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80% OF PRIVATE FIRMS VIOLATE EMPLOYEE RIGHTS

By Liu Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-29 06:43

Four in five private enterprises in China have not signed job contracts with their employees that's the startling result of a survey by the country's top legislators.

"The legal rights of employees were frequently violated in more than 80 per cent of private companies, specially in real estate, light industry, clothing and catering," He Luli, vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), said yesterday at the ongoing session.

According to the Labour Law that came into effect in 1995, a contract between employer and employee is mandatory. Administrative labour departments are authorized to force dithering employers to sign contracts with employees if the delay is intentional.

The lack of contracts leaves workers in a legal limbo: they cannot seek termination benefits should they be asked to leave; they have no right to medical treatment even in case of a workplace accident; and employers do not contribute their share to the pension fund.

But the tight employment market has forced job seekers to take up whatever work is available; and requirements in the Labour Law for written contracts, timely payment and compensation are often ignored in practice.

The number of unemployed urban Chinese is set to hit 17 million next year before coming down in the next five years, a top economic planner said recently.

Considering a pool of 150 million surplus workers in the countryside, the job market in China is "complicated and grave," said Du Ying, vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, last month.

The NPC Standing Committee inspected the implementation of the Labour Law in seven provinces and municipalities and surveyed 2,255 companies in the past few months.

Although it is not known if foreign companies were part of the survey, overseas-funded clothing enterprises, for example, last year accounted for 45.34 per cent of the total output value in the sector. There are more than 2 million private firms in China.

The legislators found that even among the fewer than 20 per cent of private companies which signed contracts with employees, the duration was mostly less than one year.

"The employers refused to sign long-term contracts to avoid legal obligations," He said.

And many contracts only prescribed the obligations of employees and the rights of employers.

"Some contracts even stated that the employer holds no responsibility for the illness or even death of its employees, even when injuries occur in the workplace," she said.

She urged the central government to adopt effective measures so that all companies are compelled to sign contracts with employees.

"As a contract is a legal and binding agreement that states the obligations and rights of employers and employees, it is of fundamental importance to safeguard the interests of labourers," she said.

The vice-chairwoman urged the implementation of a registration system when hiring employees, with the signing of a contract as a mandatory component.

In addition, legislators also found problems with salary payment and social insurance.

According to an investigation in April, 13 per cent of employees' salaries were lower than the national minimum salary and 8 per cent of employees surveyed did not receive payments on time or at all. Many private companies also refused to insure their employees.

Figures from the All-China Federation of Trade Unions show that more than 100 billion yuan (US$12.1 billion) was owed in unpaid wages to migrant labourers in China last year.

CHINESE WORKERS CLASH WITH POLICE

Monday, January 23, 2006 Posted: 0605 GMT (1405 HKT)

BEIJING, China (AP) -- Workers protesting the sale of a factory in southwestern China clashed for three days with baton-wielding police, a factory employee and a news Web site said Monday, underscoring the country's growing social tensions.

The conflict at the No. 354 military factory in the southwestern city of Chengdu left some of the workers injured -- one of them in critical condition, according to a factory employee.
It was the latest in series of violent clashes between authorities and citizens angry over corruption, the widening gap between rich and poor and official attempts to seize land for allegedly inadequate compensation.
The Chengdu incident occurred Jan. 16 and lasted for three days, an employee reached by telephone said Monday . She refused to give her name.
She said the factory was on the verge of bankruptcy and was going to be sold, but workers opposed the move. They had confined the manager to the factory and restricted his movement, she said.
According to Boxun.com, an overseas-hosted Chinese-language Web site, the factory was worth 300 million yuan (US$37 million), but was going to be sold for 80 million yuan (US$9.9 million).
Additionally, 200 million yuan (US$24 million) in compensation promised to the workers had not been paid, Boxun said.
On Jan. 16, about 1,300 military police came to the factory to rescue the manager and a bloody struggle broke out, the employee said.
Military police were prevented from entering the factory by thousands of workers and responded by beating them with clubs and electric batons, Boxun said.
The woman said she could not confirm what weapons the police used but said "there were definitely some injuries." She could not give specific numbers.
The four hospitals in the area refused to say if anyone from the protest had been admitted. Telephones at local government offices were not answered on Monday.
At least one person was in critical condition, Boxun said.
According to figures released by the government last week, the number of cases of public disorder in China jumped to 87,000 last year, highlighting the country's continuing battle to curb social instability.
Disputes involving land seizures, pollution and other issues are a key concern for communist leaders, who worry about spreading unrest among hundreds of millions of rural and urban Chinese, many of whom have been left behind by the country's 25-year economic boom.
Earlier this month, a clash between farmers and police over allegedly inadequate compensation for seized farmland in the southern province of Guangdong reportedly left dozens injured and a teenage girl dead.
In December, authorities opened fire into a crowd of protesting villagers in another village in Guangdong, a densely populated province of more than 100 million people where farmers and factories compete for scarce land.
The government said three people were killed in Dongzhou, while villagers put the death toll at up to 20.

CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Forty years ago, in May 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, the tumultuous mass campaign that spiralled into a decade of violence and repression.
The 30th anniversary of Mao's death is September 9. Then there is the October 6 arrest of the radical Gang of Four, marking the party's renunciation of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
Today the Communist Party still strictly guards the country's archives of those times and restricts books about the Cultural Revolution.
The central leadership doesn't worry about history for its own sake, but they don't want to look like they're encouraging doubts about the party when there are the Cultural Revolution has been blocked for years.

ASSASSINATED JOURNALIST

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese newspaper editor has died from injuries months after traffic police beat him up for an expose about exorbitant electric bicycle license fees, a New York-based press watchdog said.
A spokesman for the Taizhou city government in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang confirmed that Wu Xianghu, 41, deputy editor of the Taizhou Evening News, had died, but said the cause of death had yet to be determined.
China's tightly controlled state media have not mentioned Wu's death on Thursday last week, even though they reported the October attack.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday authorities had prevented local media from reporting the death.
Chinese journalists who report crime and corruption in the newly competitive media environment face increasing incidents of violence, the committee said.
Dozens of uniformed traffic police stormed into the newspaper's offices on October 20 and assaulted Wu, state media and press watchdogs said at the time.
The attack stemmed from a report in the previous day's newspaper on high license fees imposed by police on electric bicycles.
Wu died of liver and kidney failure after months of hospital treatment, the committee said. The official Xinhua news agency reported last year that Wu's liver had been damaged.
The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Wu underwent a liver transplant two years ago.
A newspaper colleague on Tuesday confirmed Wu's death but declined to provide details.
" The death of our colleague after he was brutally assaulted for his work is a cruel reminder of the new dangers faced by Chinese journalists," Committee to Protect Journalists executive director Ann Cooper said in a statement.
" The government must ensure the safety of the working press. This begins by bringing to justice the attackers of Wu Xianghu." Continued ...

Senior traffic police officer Li Xiaoguo was sacked for his role in the incident, Xinhua reported at the time.
Li had demanded an apology which led to an argument with Wu at the newspaper office. He then summoned colleagues to the scene.
The Taizhou city government spokesman said no charges had been brought against anyone involved in the attack.

57 000 PROTESTS A YEAR THE TRAGIC REALITY
THE SECRET DOCUMENT; 95% OF ALL CHINESE RICH ARE CORRUPT AND MADE MONEY ILLEGALY.

Public anger over illegal demolitions, withheld pensions and corruption led to more than 50,000 protests in China last year, a rise of more than 400 percent over the past decade according to official reports, including those from the Ministry of Public Security.

But significantly, public security officials and police who used to crack down hard on such protests and blame them on external forces trying to destabilize China now apply New Left thinking to explain the causes of the unrest and urge a kinder, gentler response.

"Surprising numbers of analysts in the public security system display an undisguised sympathy for the very worker and peasant protestors the police are supposed to suppress," wrote Murray Scot Tanner, an analyst at the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C., in an article in The Washington Review. "In their writings, they characterize laid-off demonstrators as 'exploited,' 'marginalized,' 'socially disadvantaged,' 'victims,' and 'losers' in economic competition, driven to protest by social distrust and the "heartlessness" of the free market. They frankly concede that many protestors are victims of crooked managers who drove their factories into bankruptcy through illicit dealings or who absconded with company assets."

Indeed, the degree to which the New Left's rhetoric confluences with that of the governments' indicates President ### team tacitly supporting the New Left and using it to attack previous President Jiang Zemin and his Three Represents theory, which is widely blamed for many of the deep inequalities gripping China.

Today, measured by the Gini coefficient, China's income inequality stands at 45. That's worse than the United States, which has a Gini coefficient of around 41, but better than Russia or the Philippines whose Gini coefficients are 46 and 47 respectively, according to the United Nations Human Development Report of 2004. (In the Gini coefficient 0 represents perfect equality in the distribution of wealth and 100 represents extreme inequality.)

In a country where people saved for months to buy a Flying Pigeon bicycle, the roads are jammed with gleaming Audis and Buicks. But between them, the unlucky ones who've been passed over by market reforms still pedal their now-rusty Flying Pigeons. Free access to education and health care has been drastically cut, especially in rural areas, and property that was once seized from the rich and redistributed to the poor is being taken from farmers and given to developers.

The argument that these changes were forced by "the discipline of the market" has angered many Chinese, causing party leaders to worry for the nation's stability.

Chen Xin, a professor of sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) in Beijing and a self-described New Lefter, says Hu realizes he must correct the imbalances created during Jiang's term because while a democracy can balance between extremes by throwing a party or president who's gone too far out of power, "in a one-party system, the party must have its own self-correcting mechanisms. Or else, it will lose touch with the people."

