tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79714264306789482332024-03-12T22:46:15.242-04:00Kevin Slaten's BlogKevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.comBlogger116125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-68039173144177303412017-10-01T22:52:00.001-04:002017-10-01T22:52:43.716-04:00Skepticism of Bannon declaring an "economic war" with China<div class="tr_bq">
Fresh off steering strategy for a presidential campaign and White House which has damaged institutions and democratic norms in the United States, Steve Bannon flew to Hong Kong in the second week of September to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-bannon/protest-greets-former-trump-adviser-bannon-at-hong-kong-investor-event-idUSKCN1BN0TP">deliver a speech</a> to investors at an event hosted by a Citic subsidiary. He was greeted by protesters outside the venue decrying the toxic politics Bannon is famous for nurturing. </div>
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In line with his nationalist rhetoric, Bannon declared an "economic war" between China and the U.S. during his speech. At ChinaFile, a number of experts discussed the merits of this sort of label for the relationship between the two countries. My small contribution to the conversation is copied below. The entire discussion can be <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/bannon-says-us-economic-war-china-he-right">read here</a>.<br />
<blockquote>
I question the motives of the messenger. The discussion above, to the credit of its participants, has revolved so far around the merits of using “economic war” as a concept in the discourse of U.S.-China relations and the extents to which China is competing on a fair playing field. But we should be wary of Bannon, a regressive political figure and “alt-right” enabler who craves conflict within the U.S. and apparently war with China, of dishing up a conversation on the policy nuances toward China. Somewhat like the race-based theories of social organization to which his Breitbart faithful adhere, Bannon seems to selectively use bits and pieces of acknowledged fact to advertise a normative argument for deeper conflict, in this case with China.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Many people within the policy and political science community have engaged for years in discussion of the U.S. trade stance toward China and its bucking of international norms and standards. This conversation should continue, inclusive of those across the policy spectrum. But we ought to remain circumspect toward those who may not be engaging in good faith, who do not intend to maintain a just and peaceful world or resort to conflict as a last resort, those who undermine democracy with ethnocentric populism and envision a world divided along such lines. Bannon’s Hong Kong speech is an effort to stay relevant after leaving the chaos he helped mold in the White House.</blockquote>
Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-79305160741001141622017-04-01T12:00:00.000-04:002017-04-11T12:45:38.218-04:00Interview with VOA about arrest of Lee Ming-che 美國之音採訪:李明哲被抓事件<div style="box-sizing: inherit; margin-bottom: 32px; padding: 0px;">
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31 article</a> from Voice of America (Chinese) on Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che, who was arrested while visiting China in March and who remains in pre-trial detention. VOA interviewed me for the story, quoting my analysis of the reasons behind his arrest.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>台灣李明哲案 將引發更多境外非政府組織警惕</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">沉默一段時間後中國政府終於在星期三確認,台灣非政府組織、民主活動人士李明哲“因涉嫌從事危害國家安全活動”被拘留,人權組織和觀察人士擔憂中國正在擴大對NGO活動人士的攻擊,希望當局對李明哲受到的指控提供進一步細節,否則就應立即將他釋放。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">目前在台北文山社區大學工作的李明哲自3月19日從澳門入境中國大陸後就失去音訊,他的家屬、同事和台灣政府多次向中國政府詢問都未獲回音,星期三,中國國台辦發言人馬曉光在例行記者會上證實,李明哲因涉嫌從事危害國家安全活動正接受相關部門調查。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">國際特赦組織東亞部主任林偉星期三在一個聲明中指出,中國當局對李明哲有關“涉嫌從事危害國家安全活動”的指控過於空泛,這可能引發對中國是否正在擴大對合法NGO活動人士攻擊的擔憂,如果李明哲遭拘留“只是單純與他合法的活動主義有關”,那麼當局應該立即、無條件將他釋放。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">林偉說,李明哲因定義不明的“國家安全”理由被拘留,將使那些與中國境內NGO合作的人產生警惕,因為“當局現在針對NGO及它們合作夥伴所具有的不受監督權力,已經大到令人害怕的程度。”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">美國時政評論人士史凱文在接受美國之音採訪時說,從李明哲和最近幾個與中國“危害國家安全”有關的案例,例如瑞典人權工作者彼得達林、澳大利亞學者馮崇義等境外人士被抓捕或限制離境的情況來看,中國正在擴大國家安全的範圍和定義,儘管一般境外普通民間人士到中國祇是開會而非搞活動或抗議,都有可能被認為是觸及國家安全的範圍。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">史凱文猜測,李明哲被抓可能有3個原因,第一個就是李明哲的背景。他說,客觀而言,李明哲並非一般台灣公民,而是一個“關心中國民主”的台灣人,他是一個NGO工作者,而且還是前民進黨黨工,因此對中國而言,李明哲是一個“有政治色彩背景”的台灣人。其次可能與中國年初開始實施的《境外非政府組織境內活動管理辦法》有關。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">史凱文說:“這個法也是中國公安部管理的,公安部是國家安全的管轄權,有可能他是因為這個原因被抓的;第3,最近新聞報導說李明哲跟中國大陸很多NGO有交流,我們不知道他到底和哪些NGO和人士交流,有可能是比較敏感和所謂的敏感人士,有可能是跟他們的案子有關。”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">對於台海兩岸目前官方交流中斷的情況下,台灣應該如何在李明哲案施力或協助家屬,史凱文認為,單方面施壓較為困難,台灣政府應該透過國際社會發聲,讓北京知道人權是普世價值,任意抓捕公民是非法的。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">史凱文說:“單方面施壓中國很難,但是這應該變成一個國際社會的問題。總體來說,國際社會重視民主,重視民間社會、公民社會。基於這些原則,還有人權的普世價值,整個國際社會應該強調,你這樣抓捕人是不對的,按照國際法是非法的,台灣政府可能只能基於這些倡導或行動去幫助李明哲。”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">此為,史凱文也表示,中國國內有其法律程序,或許有人權律師願意協助如今自己都成為敏感人士的李明哲,不過他說,“這種法律程序都是假的”,最後是否能真正幫到李明哲他感到悲觀。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">台灣“關懷中國人權聯盟”理事長楊憲宏告訴美國之音,李明哲在台灣經常參與關心中國民主運動的活動,他所做的事在全世界民主國家,包括台灣,都合乎情理法,但只有在中國會被抓。</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">楊憲宏說,如果中共認為這是境外反華勢力入侵,那麼兩岸關係“根本走不下去”,因為李明哲是堅持民主自由價值的2千3百萬台灣人其中一個,抓一個李明哲等於告訴全台灣人,中共是與台灣價值和全球價值為敵,因此他說,“習近平不下令放人,就是首惡。”</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[來源:https://www.voacantonese.com/a/taiwan-activist-detention-china-20170331/3790691.html]</span></span></div>
Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-59747959691215047152016-09-28T18:00:00.000-04:002016-10-05T01:01:31.746-04:00在美国之音电台谈总统候选人首场辩论 Discussing the first presidential debate on Voice of America<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
昨天我参加了美国之音电台中文频道的一个交谈节目,讨论了美国总统候选人川普和克林顿首场辩论,节目完整视频在下面。</div>
