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.040 like the destruction of sort of the Chinese welfare system. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.880 And I guess one of the things I'm interested, I 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.000 don't know it asking you more about is like there's 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:09.720 there's a kind of dejectory of what urban sort of 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.560 protests has looked like and like as as as the 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.720 sort of like as the Chinese working classes like increasingly 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.320 become a sort of vigrant working class, and so yeah, 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.599 I guess we could jump off from there to also 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:25.480 also I guess because that's the other thing is like 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.280 Chinese cities are very different now than they were thirty 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.240 years ago, which is the thing that is both incredibly 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:35.760 obvious and also like people don't really seem to understand 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.320 very well. Yeah, let's see, there's a lot in that question. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.640 Maybe we should circle back around to the question of 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.640 the class composition of the students and the workers today 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.280 in comparison to nine. But first let's just talk a 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.480 little bit about the sequence of labor protests over the past. 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.560 And there is a lot of me going to stuff there. Yeah, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:02.200 I mean, all all really important insights um, each deserving 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.400 a little bit of their own attention. So you know, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:09.360 after nine nine, Uh, there's this big divergence in the 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.960 UM in in the opportunities that are afforded to the 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.200 two constituent groups that were in Tanneman Square and other 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.000 places around China. So you have the students and you 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.960 have the workers, right, and there's there's other people, but 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.160 like that's the sort of the social backbone of that movement. Uh. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.760 The students basically get this deal with the state, which 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:33.360 is they demand compliance and political acquiescence in exchange for 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:38.239 which they will enjoy a couple of generation, a couple 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.120 of decades of unbelievably fast growth. And if you are 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.920 graduating with a degree from one of these elite universities 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.880 in Beijing or even not super earl universities and in 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.800 other cities, there's a pretty good chance that you're going 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.440 to experience upwards social mobility, that you'll be able to 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.880 buy an apartment that you know, you will feel more 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:00.000 materially secure than was the case for your parents, right UM, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.520 I think that that deal is coming undone right now, 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.240 which explains the students that we say out in the street. UM. 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.400 But in any event, that that certainly was the case 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.960 for for you know, for about thirty years after UM, 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.880 or at least you know, twenty five years after after tenement. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.240 The workers who were in the square in nine nine 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:25.080 had almost diametrically opposed social trajectory because immediately thereafter UH 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.320 they were subjected to a brutal regime of privatization, of dispossession, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.400 of theft of public property. They were thrown out of 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.760 these jobs that they had believed they were going to 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.920 have forever. It was called the iron Rice Bowl. Um. 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.240 One of the main architects of that was Johnsman, who's 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.199 just died. Healen with drewn So I saw. I saw 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.319 a great quote where someone was like, this is basically China, 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.880 George W. Bush, where everyone's remember again fondly because things 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:50.960 are so bad now, But oh my god, this guy 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.400 was awful, Like dying dying right now is maybe the 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:58.880 best thing he ever did. Like yeah, and it really 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.640 is a testament to how bad things are now. But 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.599 he is I think, um, the most neoliberal anyway of 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.400 China's leaders, more so than than dung shopping in some 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:11.960 important ways. Uh. And so you know that old working 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:13.960 class who was told that they were the masters of 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.840 the nation, um, you know under Jungs them in front 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.959 in the late nineties, they were just they were just 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.680 subjected to these real subsistence crises. And in response to that, 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.280 actually the largest mobilizations to have happened since nineteen nine 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.520 occurred in the late nineties and really the early two thousands. 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:33.960 In some cases, you have these protest movements with many 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.240 tens of thousands of people out on the street, resisting privatization, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.280 resisting the theft of their pensions, um and and basically 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.920 this you know, private profiteering and theft of public property. 