To unite people and buy time for a ?x to these problems both Hu's government and the New Left have increasingly been relying on a nationalist populism. By draping themselves in the Chinese flag, many New Left thinkers such as Chen are also stoking China's rising anti-Americanism to discredit capitalism and the Washington consensus.

"The (US's) real aim is to keep China down-I think they use the word contain," says Chen. "If we follow the global system the US created we will always be a junior player (so) to protect our interests we need to be independent and make our own system."

The military spillover of this nationalist economic thinking is most troublingly evident over Taiwan, which Chen says China should retain sovereignty over "even if it means war" with the US.

Critics of the New Left, such as Professor Shi Yinhong, director for American Studies at the People's University in Beijing, say such jingoism only highlights the fact that the New Left has no real prescription for correcting the imbalances in China's society and economy.

"They're frustrated fellows who can only criticize," says Shi.

But while Wang accepts that the major focus of the New Left is constructive criticism, he says a new economic framework is a "work in progress. Just because those without imagination cannot see it doesn't mean it isn't being formed."

The core of the New Left's policy recommendations is a focus on what they call the San Nong (or Three Nongs): issues concerning the plight of the nongmin (peasants), nongye (agriculture) and nongcun (rural communities).

That the government seems to have responded by focusing recent policy on increasing rural incomes and boosting agriculture has boosted the New Left's confidence and they've stepped up their rhetoric.

Wang says it's time people understood that the abysmal condition of China's have-nots is not merely a fallout of market mechanics, but the result of "bad macroeconomic policies and bad governance." He and other Chinese intellectuals in the New Left have begun educating the public about the faults they see in China's current reforms and advocating alternate economic and social policies through a series of well-publicized articles.

"(This government is still) more focused on helping export manufacturers than agriculture and rural welfare," which affect far more people, says Cui Zhi Yuan, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing. "(One of) the largest expenditure items in (China's) budget is not education or health care but tax rebates to exporters. So essentially, the government is returning money to (domestic and multinational) exporters while cutting welfare programs."

Such incentives have swelled China's exports to more than 50 percent of its GDP, as opposed to about 10 percent in the US and 20 percent in Japan, Professor Tang Zhong at the People's University in Beijing said recently. That's brought about 260 million of China's 1.3 billion people into the middle class, according to a recent report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. But it also means that the Chinese government is less concerned with raising domestic consumption and domestic wages, says Cui. In 2003 average rural incomes rose just 4 percent to reach RMB 2,622 (or $318). China's 786 million farmers who are 70 percent of the population account for only 39 percent of domestic consumption and hold just 19 percent of all deposits in the country's individual bank accounts, according to government reports. More than 50 million people still live in poverty, according to government figures, and the real number is likely to be much higher. What this means is that "the country is essentially renting out its workers" to foreign capital while most people continue to live in terrible conditions, says Wang. "It's too easy to say the farmers leaving their farms to work for starvation wages (in urban factories) are doing this out of free will. The truth is they're forced to do this...because the government gives them no choice."

Cui says the "current reality" is that China's Communist Party, despite its pro-worker rhetoric, has forsaken worker's rights in its pursuit of foreign investment and export-led growth.

Many Chinese workers, particularly migrant construction laborers in big cities, endure harsh conditions, often not getting paid at all. "They have nothing else they can do, so they just work in the hope of some future payment, which of course never comes," Cui says.

Forced labor, known as "laogai," is also common in prisons where prisoners are paid sub-market wages and "quotas are tied to beatings, leniency, favors, food or sleep," says David Welker, a Washington, D.C.-based executive with the Food and Allied Service Trade Department of the AFL-CIO.

Sometimes, even workers employed by US and other foreign companies work seven days a week. Efforts to address these issues receive resistance instead of support from the Chinese government. Just last December, a conference jointly organized by the Chinese government and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Beijing aimed at getting multinational companies to follow international standards and guarantee Chinese workers' rights was canceled at the last minute by Chinese authorities.

What seems clear is that "China is replacing its worker-oriented Stalinist-style control economy with a one-party dictatorship led by a politically connected managerial class-that's fascism," says Welker. "With the New Left rising, you have the classic divide between Right and Left...except in this case the Right is pretending to be the Left."

Cui says "ideological evidence" of this came in 2002 when businesspeople were allowed to join the Communist Party. Now New Left intellectuals are also challenging the growing nexus that's created between corrupt politicians, bankers and businessmen.

A confidential study of China's 20,000 richest people titled "The Present Economic Situation of All Classes of Society," jointly produced by the Central Research Office, State Council Research Office and Chinese Social Sciences Academy, found that only 5 percent of China's wealthy had made it on merit, according to a report in the China Rights Forum by Liu Xiaobao. More than 90 percent were part of connected clans, i.e. related to senior government or Communist Party officials.

[ Last edited by chinadaily at 2006-1-18 05:01 PM ]

2 CHINAS 1 SOCIAL DIVIDE OF 1 BILLION SLAVE WORK FORCE.

JEHANGIR S. POCHA is NPQ contributing correspondent in Beijing.