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Yesterday I was invited to participate in a discussion of the first presidential debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on Voice of America's Chinese-language channel. The full video is below. It is in Chinese without subtitles.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/twvVyr9rHAs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/twvVyr9rHAs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-87727736801158904712016-07-20T20:00:00.000-04:002016-10-05T01:00:14.289-04:00Conversation: How Should the Republican Party Approach China Policy?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKmEaLzyVViRoX2-2ObpeiNEJ4Z5SGAt56hrr25AeJe0sYdHy0fyfyjs2YMAtxbvqg5JfjS6v6nYvsO38u3Ot0GiJWfFSlq_cqYDevb0-t056wpJ1VmiyT229HXU4B61heagdeC_2RnY/s1600/Nixon_and_Zhou_toast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZKmEaLzyVViRoX2-2ObpeiNEJ4Z5SGAt56hrr25AeJe0sYdHy0fyfyjs2YMAtxbvqg5JfjS6v6nYvsO38u3Ot0GiJWfFSlq_cqYDevb0-t056wpJ1VmiyT229HXU4B61heagdeC_2RnY/s400/Nixon_and_Zhou_toast.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">President Nixon and Premier Zhou Enlai toast in Beijing (February 25, 1972)</td></tr>
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ChinaFile<i> hosted a conversation during the Republican National Convention on Trump's China Policy. It was kicked off with comments from his advisor Peter Navarro, a business professor at University of California Irvine. Along with others, I took part in the conversation. My comment is copied below. The conversation can be found <a href="https://www.chinafile.com/conversation/how-should-republican-party-approach-china-policy">here</a>. </i><br />
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For starters, Republicans should stop seeking out the next war. Historically, Bush II was good at war-making—though maybe not war-winning. The fear and simplistic narrative of war, splitting the world into ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ can be an effective tool to mislead and corral the public. Such a tool is especially potent in a national campaign during a time when people are struggling economically and told to dread impending, random violence. Donald Trump now looks to formulate another war, a trade war with China. The narrative is custom-made to evoke fear and nationalism: A far-off country with an authoritarian government and a bone to pick is maliciously stealing your livelihood and weakening your country.<br />
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There is considerable imprecision, narrowness, and risk in Trump’s China narrative.<br />
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First, an examination of history will teach us that manufacturing began declining in the U.S. in the 1970s, long before China came on the scene as an industrial powerhouse. Huge structural shifts were caused by our North American allies via N.A.F.T.A., but we are not declaring “war” (i.e., needlessly demonizing) Canada and Mexico because of their economic impact on the U.S. (But based on Trump’s wall and immigration rhetoric, we cannot seriously doubt that he would not escalate conflict with America’s southern neighbor.)<br />
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The second fundamental problem with Trump’s China narrative, reflected in Mr. Navarro’s comments above, is that it seems to seriously misunderstand the motivations of China’s leaders. As detailed in the extensive economic and political analysis on ChinaFile and elsewhere, China’s economic policy is heavily driven by domestic concerns of prosperity and “social stability”. China did not set out to displace American factory workers or derail the American economy. In fact, American prosperity and consumers play an important part in China’s development model.<br />
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A third problem with Trump’s argument is normative. To demonize China at-large in the next great “war” engenders greater animosity in Chinese people. As we all witnessed after the recent arbiration ruling on the South China Sea, Chinese nationalism can burn hot when given the opportunity to direct itself at a foreign enemy. The U.S. further empowers Beijing autocrats by playing into this narrative. Echoing David Wertime, many Chinese look to the openness and tolerance of Americans as inspiration. A China policy which seeks to make enemies of Chinese people is counterproductive.<br />
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What does a productive China policy look like?<br />
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The U.S. should win over the Chinese people by being a model of prosperity and dignity. This begins at home. America has economically disenfranchised much of its population over the past three decades, foremost because of its own economic and financial policies. While America’s adjusted GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, wages have remained stagnant for most Americans. (Nominal GDP grew more than six times.) The size of the U.S. economy has grown 30% since China entered the WTO in 2001. (Nominal GDP nearly doubled.) The problem is not growth, it’s distribution of new wealth and opportunity for the average person to enjoy that growth. Discrimination and marginalization of ethnic and religious minorities in America, a bulging prison population, and incredibly frequent gun homicides also damage our ability to serve as a model to China. Pursuing fairness and economic justice at home is a critical part of influencing China.<br />
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The U.S. should encourage fairness and rule of law in China by demanding more of American companies which too often take advantage of poor enforcement of labor and environmental laws in China and elsewhere. America should also hold up peaceful human rights activists and non-governmental organizations as models of citizenship. This includes U.S. officials frequently mentioning the names of Chinese people and organizations who are arbitrarily threatened or imprisoned by Chinese authorities. These people are often seeking grassroots and equitable solutions to Chinese social problems which are broadly acknowledged by Chinese citizens. By championing activists and NGOs, the U.S. will be recognizing the creativity and potential of the Chinese people and in turn making them allies in our China policy rather than enemies.<br />
