WEBVTT - Workers Protest in Modern China, Part 2 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.160 Welcome, Dick. It happened here the podcast that you're listening 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.880 to right now. It's your host, Christopher Long, and we 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.360 are back with part two of our interview with Eli 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:16.919 Friedman about the reason protests in China. I want to 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.760 go back and talk about lying flat and that whole 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.720 kind of I don't know movement discourse that was happening 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.120 last year, because it seems like the kind of I 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.040 don't know if nihilism is the right word, but this 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.839 kind of like collective understanding that the whole sort of 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:38.080 bargain of the Chinese social system of you know, and 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.919 this was to some extent extended to everyone, right, like 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.400 the bargain of the Chinese social system of everyone everyone, 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.080 keep your head down, will get rich together. It suddenly 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.040 became clear that this wasn't gonna happen, And you know, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.680 I mean, I think like in some sense it's possible 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:55.800 to sort of like, you know, you can you can 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.880 put on your sort of like hard materialist hat and 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.480 you can like look at the number of hammers banging 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:02.640 out and you can just look at the chirp of 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.880 Chinese GDP graph of the last decade and be like, Okay, well, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.679 so eventually like what what what? What? It hit like 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.560 two percent? Eventually we were going to have protests. But yeah, 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:14.399 I guess, I guess I I wanted to talk a 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.479 bit about like, yeah, what line flat was? We covered 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:19.960 this on the show a long time ago when it 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.120 was happening, But and then also sort of how that 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.000 attitude shift was important or wasn't important. I don't know, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:29.800 Maybe it wasn't. I think it was, but yeah, I 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:33.600 think it's very important. Right, So, yeah, you can't just 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.640 be a crude materialist and like mechanically read social protest 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.080 off of some chart of you know, following profitability or 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.200 something like that. Um. But there it is a cultural 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.560 expression of real fundamental changes in the organization of the 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.520 Chinese economy. Uh. You know where already talked about how 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.280 the post eighty nine generation was like you go to 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.320 college and like you come out and you know you'll 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.480 you'll be middle class right on average, And that's just 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.040 not at all the case anymore. And young people in 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.960 China and and older people, middle aged people you know, 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.000 who are who have children, who are who are going 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:13.320 through the system, um, feel immense pressure in like immense 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.960 competition in all spheres of life beginning from a young 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.200 age in elementary school, all the way up through high school, 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.520 through the super competitive and intense university admissions process, and 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.200 then after graduating university and getting a job, and then 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.959 getting a job that can you know, um uh, you 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.320 can earn enough money to be able to afford an apartment. 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.560 And so here we have to understand you know, the 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.120 cost of housing and all of the other costs associated 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.880 with social reproduction. So the like the cost of care workers. Right, 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:45.359 if middle class people in places like Shanghai and Beijing 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.919 expect to have domestic workers, um, you know, looking after 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.239 their children, they expect to be able to hire tutors 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.519 who can um, you know, and comtutor their children in 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.320 English or in math um. And so just people feel 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.600 under unbelievable sure, and this is in a situation that 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.000 part of the reason that the pressure has is really 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.919 ramped up is that there are fewer good paying jobs. 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:14.240 You know, youth unemployment now in China is around um 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.600 and so one of the responses to that is just 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.079 forget about it. We're you know, we're gonna lie flat, 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.880 We're gonna we're gonna reject all of this. There's different 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.600 expressions and I don't actually the sort of like you know, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.600 sociologists and me is like, well, we don't actually have 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.880 numbers to know how many people are are lying flat 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.520 and like that is true, Like maybe most people are 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.800 still just going to work and you know, doing their job, 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:39.000 but there's enough you know, stories, and certainly in terms 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.680 of cultural residence of people just doing the bare minimum 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.560 at work or working for short periods of time, earning 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.800 just enough money to survive and not worrying about meeting 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:52.160 those kind of social expectations around buying a car, buying 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.800 an apartment and getting married, having kids, because people just 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.760 see it as as kind of it's kind of hopeless. Um. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.000 And so I think that's a really important backdrop because 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.360 we have to understand that some level that these protests 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.640 are about a sense of hopelessness, right be at economic opportunities, 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.080 be at the political system where cigent being is going 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.800 to rain as long as he wants, or be at 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.080 zero COVID, where you know, at any given moment, you're 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:17.840 gonna be locked inside your apartment and you're not gonna 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.919 be able to see your friends or or do anything. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.040 So um. Yeah, So I think it's very relevant. Yeah, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.279 And I wanted to, I guess also to This is 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.520 something I talked about on this podcast a lot, but 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.760 I need to, like I don't like drill into people's heads, 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.279 like just the sheer amount that people in China are working, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.120 just like like the number of hours, a number of 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.680 days a week, the the amount of effort that is 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.440 being put in is like it is, it is. It 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:50.400 is a level of Rowster plus value extraction that like 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.440 like like most places in the world haven't seen in 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.039 like a court like in like half a century. It 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.240 is like or even longer than that. Like it is, 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.840 it is a a truly stunning, like a truly stunning 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.320 level of exploitation in terms of things like nine six 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.680 in terms of the people who are working schedules in 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.039 a way worse than that, who don't really ever get 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.200 like talked about because they're not tech workers or they're 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:23.360 not people who have sort of like a platform Chinese society. Yeah, 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.880 it's it's extremely normalized, you know, I mean, like the 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.400 thing which which first of all, it is maybe worth 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.479 mentioning that China legally has a forty hour work week. 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.919 You're only allowed to work thirty six hours of overtime 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.480 on month, right, so probably you know, not more than 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.120 forty nine or fifty hours a week. That's that's like 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.719 the legal the legal standard. Nobody even remotely pretends like 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.359 that is a thing in any industry. There's legal debates 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:51.839 about like whether it applies to professional, white collar you know, 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.080 salaried workers or not. But um, you know, when the 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.960 thing came out and there was a pretty cool i 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.800 think movement based mostly online among tech workers, it was 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.760 it was great. It was very inspiring. And also every 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:11.480 single blue collar worker like we've been waking units six 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:16.120 for decades, you know, um, and so so it is 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.720 it is very normal across these these different kinds of 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:23.240 of stratum for sure. Um, one of the cool things 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.800 about ninetight six is people were we're revolting against it 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.640 and saying like this is an unacceptable way to live. 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:31.960 And again it comes back to this whole thing of 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.760 like all of these feelings of you know, these enhanced 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.600 pressures right where it's just like how do I live 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:39.799 in this city? How do I find like decent housing? 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.160 Like if you know, if I want to have like 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.000 a social life, which is the thing that some people 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:46.360 in their twenties want to have, you know, like how 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.640 do I do that? It's impossible under those circumstances. Um 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:56.120 so so again, like you can't read these movements mechanically 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.080 off of these these uh, these structural changes. But like 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.760 that is a thing that has been happening that is unresolved. 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.960 It's not at least for the you know, the blank 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.040 paper protesters, the kind of the more elite students and stuff, 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:15.480 they haven't specifically articulated um, their grievances as labor demands, um. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.760 But it's it's at least an important backdrop to what's 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:25.600 happening today. Yeah, and I think it's remember like how 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:30.240 I think I think this was like Mide twenty nine keeen. 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.160 I'm trying remember when I when I saw this specific video. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.440 But there there there, there there was a video from 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.600 the Hong Kong protests that was like it's always it was. 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.720 It was like literally one of these classic like like 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.880 sort of Twitter things, but like what do you want out? 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.400 What do you want to do after the revolution? And 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:48.280 it was like most of it was like I want 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.920 to start a bakery, like I want to work in 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.560 a library. And it strikes me that there's these things 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.120 that get subsumed under you know, when when when when 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.880 you see a pro democracy movement, right when when you 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.600 see you know, like the sort of well, I guess 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.840 that there's something interesting to hear about the Like like 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.120 day one of the protests, there were a lot of 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.400 videos that we're talking about Iran, and that kind of 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.600 seemed to like like the very early videos were about 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.360 sort of solidarity with the protests in the room sheet 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.640 and then like it was like it was like specifically 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.120 tying that to Iran and then to sort of pro 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.320 democracy demands, and then later on you get the sort 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:31.880 of like like the Shanghai like down with the party denimping, 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.840 like we went to occracy and free speech stuff. But 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:38.120 it strikes me that like a lot of the times 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.800 when you see people making those demands, it's because they 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.520 think that like you know, it's like there