The echo of this disillusionment within intellectual circles has become the rallying cry of a group of intellectuals known as China's New Left.

This loose coalition comprises leading academics, many of whom have studied in the West and are disenchanted by it. They're challenging China's current market reforms with a simple message: that China's failed 20th-century experiment with communism cannot be undone in the 21st century by embracing 19th-century-style, laissez-faire capitalism.

China is "caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst of both systems," says Wang Hui, a professor of literature at Beijing's Tsinghua University. His passionate denouncements of China's market reforms in Du Shu, a magazine he edits, are partly credited with energizing China's New Left intellectuals. "We have to find an alternate way. This is the great mission of our generation."

Such grand visions notwithstanding, the New Left's adherents don't have a unified ideology beyond the broad brushstrokes or a coherent set of alternate policies.

Some are hardliners who find common cause with China's "old" leftists, who still support collectivization and remain faithful to Mao's radical "communism with Chinese characteristics."

The showcase of their ideas is Nanjie, a small town of about 3,000 in the central province of Henan. Once a nondescript farming town, Nanjie used the reforms of 1979 to marry collectivism with market forces to build 26 factories that produce goods ranging from plastic wraps to snacks, and the town is one of China's biggest producers of instant noodles.

Workers must attend study sessions of Mao's teachings and make critiques of each other's behavior in Cultural Revolution style. And though the average salary is only about $50 a month, everyone receives free housing, health care, a ration of goods like eggs and meat, a bust of Chairman Mao and a daily bottle of beer.

But the majority of New Left intellectuals are moderates who recognize that Mao's tactics lie discredited, and say they simply want to rein in the excesses in China's market reforms. Their main complaint is that China's export-led growth strategy skews society and allows the fruits of reform to be cornered by urban residents and government and Communist Party officials.

That criticism is increasingly resonating with both discontented workers and peasants.

"This is (now) an unjust society," says Lu She Zhong, 55, a village leader from Guan Yang village in central Henan province. He's been battling local authorities for six years over unpaid compensation after his entire village was resettled to make way for the giant Xiao Langdi dam across the Yellow River. "I know such projects are important (for the country), but why were we cheated in the bargain?"