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In short, America’s China policy should include modeling principled governance and leadership. But whether the Republicans under Trump are capable or willing to make America a model nation is a question that arouses great skepticism.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-76124107787990526462015-11-23T21:11:00.000-05:002016-01-24T21:21:50.789-05:00Fortune story on China Labor Watch reportFortune<i> reported on the <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/111">investigation</a> of China Labor Watch into widespread and serious labor rights violations in Chinese toy factories supplying to top global toy brands. Forbes received responses from a number of the implicated toy brands. The beginning of the story is below. </i><br />
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<b>Hasbro, Mattel Toy Suppliers Slammed In Labor Report</b><br />
November 22, 2015<br />
by Claire Groden<br />
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China Labor Watch released results of undercover investigation.<br />
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Laborers at some toy factories in China work without adequate protection, toiling long hours with few, if any, breaks. Many facilities lack proper fire safety measures and subject workers to poor living conditions. For some, quitting means giving up earned wages. According to a new report by China Labor Watch, which investigated five major factories that supply toys to Hasbro and Mattel, labor violations are rampant in Chinese toy factories.<br />
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China Labor Watch sent undercover investigators to the factories, which altogether employ about 20,000 laborers. “Over the past 20 years, toy brands and retailers have reaped tremendous benefits from the labor and sometimes even the lives of Chinese workers,” China Labor Watch Program Coordinator Kevin Slaten said in a press release, “yet these companies fail to respect labor rights and to ensure that workers also enjoy the fruits of the toy industry’s success.”<br />
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The report found instances of hiring discrimination, mandatory and excessive overtime work, unpaid work, broken labor contracts, poor safety measures and few paths for laborers to seek recourse. Many of these issues also break Chinese labor law.<br />
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<a href="http://fortune.com/2015/11/22/hasbro-mattel-china-labor/"><i>Read the rest of the </i>Fortune<i> story.</i></a><br />
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<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-78942926256140654092015-08-18T17:00:00.000-04:002015-11-22T16:12:25.813-05:00Lessons of the Tianjin Explosion<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxZ6QvDOVzmpSQAL7S5yjfG5JPnzIzVa0Y58IbE0IFoEuuC2nMy__6TOkiDUTp0ChifcSKynymPrZoScvR1k_l-csIiVWBm_DN9mvV0fDGh6QscQODGcDMr8xJKQKtiWwoV9hiLSWpK4/s1600/VOA_chinese_tianjin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLxZ6QvDOVzmpSQAL7S5yjfG5JPnzIzVa0Y58IbE0IFoEuuC2nMy__6TOkiDUTp0ChifcSKynymPrZoScvR1k_l-csIiVWBm_DN9mvV0fDGh6QscQODGcDMr8xJKQKtiWwoV9hiLSWpK4/s400/VOA_chinese_tianjin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aftermath of the Tianjin chemical explosion. Source: <a href="http://www.voachinese.com/content/tianjin-20150821/2928031.html">VOA</a></td></tr>
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<i>Below is my contribution to a conversation on ChinaFile about the destructive Tianjin chemical explosion. The entire conversation can be viewed <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/tianjin-explosion">here</a>.</i><br />
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<span dropcapletter-f="" processed-dropcap="">F</span>ive days before the terrifying and deadly Tianjin explosion was the first anniversary of the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products incident, where a massive metal dust explosion and fire killed at least 146 workers. In a <a external-processed="" href="http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/more-exploitation-more-happiness" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">report</a> I wrote for this website about a month after the tragedy, I cited the latest casualty figure: 75. I also explained how the government apparently had deemed the incident a sensitive topic, censoring conversation and reporting. It was only in December, 2014, four months later, after the immediate shock had subsided, that the State Administration of Work and Safety revised the death toll in Kunshan to 146 people.<br />
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In Tianjin, we see the same story playing out in <a external-processed="" href="http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/retweet-08192015135855.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a nightmarish fashion</a>. Commensurate with the visibility of the explosion, destruction, and intense international coverage, censorship has gone into overdrive, <a external-processed="" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/08/14/chinas-censors-scramble-to-contain-online-fallout-after-tianjin-blast/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">up tenfold</a> according to Weiboscope out of the University of Hong Kong. Within a day after the event, the government had <a external-processed="" href="http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/08/minitrue-explosions-in-tanggu-open-economic-zone-tianjin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">issued directives</a> for permitted news reporting. I noted elsewhere that a top Weibo comment on August 13 was from an assistant director at CCTV who said, “[I] hope everyone resists believing or spreading rumors. Wait for official information.” Just as the official death toll in Kunshan doubled suddenly four months after the explosion occurred, we should not be surprised if <a external-processed="" href="http://english.caixin.com/2015-08-17/100840691.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">key facts</a> surrounding the Tianjin disaster materialize only after Tianjin has dropped from headlines.<br />