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.520 And I think that even the protests that we've seen 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.679 in the last a week or two, um are are 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.000 still not on the scale of those worker uprisings that 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.720 we saw twenty years ago. Yeah, which I guess, you know, 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:00.720 like part part of the reason why we are where 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.000 we are now is that those people lost. And I 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.920 think that's been one of the other sort of themes 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.800 of like Chinese protests is like I mean, I think 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.840 like like some some of the local ones like when, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:13.640 but the large scale ones have kind of just been 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.400 like just like really just been getting owned for the 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.360 last like twenty really like thirty years. Like it's it's 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:26.800 been kind of a bleak march. And I mean, I 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.319 actually I want to circle back around a bit talk 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.319 a bit more about the d industrialization, because I think 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.160 this is a thing that like really is badly understood, 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.840 especially on the left. Um. The other thing I wanted 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.320 to talk about in in that is, Okay, so you 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.000 have this massive wave of privatization, you have this industrialization, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:46.040 and can we talk a little bit of also about 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.920 how like for the people for the people who held 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.559 on and say it on the industries, what the transformations 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.120 that happen inside there was like, because I think that's 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.880 also like not understood. Well, yeah, so you have two prosessies. 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:04.000 One is um the uh they talked about as as 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.239 smashing the iron rice bowl, right, and and that involves 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.160 two process. One is just unemployment. And there's been a 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.800 lot of um efforts to try to estimate how many 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.640 people lost their jobs. It is very hard. Political scientists 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.479 named Dirthy Salinger wrote an article called why It's impossible 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:23.960 to know how many unemployed people? There are some something 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:25.920 to that effect. Um, but certainly tons of millions of 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.160 people lost lost their jobs and we're just kind of 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:30.440 thrown out into the market. And it's worth remembering that 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.600 they were thrown out into the market largely in regions 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.640 where the market was not at all dynamic, right, so 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.200 in the northeastern part of the country, which did not 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.920 have the booming economy of Guangdong Province or you know, 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.520 john Su Province or places like that. Um, So, so 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.520 there were those people. People also probably know that there 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.640 are still a lot of state on enterprises and something 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:50.840 like a quarter to you know, maybe a third of 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.880 China's economy is still accounted for by state on enterprises, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.400 but those enterprises have increasingly come to function like capitalist 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.240 enterprises at least with respect to two labor relations. They 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.559 still receive a lot of subsidies from the state. They 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.520 still enjoy um monopolies, right, so that you know, they 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:12.240 don't face competition from other firms, at least domestically UM. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.360 And like monopoly based firms in capitalist countries, they offer 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.760 somewhat better UM pay and somewhat better benefits to their 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.920 core workforce. Right. So, I mean, if you think of 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.120 of GM or four in the middle of the twentieth 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:25.800 century in the United States, or you can think about 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.040 Facebook or Google today, you know, these companies that are 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:31.880 also basically enjoy monopoly position. Their core workers enjoy, you know, 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.640 somewhat better pay. Right. But the other thing that's happened 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.840 is they have increasingly come to be surrounded by a 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:44.240 very large contingent of temporary and flexible workers, right um, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.440 and so in in in many of these state owned firms, UM, 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:51.000 more than fifty of the employees are what they call 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.760 in China dispatch workers. Right. They don't enjoy any of 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.480 those same benefits, They don't enjoy the same job stabilities um, 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:02.280 and they eat in in response to market fluctuations and profitability. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.920 Those are always the first ones to be let let go, right. 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:08.800 So you know, the fact that they are state owned 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.800 I think matters to some extent um, but when, But 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.679 it doesn't mean that the old labor regime from you know, 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.400 the nineteen seventies has kind of continued unchanged. Like they 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.960 are being these firms are being subjected to market pressures 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.400 and that's reflected and how they treat labor. Yeah, I 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.679 mean that's something that like if if if you, if 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.959 you listen to and Ping like actually talk about what's 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.400 going on. He just constantly, every every like two speeches 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.920 that he gives there is a line about how like 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.640 the economy is directed by the market, and like, yeah, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.520 he's very clear about it, and in some ways he's 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.360 he's like very reganite, like he's just like, we don't 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.400 we don't want what these lazy people just enjoy welfare benefits, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.720 like they believe in the power of the market to 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.120 discipline people. There's no question about it. Yeah, And I 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:59.400 guess the other sort of consequence of this is China's 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.199 enormous my worker population. And that's definitely another thing I 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.280 wanted to talk about, because that was another round of protest. 