CHINA’S NEW LEFT

Beijing - With its soaring glass towers and giant neon signs, Beijing looks like the new Mecca of global capitalism. But behind the glitz, there's growing disenchantment with the relentless market reforms that have shrunken social services and thrown hundreds of millions out of work.
The echo of this disillusionment within intellectual circles has become the rallying cry of a group of intellectuals known as China's New Left.
This loose coalition comprises leading academics, many of whom have studied in the West and are disenchanted by it. They're challenging China's current market reforms with a simple message: that China's failed 20th-century experiment with communism cannot be undone in the 21st century by embracing 19th-century-style, laissez-faire capitalism.
China is "caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst of both systems," says Wang Hui, a professor of literature at Beijing's Tsinghua University. His passionate denouncements of China's market reforms in Du Shu, a magazine he edits, are partly credited with energizing China's New Left intellectuals. "We have to find an alternate way. This is the great mission of our generation."
Such grand visions notwithstanding, the New Left's adherents don't have a unified ideology beyond the broad brushstrokes or a coherent set of alternate policies.
Some are hardliners who find common cause with China's "old" leftists, who still support collectivization and remain faithful to Mao's radical "communism with Chinese characteristics."
The showcase of their ideas is Nanjie, a small town of about 3,000 in the central province of Henan. Once a nondescript farming town, Nanjie used the reforms of 1979 to marry collectivism with market forces to build 26 factories that produce goods ranging from plastic wraps to snacks, and the town is one of China's biggest producers of instant noodles.
Workers must attend study sessions of Mao's teachings and make critiques of each other's behavior in Cultural Revolution style. And though the average salary is only about $50 a month, everyone receives free housing, health care, a ration of goods like eggs and meat, a bust of Chairman Mao and a daily bottle of beer.
But the majority of New Left intellectuals are moderates who recognize that Mao's tactics lie discredited, and say they simply want to rein in the excesses in China's market reforms. Their main complaint is that China's export-led growth strategy skews society and allows the fruits of reform to be cornered by urban residents and government and Communist Party officials.
That criticism is increasingly resonating with both discontented workers and peasants.
" This is (now) an unjust society," says Lu She Zhong, 55, a village leader from Guan Yang village in central Henan province. He's been battling local authorities for six years over unpaid compensation after his entire village was resettled to make way for the giant Xiao Langdi dam across the Yellow River. "I know such projects are important (for the country), but why were we cheated in the bargain?"
Public anger over illegal demolitions, withheld pensions and corruption led to more than 50,000 protests in China last year, a rise of more than 400 percent over the past decade according to official reports, including those from the Ministry of Public Security.
But significantly, public security officials and police who used to crack down hard on such protests and blame them on external forces trying to destabilize China now apply New Left thinking to explain the causes of the unrest and urge a kinder, gentler response.
" Surprising numbers of analysts in the public security system display an undisguised sympathy for the very worker and peasant protestors the police are supposed to suppress," wrote Murray Scot Tanner, an analyst at the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C., in an article in The Washington Review. "In their writings, they characterize laid-off demonstrators as 'exploited,' 'marginalized,' 'socially disadvantaged,' 'victims,' and 'losers' in economic competition, driven to protest by social distrust and the "heartlessness" of the free market. They frankly concede that many protestors are victims of crooked managers who drove their factories into bankruptcy through illicit dealings or who absconded with company assets."
Indeed, the degree to which the New Left's rhetoric confluences with that of the governments' indicates President Hu Jintao and team are tacitly supporting the New Left and using it to attack previous President Jiang Zemin and his Three Represents theory, which is widely blamed for many of the deep inequalities gripping China.
Today, measured by the Gini coefficient, China's income inequality stands at 45. That's worse than the United States, which has a Gini coefficient of around 41, but better than Russia or the Philippines whose Gini coefficients are 46 and 47 respectively, according to the United Nations Human Development Report of 2004. (In the Gini coefficient 0 represents perfect equality in the distribution of wealth and 100 represents extreme inequality.)
In a country where people saved for months to buy a Flying Pigeon bicycle, the roads are jammed with gleaming Audis and Buicks. But between them, the unlucky ones who've been passed over by market reforms still pedal their now-rusty Flying Pigeons. Free access to education and health care has been drastically cut, especially in rural areas, and property that was once seized from the rich and redistributed to the poor is being taken from farmers and given to developers.
The argument that these changes were forced by "the discipline of the market" has angered many Chinese, causing party leaders to worry for the nation's stability.
Chen Xin, a professor of sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) in Beijing and a self-described New Lefter, says Hu realizes he must correct the imbalances created during Jiang's term because while a democracy can balance between extremes by throwing a party or president who's gone too far out of power, "in a one-party system, the party must have its own self-correcting mechanisms. Or else, it will lose touch with the people."
To unite people and buy time for a ?x to these problems both Hu's government and the New Left have increasingly been relying on a nationalist populism. By draping themselves in the Chinese flag, many New Left thinkers such as Chen are also stoking China's rising anti-Americanism to discredit capitalism and the Washington consensus.
" The (US's) real aim is to keep China down-I think they use the word contain," says Chen. "If we follow the global system the US created we will always be a junior player (so) to protect our interests we need to be independent and make our own system."
The military spillover of this nationalist economic thinking is most troublingly evident over Taiwan, which Chen says China should retain sovereignty over "even if it means war" with the US.
Critics of the New Left, such as Professor Shi Yinhong, director for American Studies at the People's University in Beijing, say such jingoism only highlights the fact that the New Left has no real prescription for correcting the imbalances in China's society and economy.
" They're frustrated fellows who can only criticize," says Shi.
But while Wang accepts that the major focus of the New Left is constructive criticism, he says a new economic framework is a "work in progress. Just because those without imagination cannot see it doesn't mean it isn't being formed."
The core of the New Left's policy recommendations is a focus on what they call the San Nong (or Three Nongs): issues concerning the plight of the nongmin (peasants), nongye (agriculture) and nongcun (rural communities).
That the government seems to have responded by focusing recent policy on increasing rural incomes and boosting agriculture has boosted the New Left's confidence and they've stepped up their rhetoric.
Wang says it's time people understood that the abysmal condition of China's have-nots is not merely a fallout of market mechanics, but the result of "bad macroeconomic policies and bad governance." He and other Chinese intellectuals in the New Left have begun educating the public about the faults they see in China's current reforms and advocating alternate economic and social policies through a series of well-publicized articles.
" (This government is still) more focused on helping export manufacturers than agriculture and rural welfare," which affect far more people, says Cui Zhi Yuan, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing. "(One of) the largest expenditure items in (China's) budget is not education or health care but tax rebates to exporters. So essentially, the government is returning money to (domestic and multinational) exporters while cutting welfare programs."