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Could robust civil society have, as Tom suggests, prevented the Tianjin chemical explosion? Yes. Disasters can be stemmed by muckrakers, grassroots advocates, and whistle blowers. These are features of a robust civil society that share two critical common values: oversight and participation. These are also two forces that directly countervail the overall trend of CCP leadership, especially since Xi Jinping came into power.<br />
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Chinese leadership has sought to centralize power and contract space for independent civil society actors, not expand it. In July, over 250 human rights lawyers and activists were <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/_" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rounded up</a> in a nationwide coordinated wave of suppression. Later this year an already cool environment for NGOs is likely to get frigid when a <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/%C2%AC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">new set of regulations</a> unleash unprecedented scrutiny and restrictions on overseas money connected to Chinese NGOs.<br />
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The contraction of operating space for non-government actors is well-documented in Freedom House’s recent report, “<a external-processed="" href="http://www.chinafile.com/library/reports/politburos-predicament-0" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Politburo’s Predicament</a>.” Carl Minzer's recent journal article, <a external-processed="" href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/chinas-reform-era-over-and-if-so-whats-next" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>China After the Reform Era</i></a>, which puts these trends into a broader historical political context, concludes that the CCP is reversing previous liberalization of legal and political institutions for the sake of self-preservation.<br />
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The larger socio-political context in China is pointing toward more restriction of non-government entities in China. It is with this in mind that I have little optimism for Tom’s hoped outcome: that the CCP will come away from the Tianjin disaster with a greater appreciation for the value of public oversight and participation. Instead, we are seeing a repeat of the official response to the Kunshan tragedy one year ago. Control the dominant narrative through directives. Suppress influential inquisitive voices. Focus attention on assistance and support for survivors and families. Deliver swift and resolute justice unto business owners and local officials. Let other news stories dilute the toxic subject until it becomes another disaster among many in the annals of China’s industrial era.<br />
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These are the tried and true self-preservation measures utilized by the CCP in the face of those industrial disasters with potentially dangerous political repercussions. As much as it saddens me to write it, the tragedy in Tianjin (or those in Kunshan, Fuwa, Wenling, <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/_" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Foshan</a>, or Mishazi) is not going push the rulers in Beijing to a liberalize their governance model. Conversely, it will embolden them to grip more tightly.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-31086494261270765682015-07-21T22:00:00.000-04:002015-11-26T20:12:18.957-05:00Is China's Reform Era Over and, If So, What's Next? (ChinaFile)Fordham Law School professor Carl Minzer's article in the <i>Journal of Democracy</i> sparked a conversation on ChinaFile about the future of China's political landscape. Minzer's argument traces the political evolution of the Communist Party in the "Reform Era", when Deng Xiaoping took over the reigns of power in 1978, to the current day, a time when Xi Jinping's anti-graft campaign and re-entrenchment of nationalist rhetoric has set the Communist Party and China on a new path, which Minzer suggests constitutes a post-reform deliberalizing era. But where this path will ultimately lead currently remains a matter of oracle bones.<br />
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I had the chance to participate in the discussion at ChinaFile, which can be viewed <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/chinas-reform-era-over-and-if-so-whats-next">here</a>.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-36847115089344947362015-03-08T22:00:00.000-04:002015-06-25T23:12:28.324-04:00No. 2 U.S. Sinologist Predicts "Endgame of Chinese Communist Rule Has Begun"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgahi8F0kt9Kjtdn34U1Si15ftygkImF0Xc31NZxAE0rXZ9G8DUUORfgQl3ElAjifr-ayeo0PjOcnhAHpde2IOCkFrhTJUSn59E-TZzgwKBdgPmdv7voDWccywOCOsCjAg7OOpmekXZI3s/s1600/great_wall-crop3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgahi8F0kt9Kjtdn34U1Si15ftygkImF0Xc31NZxAE0rXZ9G8DUUORfgQl3ElAjifr-ayeo0PjOcnhAHpde2IOCkFrhTJUSn59E-TZzgwKBdgPmdv7voDWccywOCOsCjAg7OOpmekXZI3s/s1600/great_wall-crop3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinpoh/4508107675">Kevin Poh</a>. Creative Commons.</td></tr>
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In January, researchers at China's Foreign Affairs University (外交学院) published the "American China School Assessment Report" (<a href="http://irps.ucsd.edu/assets/001/506035.pdf">Chinese link</a>), rating the top U.S. sinologists based on a number of broad measures: a person's influence on actual U.S. China policy, academic influence, and social influence. Specific sub-measures include a sinologist's publications, testimony in relevant congressional hearings, social network and affiliations, etc. <br />
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Writers of the report effectively looked at 158 current U.S. sinologists from think tanks, universities, government, and the military, assessing their work and influence from 2003-2013. The top 20 sinologists were as follows:<br />
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In this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal the entire space above the fold in the Review section was dominated by a huge portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Below the bold image was the title "<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-coming-chinese-crack-up-1425659198">The Coming Chinese Crackup</a>", authored by David Shambaugh, who also happens to be number two on the list of most prominent and influential sinologists.<br />