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.560 Appens to two thousands, that's about uh, this giant fight 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.800 over household registration that I guess was the last kind 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:16.000 of successful, like really mass protest thing in China. We 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.560 talked about that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, there 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.680 haven't been the same scale of of collective protests by 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.400 migrant workers. But um, you know, just as a little 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.960 bit of background, you have the old state state owned 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.040 working classes kind of declining or subjected to the market 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.040 pressures that we're talking about, and so unrest um in 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.400 that sector becomes a little bit less significant over the 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.200 course of the two thousands. But that's happening at precisely 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.280 at the same time that the working class in the 0:14:45.320 --> 0:14:49.200 private firms is increasingly constituted by these rural urban migrant workers. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.040 When they come to the city's they are treated essentially 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.560 a second class citizens and don't have guaranteed access to 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:01.400 all kinds of social services healthcare, pensions, education, etcetera. Um, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.320 and so there is a lot of mobilization. I mean, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.360 you know, the the Juko household system, household registration system 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.280 still exists and it still has an important role in 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:18.560 structuring people's UM classed experiences. UM, but it's it's a 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:20.800 little bit less coursive than it used to be. So 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.680 in two thousand three, there was this famous case UM. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:28.440 A migrant named Soon You're Gung Um was taken into custody, 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:30.920 as frequently happened, you know at the time, like police 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:32.920 would just ask people for their papers on the street 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.600 if they looked suspicious, and they had a thing in 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.880 place at the time called custody and repatriation where they 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.080 would take you into custody and they would they would 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.960 repatriate you back to your village. Right, So very similar 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:49.640 you know to like ice rates against Chinese people. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.640 like they had even this is I think one of 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.800 the things about like, insofar as you can make comparisons 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.240 between like the Chinese system of the Soviet systems like that, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:15:59.840 that's one of the few things that was I think 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.680 kind of similar, is that you do have these very 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.240 intense into well okay, it's simultaneous that you have these 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.160 very intense like internal restrictions on migration, but also very 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:10.880 similar to the U S system. It's like the the 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.560 the economy is based on everyone breaking these things, that's right. 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:20.120 Simultaneously it's illegal, yeah, yeah, right, exactly, Like there's no 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.760 illegal immigration to the United States, but the economy would 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.040 obviously collapse without undocumented workers. And it's exactly the same 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.840 in China. Like, you know, they're like, we we know 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.040 that these people are here. We know that our economy, 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:34.960 particularly in the coastal cities, is completely dependent on them, 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:37.600 but we're still gonna have cops ask you for your 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:39.200 papers on the street, and if they don't like you, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.080 they can, you know, round you up and send you home. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.360 In this in this particular case back into A thousand 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.480 and three, the guy they got, it's like he was 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.360 the quote unquote wrong guy because he was actually a 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:56.600 university student and they they detained him and killed him. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:58.640 And so when this came out and they're like, oh, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:00.960 they killed a college student. If have they killed a 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.960 normal migrant worker, that would be one thing, but he's 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.919 a college student. So so that created a big foss 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:08.840 and as a result, you know, they actually got rid 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.280 of of thetention and repatriation, which is good, um there, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.480 And so migrant workers today when they're on the streets 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:17.679 in the big cities are are not likely to, you know, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.400 just have cops randomly asked them to see their papers. 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.600 But they're still subjected to all kinds of social discrimination 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:28.240 and definitely, um, you know, institutional discrimination. Yeah, so okay, 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.919 we're speaking of institutional discrimination. We're going to take an 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.080 ad break and then we'll come back and talk about this. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.600 So I enjoy some ads from companies who are probably 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:51.280 benefiting from all of this, and we're back. So okay. 