Such incentives have swelled China's exports to more than 50 percent of its GDP, as opposed to about 10 percent in the US and 20 percent in Japan, Professor Tang Zhong at the People's University in Beijing said recently. That's brought about 260 million of China's 1.3 billion people into the middle class, according to a recent report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. But it also means that the Chinese government is less concerned with raising domestic consumption and domestic wages, says Cui. In 2003 average rural incomes rose just 4 percent to reach RMB 2,622 (or $318). China's 786 million farmers who are 70 percent of the population account for only 39 percent of domestic consumption and hold just 19 percent of all deposits in the country's individual bank accounts, according to government reports. More than 50 million people still live in poverty, according to government figures, and the real number is likely to be much higher. What this means is that "the country is essentially renting out its workers" to foreign capital while most people continue to live in terrible conditions, says Wang. "It's too easy to say the farmers leaving their farms to work for starvation wages (in urban factories) are doing this out of free will. The truth is they're forced to do this...because the government gives them no choice."
Cui says the "current reality" is that China's Communist Party, despite its pro-worker rhetoric, has forsaken worker's rights in its pursuit of foreign investment and export-led growth.
Many Chinese workers, particularly migrant construction laborers in big cities, endure harsh conditions, often not getting paid at all. "They have nothing else they can do, so they just work in the hope of some future payment, which of course never comes," Cui says.
Forced labor, known as "laogai," is also common in prisons where prisoners are paid sub-market wages and "quotas are tied to beatings, leniency, favors, food or sleep," says David Welker, a Washington, D.C.-based executive with the Food and Allied Service Trade Department of the AFL-CIO.
Sometimes, even workers employed by US and other foreign companies work seven days a week. Efforts to address these issues receive resistance instead of support from the Chinese government. Just last December, a conference jointly organized by the Chinese government and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Beijing aimed at getting multinational companies to follow international standards and guarantee Chinese workers' rights was canceled at the last minute by Chinese authorities.
What seems clear is that "China is replacing its worker-oriented Stalinist-style control economy with a one-party dictatorship led by a politically connected managerial class-that's fascism," says Welker. "With the New Left rising, you have the classic divide between Right and Left...except in this case the Right is pretending to be the Left."
Cui says "ideological evidence" of this came in 2002 when businesspeople were allowed to join the Communist Party. Now New Left intellectuals are also challenging the growing nexus that's created between corrupt politicians, bankers and businessmen.
A confidential study of China's 20,000 richest people titled "The Present Economic Situation of All Classes of Society," jointly produced by the Central Research Office, State Council Research Office and Chinese Social Sciences Academy, found that only 5 percent of China's wealthy had made it on merit, according to a report in the China Rights Forum by Liu Xiaobao. More than 90 percent were part of connected clans, i.e. related to senior government or Communist Party officials.
" In the name of reform (these people) are looting China," says Cui, who doesn't use the word looting lightly, but in the way it is used in the theory of looting.
Put forward by Nobel Prize-winning economist George A. Akerlof, who also coined the term "lemon" for crummy products, the theory holds that corrupt business owners often use bankruptcy as a backhanded way to loot workers, the government and investors. Cui maintains that is exactly what is happening in China today.
Thousands of China's State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) have been bought at ?re-sale prices by politically connected persons who, in collusion with corrupt officials and banks, have often stripped the enterprises of assets and employees without any accountability. This has saddled China's banking system with about $500 billion in bad debt, "but more importantly, it has created a might-is-right culture across the country," says Cui. "I know a company in Chongqing (in western Sichuan province) that was sold to its managers for 20 million RMB ($3.5 million), when the workers had offered to pay 40 million RMB ($7 million) for it with funds they'd begged and borrowed from relatives and friends."
Though both Wang and Cui say there is no doubt that Chinese SOEs, which generally lose vast amounts of money every year, need change, they are calling for a process of institutional renovation that would allow SOEs to restructure without surrendering ownership or abdicating responsibilities to workers.
Part of this would mean first trying to revive the SOE through a change in management. If that fails Cui says workers should be given the first right of refusal to buy the company.
Cui also says SOE sales should be executed through open auctions or stock markets, because this generally brings in a fairer price than a "behind-the-door privatization." Once the sale is made, proceeds must first be used to pay overdue salaries and fair unemployment benefits to laid-off workers, he says.
Since this and other New Left prescriptions threaten powerful vested interests, and dissent is still a delicate business in China, CASS's Chen is quick to say that "our concern is not politics but social welfare. We're only amplifying what we see happening around us...hopefully, that will aid and guide the government."
" Even the term New Left is not ours," says Wang. "It was first used (by pro-reform groups) to discredit us as old socialists. But I don't really mind. When something new is happening, it's normal for people to try and define it in old terms."
If Wang's benevolence toward his would-be labelers seems magnanimous, it is also partly driven by the fact that the Left label has begun to work in favor of the intellectuals.
" I've been reading some (New Left) articles, and they make me feel very warm because they remind me of the values my parents used to talk to me about," says Maria Zhang, 24, a student at the Beijing Forestry University. "I feel like China has lost its bearing by bending too much toward Western ways....We're out of touch with our past (and) core values."
The notion that the New Left is trying to create a socio-economic framework relevant to Chinese realities instead of aping American ways pleases many young Chinese who say they see little in common with America. That, and a continuing deterioration in Chinese public opinion of American foreign policy, are raising the suspicions of many Chinese toward the US and casting a shadow over future Sino-US ties.
" The 4 June (Tiananmen Square) movement was rooted in American notions, (but today) few believe America has moral leadership, the right to rule the world," says Chen. "They feel cautious of America, even the younger generation that never knew Mao. They see America as powerful and selfish...and bent on keeping China down."
Politically, concern with Washington's foray into Iraq and its tough talk, which many here see as irresponsible, are also leading China to forge closer ties with Paris, Berlin, Moscow, New Delhi and even Tehran.
Chen says that despite the political differences between the countries, what links them is a common desire to build socially oriented economies and create a multi-polar world.
Whether China will really alter its current reforms in any meaningful way is questioned by many. In Henan, Lu, the village leader, says he fears all the pro-farmer talk he's hearing from Hu's government is "only words" intended to mollify restive groups.
But Chen says rhetoric is always the first step toward change in China. "That sets the national mood. Then, there are some broad changes in policy and then, over many years, detailed changes in governance and implementation of laws. Right now, I think we are already at the second stage," he says.
Indeed, Hu is currently overseeing a massive reshuffle of officials and replacing older and discredited officials with a new generation of younger technocrats.
But even Hu's public indications that he intends to steer China more toward a German-style socially responsive state doesn't entirely satisfy Cui.
" The truth is that even the Western Left's policies (like progressive taxes) are only reactive and aimed at correcting imbalances caused by a capitalistic system," he says. "Our ultimate goal should be to develop a new theory of poverty and an independent society where such massive imbalances do not occur in the first place."
Cui, whose school is jointly funded and run by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, admits most of the essential principles for accomplishing this have come from the West: Principles like full cost pricing (which pass on the costs of environmental and health damage caused by products to their manufacturers), full financial disclosure (which rein in potentially destabilizing financial tools such as hedge funds), dismantling of tax loopholes and havens (in countries such as Switzerland), and new definitions of patents, copyrights and royalties (which emphasize their productive use rather than restricting ownership), and new salary schemes (which emphasize wages plus a share in profits).
That these principles are still eons away from being adopted by the West doesn't daunt him.
" China is finding itself," he says. "We have a new will to build a certain kind of society (and) this is irreversible."