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Professor of international affairs and director of the China Policy Institute at George Washington University, Shambaugh in the essay argues that China's leaders are constructing a "facade of stability" to hide the country's deteriorating political system. He highlights five points to support his argument: (1) a tremendous proportion of China's elites have escape plans because they do not trust the stability of the political system; (2) greater repression under Xi belies an insecure regime; (3) supposed loyalists of the system are themselves seemingly lacking confidence in that system; (4) corruption is more deeply rooted in the political system than Xi's anti-corruption campaign can reach; (5) genuine economic reform policy is counteracted by interest groups that obstruct its implementation.<br />
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In short, Shambaugh predicts "The endgame of Chinese communist rule has now begun". This despite his acknowledgement that "several seasoned Sinologists have risked their professional reputations by asserting that the collapse of CCP rule was inevitable." <br />
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Whether or not you agree with Shambaugh's analysis, it's interesting that the person rated by China's Foreign Affairs University as the second most reputable and influential American sinologist just predicted that China's ruling regime has begun its terminal descent.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-90427496306041995562015-02-07T13:28:00.002-05:002015-02-07T14:11:29.604-05:00Raising the Minimum Wage Weeds Out Poor Working Conditions: An IMF Study Looking at China (含中文版)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM1wtFkUynWNEEON0V7yaxCll7td6A8SkPae-HPTTlay0iWL0LKNVOvWleyFVPc5tzsKVd50zJqhu6cb8l0y4q25EkcPFy6pBDkQNzavg-Cgcqufo9NO1izphzjQCnax7TLxE-lJLR5uo/s1600/20111026114636_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM1wtFkUynWNEEON0V7yaxCll7td6A8SkPae-HPTTlay0iWL0LKNVOvWleyFVPc5tzsKVd50zJqhu6cb8l0y4q25EkcPFy6pBDkQNzavg-Cgcqufo9NO1izphzjQCnax7TLxE-lJLR5uo/s1600/20111026114636_0.jpg" height="303" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Adjusting the minimum wage upward. Credit: <a href="http://www.ffw.com.cn/1/193/330/95277_all.html">Fufang Network</a>.</td></tr>
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(本文中文版在下面)<br />
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A friend of mine (and IMF economist) shared a 2014 IMF study with me on the effects of raising the minimum wage in developing countries, using China as a case study. The study, called <a href="http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2014/10/23/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-hurt-employment-evidence-from-china/">"Does Raising the Minimum Wage Hurt Employment? Evidence from China"</a>, delivers the following upshots: (1) "a 10% increase in the minimum wage lowers employment by 1%" and (2) "in low-wage firms, raising the minimum wage lowers employment but raises wages more than in high-wage firms."<br />
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My take on this data: the employment lost from a higher minimum wage probably includes contracted temp workers or short-term workers, which are not really steady employment and usually include a number of other harmful labor practices, such as a lack of labor contracts or mandated social benefits, underage or child labor, unpaid work and overtime wages, etc. In short, assuming effective enforcement, raising the minimum wage weeds out some exploitative conditions and leaves more stable, fair employment in its place.<br />
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<b>提高最低工资会减少恶劣工作条件:国际货币基金组织的研究</b></h3>
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我的朋友(也是国际货币基金组织的经济学家)跟我共享了一个国际货币基金组织的研究,是论提高最低工资标准的影响,以中国为例。该研究文章叫做<a href="http://www.imf.org/external/chinese/np/blog/2014/102314c.pdf">“提高最低工资会损害就业吗?中国的情况”</a>,核心结论有两个:(1)“最低工资提高10%会导致就业下降1%”;(2)“在低工资企业,最低工资提高导致的就业下降幅度和工资增加幅度都大于高工资企业。”<br />
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我对研究的信息如下:更高的最低工资所导致失业情况可能包括外包临时工或短期工,二者均不属于稳定就业,也通常涉及若干恶劣用工行为,例如缺少劳动合同或法定社会福利、使用未成年工或童工、无偿工作或不支付加班费等等。简言之,在有效执法的情况下,提高最低工资标准会减少剥削就业,并留下更稳定地更公平的就业。<br />
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Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-79873787343727635342014-11-03T12:00:00.000-05:002015-02-22T15:51:11.332-05:00Debating the Merits of Tearing Down Mark Zuckerberg for His Chinese TalkOn October 22, Mark Zuckerberg posted a 30-minute video of his discussion with students and faculty of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing. The video has reverberated around the halls of the Internet because Zuckerberg did the whole thing in Chinese.<br />
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Within a day, China observers around the world began giving their view of the talk. One reaction unfortunately set the tone, though. <i>Foreign Policy</i>'s Asia Editor Isaac Stone Fish ("a Mandarin speaker" is at the top of his bio) berated Zuckerberg for his poor Mandarin presentation, publishing a post titled: “Mark Zuckerberg Speaks Mandarin Like A Seven-Year-Old.”<br />
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What followed in the subsequent week was an exchange between that FP editor and myself--the platform provided by James Fallows at <i>The Atlantic--</i>over the correctness of his views. My original response to the FP editor is copied below the break. The editor’s response to me is <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/isaac-stone-fish-with-more-on-mark-zuckerbergs-chinese-language-show/382267/">here</a>. Finally, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/more-on-zuckerberg-and-chinese/382261/">here</a> is a third post on others’ views toward our conversation.<br />
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The essay below was <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/mark-zuckerberg-speaking-chinese-brave-foolish-or-both/382254/">originally a guest post</a> on James Fallows' blog at <i>The Atlantic.</i><br />
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<b>FP Editor Insults Zuckerberg Like a Seven-Year-Old</b></div>