there there's 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.040 a whole set of of like things that they like, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:47.960 things that they believe about the future and about what 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.480 will happen in the future that are like not articulated 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.000 in the demands, but if you talked about if you 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:54.920 talk about them, like if you talk to people about 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.959 what they think is going to happen after that, there's 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.600 this whole sort of like opening up of stuff that 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.560 they think will be like the necessary results of like 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.320 the end of the one party state. And it's like, 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:07.120 you know, I don't want him, Like I don't know, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.400 I had this debate a lot with like, like there's 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:12.480 kind of like Chinese international student you get in the 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.920 US who like comes to the US and it's like 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.040 immediately like enormously enamored with the US. It's it's it's 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.439 sort of the mirror image of how we have a 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.400 bunch of people who are like incredibly enamored with the 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.360 Chinese state, and then you get people who come here 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.679 and are like incredibly enamored the American state, and it's like, well, yeah, okay, 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.160 this politician will see you and they will talk to you. However, Comma, 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.320 in about two years they will be voting to throw 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:40.600 you in prison. So like, but obviously, like both people 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.920 in China understand the Chinese system sucks and that the 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.160 promises that people like in the US belief about it 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.160 are fake. And then people in the US understand that 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.240 you can get a multiparty democracy and things because they'll 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.680 be absolutely shit. But yeah, yeah, you know, it strikes 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.800 me that there's a lot of stuff sort of embedded 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.600 in in in these demands that are like not really 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.560 explod articulated until later. And then that's also, I guess 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.520 been a hard part about these protests that like I 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:07.400 don't know, it's hard to get information out. You can 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.920 get shortened views with people. Mostly what you're getting are 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:16.280 like thirty seconds of footage of people yelling at a cop, right, yeah, yeah, 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.760 I mean there's a lot going on. Like if you 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.959 have this one, this tiny little opening, and then instantly 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.600 you have protests in like all of these cities all 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:30.120 over the country, dozens of universities, protests among you know, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.960 working class migrants, like middle class people in Shanghai, like, 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.040 you know, all all across the country. Like that suggests 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.760 that people have a variety of sets of grievances and 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.120 they're kind of funneling them through this this meta narrative 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:46.360 around ending the lockdown, which is not to diminish the 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.440 significance of the actual lockdowns, which are are called causing 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.840 real human suffering. But there's definitely a lot going on, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.600 and you know, one of the big ones is what's 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:00.320 happening in Shinjong, Like it's we still don't really know 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.120 how Weakers are feeling about all of this. The fact 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.840 that like all of the all the Protestants in the 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.040 big Eastern cities are about commemorating what happened in ermchy 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.680 Uh in a fire that killed mostly, if not exclusively, Weaker. 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.319 It's like that that that deserves to be talked about. Um, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.800 We don't really know how like the Han people on 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.920 the streets in the Eastern cities, like if they're thinking 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.160 about this this backdrop of you know, massive repression, surveillance 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:32.480 and mass internment of of Weakers and other Muslim minorities. Um. 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.400 But that's another thing. Uh And and I think the 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.920 same thing goes for the treatment of migrant workers in 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.040 in fox Con and these other um blue collar workers 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.160 who were put into the closed loop. Like to what 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.280 extent our urban um Han people still kind of willing 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.280 to go along with sacrificing migrant workers and treating them 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.720 as as as second class citizens, or is their possibility 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.440 of developing some real sense of of solidarity um with 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.480 ending not just the closed loop, but ending you know, 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.000 like kuko based discrimination, ending the camps in shin Jong. 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.520 You know, I mean, you can kind of spin out 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.240 from there, if if you are interested in thinking about 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.880 what it would mean to democratize China in like a 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:24.240 in a robust sense of the word, I think points 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.320 that are never thing about these protests that are complicated, right, 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.280 which is that like they are cross class in a 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.840 lot of ways, but I don't know, it seems to 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.240 me like the way they're manifesting is very much down 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.760 class lines. Like Okay, I genuinely don't understand what's going 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.680 on in Guangho. That like every single video I see 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.800 at Guangho is like seventy people throwing bottles at a cop, 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.920 and like every video I see out of like Shanghai 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.800 is like six people holding a piece of paper. But 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:54.800 it very much seems like, you know, like when when 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.120 when when when the cops are getting to like these 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.640 these sort of like these working class neighborhood these neighborhoods 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:03.200 that are like a informal housing, these neighborhoods that are 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:05.600 full of migrant workers. There were these really really intense 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.000 conflicts with the police in ways that like kind of 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.960 aren't happening. Well, I mean, okay, that's because the kind 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.520 of stuff seems to be happening in a room sheet. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.040 And I think it's happening there partially because you know, 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.920 this is like well okay, I don't know off thought 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:20.280 in my head whether it's more militarized than Tibet, but 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.520 like one of the most militarized, like one of the 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.400 most heavily police places in China. And then also people 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:30.480 are just really like the the immediate and palpable anger 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.959 seems to be the highest there because you know, I 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.520 mean like like it you're you're going to be more 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:38.839 piste off when it's people in your city or like 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.439 you know, you you maybe were like three blocks away 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:47.559 from this fire. Yeah, like these people. But yeah, one 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.480 of one piece about about Urch is that they've been 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.600 in some form of lockdown for like a hundred days, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.200 you know. Yeah, so that's not and and part of 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:58.920 that has to do with the fact that it is 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.480 this colonial setting where they feel like they can do 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.319 things to people that they can't do in Beijing and 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.480 Channg like people in San are not going to do that, right, 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.600 It's just like it's inconceivable. Um, there's obviously a lot 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:10.160 of Han people in Ear and she is actually a 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:15.760 majority Han. Now yeah, I think, yeah, um that that 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:19.160 sounds right to me, and shin Jong is increasingly Han 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.960 as well, although I believe we are still constitute a plurality. 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:28.600 So you know, there's just like each the lockdowns kind 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.800 of filtered down to these different localities and into different 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.080 communities with their different social and class compositions in different 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:37.160 kinds of ways and have different kinds of effects. Right, 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.080 So you can put people in lockdown in shin Jong 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.200 for a hundred days and they're going to be really 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.120 pissed when they get out. In the case of Guang Joe, 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.560 you know, this was also part of the sequence that 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.840 I think has been written out of the official narrative. 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.240 It's not it wasn't just fox Con. You had the 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:56.400 initial fox Con escape in late October early November, and 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:58.760 then you had these pretty intense riots that happened in 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.960 Guang Joe, but were in these urban villages, so called 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:07.040 urban villages largely informal housing, very densely populated, that are 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.280 overwhelmingly migrant workers. In this case, it was mostly people 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.080 from Hubei Um, which is which is where Wuhan is 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:18.040 and Um and so you know, just those migrant communities 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.240 were put into lockdown in Guangzho. So if you were 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.360 over in yeah, if you over in Tianaha District, which 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.360 is the sort of the the newer, like fancier part 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.240 of Guangho with lots of high rises, Um, you know, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.920 those places were not under lockdown, and so they they 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.840 put the migrant communities, and I saw some like really 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.640 not nice stuff, you know, people just being like, oh yeah, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.600 you know. The the local Guangjo people on the other 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:43.680 side of the river are just like going about their 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.560 life and and they're they're okay with what's happening to 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.040 the migrants. And the migrants were, as is the case 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.760 in some of these earlier lockdowns, actually facing real subsistence crisis, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:55.600 like they didn't have enough food to eat, and they 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.720 couldn't leave to try to get food. Um. So that's 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.280 why you saw these super intense riots. And that's why 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.760 you see them confronting the police and you know, screaming 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:06.840 at them, throwing things at them. You see tear gas, 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.840 all of these things. I think. So I think that's 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.640 the only place I've seen tear gas so far, Like 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.440 maybe in a room sheet. I'm not there may have 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.880 been a video, I don't I don't remember specifically their 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.760 room sheet, but definitely like only place have seen that 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.880 level of repression. Yeah, yeah, no, it was, it was 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.160 I mean, you know the Jung Joe Fox con was 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.920 probably the most violent and the larger scale. Um, but 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.120 you know that was it was a little bit different. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.600 I Gwang Joe. It's kind of like smaller streets they're fighting, 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.280 you know, street by street. So um yeah, so they 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.880 have a different experience of people in Shanghai. Again not 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.000 to minimize their demands, and I think it's it's important 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:49.360 for people to find points of commonality, um against this policy. Um, 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.600 but it's you know, it's not like that if if 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.760 you're if you're a middle class person Han person in Shanghai, 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.800 which is again not to minimize the very real difficulties 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.320 that those folks have been facing. Is well something this 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.760 kind of you know, I think that there there there's 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:05.479 there's like another group of people who should probably talk 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.480 about a little bit, which is like this sort of 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.639 downwardly mobile class a business owners who have been kind 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.840 of just getting annihlated by the lockdowns. And does that 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.920 that happen in the US too, Although the Chinese version 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:24.320 of it seems they're like less marginally less absolutely psychotic, 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.280 Like they haven't tried, but they haven't tried to like 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.639 kidnap a governor yet, Like they're not like they're not 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:37.560 as fascist as their American counterparts. Yeah, but it's it's 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.080 it seems it seems like there's a kind of interesting 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:42.760 I don't know, there's there's a class dynamic that kind 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:44.920 of reminds me of occupy and that you have this 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.920 sort of like kind of tenuous alliance between like some 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.800 some parts of the working class, these elite students, and 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.920 like this downwardly mobile middle class. But it strikes me that, 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.359 you know, I mean, that's the sort of a finding 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.640 thing about occupying. I think like the defining thing about 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.560 the whole sort of two thousand eleven doesn't thirteen wave 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.320 of protests was that like it was it was really 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.040 really easy to get people together into a physical space, 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.919 and when when you were in that single physical space, 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:15.280 it was like, you know, it's not it's not like 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.720 classes appeared, but it was like, you know, it was, 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.360 it was, it was. It was. It was a way 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:24.639 in which sort of like classes were mixing and you 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.960 could form this new kind of like identity based around 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.560 like what you're doing in this place, and it doesn't 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.560 really seem like that's possible here. It really seems like, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.080 I don't know, like there's this huge like you know, 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.680 this this is a protest that is like happening in 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:40.040 a lot of different places at the same time. But 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.560 it's like it doesn't. Yeah, the segmented they don't and 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:46.159 they don't they don't really have a sort of like 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.720 cohesive social identity that in a way that you could 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:52.919 get out of a bunch of people being in the 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:55.800 same place. Yeah. No, I think that's right. I mean 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.679 they're spatially segmented. Um. Something someone pointed out out on Twitter. 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.439 I can't remember who, but they're drawing comparisons to the 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.920 protests and the kind of the physical arrangements where people 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.119 are living and so particularly given you know, the online censorship, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.120 like that's been really important. So you have these worker 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.879 dormitories and fox con like you can organize by actually 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.919 talking to people with student dormitories, right, Um, and then 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.639 you have much smaller protests among the you know, the 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.080 middle class people who are able to circulate things online. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.199 And so the consequence of that is is they are 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.320 pretty segmented and I think, you know, everyone has their 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.359 own grievance with zero COVID, but these grievances are actually 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.520 pretty different. Right, So the fox con workers don't like 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.959 the closed loop management system where you know, where they 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.720 can't leave, where, where they're subjected to unsafe conditions, etcetera. Um, 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.800 you know, the petty bourgeoise like they don't like the 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.200 fact that there's no foot traffic you know, coming into 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.240 their shops. Right. And um, I don't know if you 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.040 saw the video of the guy like kicking down the 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.399 wall with a soup latal and it specifically, yeah, I 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.760 mean it was it was very theatrical, dramatic and uh 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.560 a great video you know in terms of like the 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.840 class position and yeah, you can see how it can 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.320 kind of capsize into fash quickly. Um. And then like 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.480 the students, you know, they want to be able to 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.320 live normal student lives and like leave their dormitories. And 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.160 that's the thing that I think students anywhere can associate with. 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.880 So it's like, yeah, they're all against the zero COVID policy, 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.000 but then it's kind of like what are their politics 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:27.760 after that? And I think if if this is going 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.800 to open up, um, you know, some kind of more 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.840 expansive political vision, Like it's gonna be hard to maintain 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.760 that like that unity. Right, the students are already talking 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.800 about like you know, censorship, freedom of speech, those things 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.920 which I support, I think are very good. You're probably 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.879 not gonna get the petty boudgeoisie to like risk arrest 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.359 and violence with the cops, you know, over like holding 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.600 up a blank white piece of paper, um, you know. 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.040 And then the micrant workers have another whole set of things, 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.080 you know, around like basic like health infrastructure, like you know, 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.280 can they get access to decent healthcare in the places 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.440