CHINA’S EDUCATION REFORM IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED

Schools charging exorbitant fees blacklisted

GOV.cn Monday, February 20, 2006

China's State Development and Reform Commission on Sunday publicized a "blacklist" of eight schools, which were accused of charging exorbitant tuition fees totaling some 22.7 million yuan (nearly 3 million U.S. dollars).

The eight schools, four colleges and four middle schools, were exposed in the third round of nationwide inspections on educational charges conducted by the Commission, in a move to standardize the country's education charges.

"The eight schools have seriously violated the state policy on educational charges, and we are handling the problem," said an official with the ministry-level Commission.

The official added that any schools charging irrational fees should be exposed and punished, and the public is welcome to report such problems to educational departments and price administrations.

Despite more studying opportunities they have created for the country's youth, China's educational reforms have also brought students higher tuition fees, which are heavy financial burdens on their families. Standardizing tuition fees is one of the measures China is taking to ease the expense of education.

Schools found levying millions in illegal fees

Chinese authorities reported yesterday that eight universities and high schools overcharged their students more than 22 million yuan (US$2.8 million) last year.

The National Development and Reform Commission said further investigations are under way. Details on possible punishments and whether the disputed fees will be reimbursed were not released.

[ Last edited by chinadaily at 2006-2-23 12:50 PM

CHINA - OFFICIAL HUMAN TRAFFIC

In a nation that now only “yuan” matters, the sell out continues, between the official rental of the labour force, now officials traffic children to “foreigners”.
No doubt some are being reprimanded and sentenced but in a nation “for sale” is hardly possible to contain the drive to sell, anything at any price.
The example, comes right from the very top officials involved in all levels of “looting” China, under the pseudonym “market reform”.
23 officials punished for child-trafficking
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-02-26 09:17
A civil affairs official in Hengyang, Central China's Hunan Province, has been sentenced to one year in prison for child-trafficking, while 22 other officials have been sacked.
Social welfare homes in six counties under the jurisdiction of Hengyang were accused of buying abducted infants from human-traffickers from December 2002. In 2005 alone, the homes bought 78 abducted infants.
Chen Ming, in charge of Hengdong Social Welfare home, was sentenced on Friday but he is on the run, according to police.
Deng Guangyang and Zhou Liqun, heads of Hengyang and Hengdong county civil affairs bureaus, were removed from their posts for their negligence of duties. The officials in charge of the social welfare homes were also sacked.
Human traffickers Liang Guihong, Duan Meilin and Dai Chao were sentenced to 15 years in prison with a penalty of 50,000 yuan (US$6,250) each. The other six human traffickers got sentences between three and 13 years.
Court investigation showed that the convicted human traffickers bought infants from South China's Guangdong Province and sold them to social welfare homes in Hengyang, Hunan at the price of 3,200-4,300 yuan (US$400 to US$538) each.
The social welfare homes then had the infants adopted by foreigners who made donations.