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By Kevin Slaten</div>
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Last Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg sat down with faculty and students at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management to discuss Facebook and technology. To everyone's surprise, not only did Zuckerberg open with “<i>dajia hao!” </i>(“hi, everyone!”), but he proceeded to use Chinese to conduct most of the 30-minute conversation.<br />
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A number of observers noted that while his Mandarin was not textbook, Zuckerberg <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mark-zuckerberg/11182575/How-good-really-is-Mark-Zuckerbergs-Mandarin.html" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">deserves admiration for the hard work</a> he put in to get to that point, and even then, he was relatively relaxed and <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/59684/how-well-does-mark-zuckerberg-speak-chinese" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">seemed to enjoy the occasion</a> to converse in his new language.</div>
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But the Asia Editor at <i>Foreign Policy</i>, Isaac Stone Fish, took an entirely different—and solidly inane—perspective: <a href="http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/10/22/mark_zuckerberg_speaks_mandarin_like_a_seven_year_old" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">“Mark Zuckerberg Speaks Mandarin Like a Seven-Year Old.”</a></div>
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Stone Fish writes, “It's hard to describe in English what Zuckerberg's Mandarin sounded like, but I'd put it roughly at the level of someone who studied for two years in college, which means he can communicate like an articulate 7-year-old with a mouth full of marbles.”<br />
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This article is the literary—if I can even use such a respectable word—equivalent to a person heckling somebody with a lisp who has the courage to get up in front of a lot of people and make a respectable speech despite knowing fully well his own linguistic challenges. To use a public platform to make fun of this person is at best irrelevant and at worst mean-headed.<br />
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Someone could respond to me: this is Mark Zuckerberg, among the most rich and powerful people in the world. Okay, fine. Zuckerberg probably can't hear haters like Fish through his oceans of cash.</div>
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But this is not really about Zuckerberg; Stone Fish's negativity is directed at many more people than one.</div>
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There were more than 8,000 shares of Stone Fish's article, meaning tens or hundreds of thousands of people have read it. Among these are intermediate-level learners of the Chinese language who, like Zuckerberg, have not yet mastered the challenging tonality aspect associated with Mandarin Chinese.</div>
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What is Stone Fish, a “China expert”, telling these students of Chinese when he is tearing down a notable person for speaking non-standard Mandarin? He's telling them, “you'll be laughed at”, thereby alienating the people most likely to study and work in and around China in the future. This is not the sort of role modeling and leadership that we should expect from <i>Foreign Policy</i>'s Asia Editor.</div>
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What's more, as a second-language learner of Chinese himself, for Stone Fish to look down on others for their “imperfect” Chinese is both arrogant and risky. There are highly respected China experts—dare I say much more experienced and influential in the field than Isaac Stone Fish—who have used their nonstandard Mandarin to deliver well-received public speeches. Hell, even the Mandarin used in speeches by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping (neither of whom were native Mandarin speakers) was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQSO1Cs7gyQ" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">notoriously nonstandard</a>.</div>
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Those of us who did not grow up speaking Chinese, Mr. Stone Fish, should be especially careful not to throw stones in our glass houses. You might rethink your language confidence if Da Shan—the Chinese name of <a href="http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XODcyMzk0NDg=.html" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">Mandarin expert Mark Roswell</a>—published an article leading with “Isaac Stone Fish Speaks Chinese Like a Seven-Year-Old”. And before you become defensive, Stone Fish, remember that a seven-year-old Chinese kid could probably speak Mandarin more fluently than the majority of us foreign learners.</div>
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What's puzzling about Stone Fish's aimless post is that it comes from<i>Foreign Policy</i>, particularly as it was written by that magazine's lead China-focused editor. In my days as a Junior Fellow in the China Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, I remember when <i>Foreign Policy</i>, owned at the time by the Carnegie Endowment and housed in the floor above my office, was often mentioned among my colleagues and peers for providing valuable insight into global trends.</div>
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<i>Foreign Policy</i> says of itself: “Foreign Policy and ForeignPolicy.com provide the best available analysis of pressing global challenges by the world’s leading experts.” So, where exactly does a childish analysis of Mark Zuckerberg's Chinese fit into this?</div>
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Based on F<i>oreign Policy</i>'s own standards, Stone Fish's article should have looked much different.</div>