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.560 That that's another thing that I do want to sort of, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.000 I guess, use this to push us forward a little bit, 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:02.280 which is that, Okay, this is obviously skipping a lot 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.120 of riots until I was eleven, but one of the 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.719 big things about the COVID restrictions that I don't think 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.679 people understand has been how bad it's been affecting American 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.439 workers and the extent to which, you know, because one 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.439 of the things about the House of Registration system is like, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:19.240 as best I can tell, this is this is the 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.080 way a lot of like a lot of resources in 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.920 terms of like here's how you're getting food haven't being 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:26.720 distributed and if you know, if you're in a place 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.879 that's not weird, how the registration is is like, well, okay, 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.159 the state's not giving you your food, how are you 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.240 going to deal with this stuff? And they're not that 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.639 that that that that's been a big thing that like 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:41.360 I don't know, but a lot of this has been 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.680 me being upset with the media coverage of these protests 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.840 because like people will just say COVID zero and then 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:53.680 not explain what the actual consequences of this are. So, yeah, 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:55.639 I was wondering if you could talk about sort of 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.959 specifically how how the lockdowns, especially as lockdowns have gone off, 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:05.040 have been affecting microt workers and then how that's and yeah, okay, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.520 well so we'll start start there before I jump into 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.199 a question with seven hundred parts. I mean, I do 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.959 think it's really important to understand why people are opposed 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.520 to zero COVID, and sometimes for people outside of China, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:18.560 they think back to the spring of when you know, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.360 in the United States, we had like libertarians with guns 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.639 being like in the lockdown, like we want our freedom, 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.720 Like it is not that for all sorts of reasons, 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.040 um and and the way to get at why it's 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.800 different is to understand some of the classed differences that 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.640 zero COVID has hasn't tailed, and I should just say 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.200 it's been pretty terrible for everybody, including rich people, and 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:42.080 like you know, we can we can feel some sympathy 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.200 for them to UM, but but it's had some particularly 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.800 nefarious consequences for for migrant workers. This became really clear 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.359 in the shang High lockdown. It's also worth noting that 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:56.480 there are three hundred million migrant workers in China. So 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.480 this is not like this this is like half the 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:03.400 population of Europe like so many people were talking about here. 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.760 It's it's it's almost an America sized population of people 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.160 who are not living where their household registration is. And 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.800 so the basic thing is, as you were just sort 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.680 of saying that when there is a lockdown and you're 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.680 a migrant worker, you you kind of don't exist from 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:24.840 the states, or you might exist, but like you might 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.439 also be overlooked from the perspective of the state. So 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.760 one very concrete way that this UM screwed people over 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:33.960 was in these hard lockdowns, you're not allowed out of 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.280 your house and you're dependent on the neighborhood committee, which 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.000 is which is connected to the state. It's kind of 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.040 the lowest level of the state. You were dependent on 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.400 them for the delivery of everything that you need to survive, 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.840 right critically food and medicine. Yeah, can up and say 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.080 something about this. This is something This is something very 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.440 very different than the American lockdowns, which is like, well, okay, 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.600 it depends on like it it depends on a on 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:01.439 on like a province of profit spasis. Like I know, 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.360 my family was in Mogolia. They like in in Mogolia, 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.119 like you you just you like the lockdown isn't like 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:09.960 you don't go to work. The lockdown is you cannot 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.240 leave your house like you can. You can say, I 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.440 think I think their lockdown, their first one was one 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:17.800 person in their house once a week can leave to 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:20.359 go get groceries. But it's like it's not like yeah, 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.800 like it's it's you, Like you physically cannot leave. You 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:25.439 will be if you attempt to leave, you will be 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.919 prevented from doing so. And this means that you don't 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.240 really have an independent way of like getting food or 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:37.080 like going shopping or yeah, like getting I don't know, 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:41.959 like toilet paper, Like yeah, toilet resonates with with Americans 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:45.080 in our in our toilet paper shortage of I mean 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:47.520 in some cases, like people would actually just be literally 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.440 chained into their apartments, right, So like, this is not 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.160 whatever people in in in the U s. Or even 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.119 even in parts of Western Europe, you know, where the 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.000 lockdowns were a little bit more intensely policed. Like it 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.960 is not. It is a qualitatively different thing. And so yeah, 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.240 you're completely dependent on the state. So therefore it's really 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.680 really important that the state know that you are there 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.960 and that the state feels itself to be tasked with 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.600 your survival and if you're a migrant worker. So so 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.760 one of the very concrete ways that this effective migrant 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.000 workers is that a lot of them live in informal housing, 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:23.359