ANOTHER CYBER DISSIDENT IMPRISONED BECAUSE OF DATA PROVIDED BY YAHOO

Reporters Without Borders called on Yahoo ! to supply a list of all cyberdissidents it has provided data on, beginning with 81 people in China whose release the worldwide press freedom organization is currently campaigning for.
It said it had discovered that Yahoo ! customer and cyberdissident Li Zhi had been given his eight-year prison sentence in December 2003 based on electronic records provided by Yahoo. “How many more cases are we going to find ?” it asked.
“ We were sure the case of Shi Tao, who was jailed for 10 years last April on the basis of Yahoo-supplied data, was not the only one. Now we know Yahoo works regularly and efficiently with the Chinese police.
“ The firm says it simply responds to requests from the authorities for data without ever knowing what it will be used for. But this argument no longer holds water. Yahoo certainly knew it was helping to arrest political dissidents and journalists, not just ordinary criminals. The company must answer for what it is doing at the US congressional hearing set for February 15.”
The foreign-based news website Boxun.com posted on February 5 the plea of cyberdissident Li’s lawyer, Zhang Sizhi, at an appeal court hearing in February 2004. Zhang said his client, who used the e-mail address libertywg@yahoo.com.cn and user-name lizhi34100, had been sentenced on the basis of data handed over by Yahoo ! Hong Kong in a report dated August 1, 2003.
Li, a 35-year-old ex-civil servant from Dazhou (South-West), had been sentenced on December 10, 2003 to eight years in prison for “inciting subversion.” He had been arrested the previous August after he criticized in online discussion groups and articles the corruption of local officials.
Local sources said Yahoo ! Hong Kong’s cooperation with the police was also mentioned in the court’s verdict on Li.
The US house of Representatives Committee on International Relations will hold a hearing on February 15 about the ethical responsibilities of Internet firms. Yahoo ! has been invited to attend.
49 cyberdissidents and 32 journalists are in prison in China for posting on the Internet articles and criticism of the authorities.
BOYCOT YAHOO - BOO… YAHOO

For the Shi Tao case

THE NEW EMPERORS OF CHINA

Since 1979 , the Chinese Government decided that it was too much of a burden to carry on with the political agenda that needed a very determined leadership to be implemented in face of the massive Capitalist wave that grew out of the 80’s with the Troika, Regan, Thatcher and John Paul II , a very cunning trio that under the usual rhetoric of freedom , liberty and market reform , were able to corrupt the top soviet officials with the eventual demise of the USSR, with the deal clinched between Chervernatzy - Baker and Reagan - Gorbachev ( the Pizza Hut man) now retired in Switzerland with the money stolen from the Soviet people.

There is one characteristic about the West that cannot be denied , they are persistent, consistent and usually embrace the same tactics for the last 2000 years; crusades; expansionism, colonialism, imperialism, globalization … different words with precisely the same meaning. The exploitation of foreign land at any cost. While the rest of the nations with a lesser or different agenda simply abide and give in as a feeble sheep that lies down to be consumed by the hungry wolves, with rare exceptions in history with leaders like Gengis Kahn, Lenin, Fidel Castro and our beloved Chairman Mao , that fought and won against colonialism and capitalism. Lately with the West united by the subservient EU, that has one way danced to the US tone orchestrated by Nato that has also a very typical American style tactic; If you do not play by our rules we will carpet bomb, and after a civilian, massacre to be wrapped up with the UN comes in with a resolution to make it all official and above board.

Now in China, under the name of Reform, that actually begun right after the transition from Mao Zedong , there has been a very consistent track that also has many similarities with the neighbour in the north.

First the well publicised wave of corruption that spreads on all walks of life, from the selling of Sinopec , National banks to official selling Chinese babies guess to whom …. foreign buyers.

Second the Church, now led by another extreme right wing fanatic, making massive strides in the mainland, including with the recent appointment of a cardinal in Honk Kong.

The West is celebrating the “reforms” , the Brits are raising the glasses with Chinese festivals in London, exhibits and visits of Blair and Prescot to clinch the new deals and of course the bribes being done in the same fashion they were done with the USSR.

The difference is that China, on this awakening idolatry of Capitalism, and money has raised the flag of the foreigners to a status never seen before. The campaign on the media, the imposition of English as the new Chinese “official” first language, the rental of their own country man to Foreigners as a slave force, on a colossal scale, the tax breaks given to the Corporate world leads to that dreadful path where the locals are seen as a second class citizens, as the people pf Shanghai in the 1850’s that could not transit in their own parks. Now many Chinese are being left out of many national sites, also for economical reasons, most highly visible schools and hospitals, now a privilege of the rich and corrupt.

The realpolitik of China is that Foreign Capital and their Masters are now de facto the New Emperors of the Land, and all the technocrats and officials do is to sanction their wishes by the Government Decree. The Emperors are indeed celebrating their New Conquest. It’s a 2000 years tradition of invasions, since the Crusades and China is just another land to be piled and looted in the name of the Father, the Son, the Spirit and The Holy Ghost also known as the “gold, oil, dollars, euros and pounds multinationals”.

Cheers ……to the New Emperors.
Old habits die hard.

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