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It should have discussed how few non-Chinese CEO's have been brave enough to make such a determined effort to speak to Chinese in their own language. It should have looked into Zuckerberg's <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/Mark-Zuckerberg-Speaks-Chinese-to-students/381864/" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;">motivations for joining the board</a> of Tsinghua's business school, such as an attempt to nurture a back channel through which he could pursue future ventures in China, especially as Facebook has been blocked by government censors there.</div>
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The article should have looked at how Zuckerberg's performance reflects a number of larger trends. Study of Chinese language and culture is on the rise among younger generations, including Millennials like Zuckerberg (and Stone Fish, and myself). China itself is also on the rise, fixing to become the largest economy in the world and host a massive consumer market; major companies are going to increasingly find ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. A boss who is willing to put himself out there to communicate in Mandarin is a marketing strategy. </div>
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Of course, a full analysis would have taken a lot more time and effort for Isaac Stone Fish than just throwing barbs at Zuckerberg for doing his best to communicate in Chinese.<br />
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Speaking of Chinese fluency, Mr. Stone Fish, we didn't catch that link to your own 30-minute Chinese-language speech in front of millions of people around the world. Do us the pleasure of linking it in the comments below. [JF note: Or, since we don't have comments here, it can be part of a follow-up post.]</div>
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<i>Kevin Slaten is the program coordinator at China Labor Watch. He holds a Master's degree in Advanced Chinese Language and Culture from The Ohio State University. His opinions are his own. Follow Kevin </i><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCwQFjAC&url=https://twitter.com/KevinSlaten&ei=NcVNVN-aAeWIsQSMuoCQDQ&usg=AFQjCNFVZGFnyOoAgr6VfrueNANad1B8cQ&sig2=WV0F9n92cmJT59uXEfXI4Q&bvm=bv.77880786,d.cWc" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;"><i>on Twitter</i></a><i> or </i><a href="http://kevinslaten.blogspot.com/" style="color: #00598c; text-decoration: none;"><i>his blog</i></a><i>.</i></div>
Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-45768337406728588852014-10-19T11:46:00.001-04:002020-06-18T01:22:01.765-04:00Can I Raise Asian Kids in America?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>This post was <a href="http://chinapersonified.com/can-i-raise-asian-kids-in-america/">originally published on </a></i><a href="http://chinapersonified.com/can-i-raise-asian-kids-in-america/">China Personified</a>.<br />
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My wife, born in Taiwan, and I have talked about kids, including the possibility of adopting a child of Chinese descent. While reading <i>Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity</i> by Matthew Salesses, I was regularly shocked into questioning my decision to raise a child with Asian background.<br />
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<i>Different Racisms</i> is a short collection of essays by Salesses, a man of Korean heritage who was adopted at the age of two and raised by two white Americans.<br />
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He reflects on the unique discrimination targeted at Americans with East Asian descent and the struggles he has wrestled with as a Korean-American who passed through his formative years identifying as white, even though the culture around him wanted him to abide by certain Asian stereotypes.<br />
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The book uses a number of popular stories that reflect Asian American discrimination. For example, the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, Salesses argues, was surrounded by and premised on Asian stereotypes. Journalists said Lin was hard-working and an underdog, both descriptions essentially deduced from the idea that Chinese Americans are industrious and generally bad at basketball.<br />
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The essays raise numerous figures and anecdotes. “Bullying against Asian Americans continues at the highest rate of any ethnic group.” … “[A]n article in a major magazine that ran pictures of (male) Asian models above the tagline, ‘Gay or Asian?’” … “Both Harvard and Princeton have been under investigation on charges of racism toward Asians, whose grades and SAT scores, on average, must be higher than those of other races in order to gain admissions. Many Asian Americans have responded by marking the box on applications that declines to indicate race.” … “I confess that I would give my daughter that exact advice, in admissions: not to reveal her race.”<br />
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Against this backdrop of subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle discrimination, Salesses has had the added obstacle of finding his own identity as an adoptee from Korea growing up in a white family: “I have spent my life struggling with my adoption, what it means and meant to be abandoned by my birth parents, and knowing I never will come to grips with that abandonment … I realize that as a child I read because I was forced inside my head, unable to get comfortable with the outside world, with what I looked like and the way people (including myself) judged me on that appearance.”<br />
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While I appreciate this opportunity to delve into Salleses’ psyche, it gives me pause as I contemplate the life of our future child(ren), conceived or adopted. From the perspective of phenotype, this child will either be half Taiwanese or, assuming we adopt from East Asia, fully Asian. On top of the many physical and emotional needs that come along with responsible parenting, our child will almost certainly suffer discrimination in the U.S. that neither my wife nor I have ever personally faced, my wife having moved to America in her late 20s. And if the child is adopted, there will be even more needs related to his or her identity and past.<br />
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Though these stories have made me worry for our unborn child, I am grateful that the book has kicked me into greater awareness about the challenges that we will face as parents. I’ve gained motivation to be more prepared and, when the time comes, understanding.<br />
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<i>Author's note: this essay was slightly revised to reflect my views on discrimination and racism which have evolved since the original writing.</i><br />
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Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-9258682618600288912014-10-12T12:26:00.000-04:002014-10-12T13:55:49.440-04:00iPhone 6 Sale Reveals Ignorance and Indifference in Action -- Part 2 of 2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: <a href="http://siliconangle.com/blog/2014/09/25/pockets-are-for-wallets-not-iphones-issues-with-apple-pay-bendgate-emerge/">Silicon Angle</a>.</td></tr>
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The other day, I discussed how Chinese immigrants standing in overnight lines for the iPhone 6 in New York <a href="http://kevinslaten.blogspot.com/2014/10/iphone-6-sale-reveals-ignorance-and.html">unleashed considerable ignorance and hate</a> by tech lovers and other observers.<br />
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Today, we look at another "hot topic" revolving around the iPhone 6 release: the so-called "bendgate". Some early iPhone 6 owners have complained that the cover of the iPhone 6 <a href="http://fortune.com/2014/09/28/video-consumer-reports-puts-apples-bendgate-to-the-test/">can be easily bent</a> and damaged.<br />
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An investor, who describes himself as "head analyst for a boutique fund", published an article on the popular investment forum Seeking Alpha in which he discussed the potential harm to Apple's reputation if it does not get a handle on this iPhone 6 product quality issue. He goes on to write (emphasis is mine):<br />
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Apple is usually involved in every step of the production process, knows the costs of its components to the cent (and probably more accurately), and <b>doesn't accept any negligence from its suppliers</b>. </blockquote>
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I believe that as Apple grew in sales it became harder and harder to manage its supply chain, <b>but if this issue turns out to be a result of Apple missing Hon-Hai negligence or careless workers</b>, it is definitely something that needs to be fixed.</blockquote>
Apple "doesn't accept any negligence from its suppliers"? This may be accurate in reference to product quality, but how about suppliers' negligence toward workers' legal and human rights? Apple will go to the ends of the Earth to fix quality problems, but exploitation and abuse of workers making Apple products continues unabated year after year after year.<br />
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In September, China Labor Watch (where I work) published two reports (<a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/99">report 1</a>, <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/103">report 2</a>) demonstrating a long list of labor violations at two major Chinese plants that produce Apple's iPhone 6 covers. <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/reports/brand/2">Here is a full list</a> of reports on factories producing Apple gadgets that have been found to have major labor violations.<br />
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What's more, the investor wants to push the blame for poor iPhone quality off onto "careless workers". The Chinese workers making these iPhone covers are doing so at the pace of some 60-90 phones/hour, 11 hours a day, six or seven days per week under unsafe conditions, unpermitted to speak, and all the while paid a pittance.<br />
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It tests the limits of ignorance and indifference to--as a cozy "head analyst for a boutique fund" in the U.S.--want to put the impetus for change on Chinese factory workers who are treated like cogs in a wheel.<br />
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What investors (and the U.S. and Chinese governments) should be telling Apple is that while its talking to its suppliers in China about iPhone 6 quality problems, Apple should offer a few more dollars to the workers who, for every phone, are currently making one or two cents while <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apples-iphone-6-profit-margin-at-least-69-per-cent-report-20140924-10ld37.html">Apple rakes in $400-600</a>. Said another way, while Apple makes a 60-70% profit off the cost of an iPhone 6, an iPhone 6 worker earns about 0.003% of the cost of the same phone. That's profit maximization, alright.<br />
<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-73775944956861569332014-10-03T11:21:00.000-04:002014-10-03T11:28:41.880-04:00iPhone 6 Sale Reveals Ignorance and Indifference in Action -- Part 1 of 2A couple of weeks ago, the iPhone 6 went on sale with incredibly long lines forming outside Apple stores. Around the world, many of the people in the lines were Chinese.<br />
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The iPhone 6 had not yet been permitted to go on sale in China, so a resale market was immediately created in which Chinese people (often older, low-wage immigrants) would line up 12 or more hours ahead of the opening, buy one or more iPhones, and then immediately give them to an intermediary outside of the store. The person in line would receive a fee of a couple hundred bucks for their service, and the intermediary would <a href="http://time.com/3423883/iphone-6-china/">proceed</a> to resell the phone in China for a 100-200% mark-up.<br />
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In New York, this process was recorded and published on YouTube by a self-professed "big tech nerd" who "slept on the streets to get the very first iPhone". The video (shown below) was originally titled the "Chinese Mafia Takes Over iPhone 6 Lines", demonstrating deep ignorance and/or prejudice by the filmmaker. After major news outlets rebuked the mafia claim, he changed the title of the video to "Black Market Takes Over iPhone 6 Lines". But it was too little too late. The seeds of hate had already been planted. Just take a look at the comments in the video to get a rough idea of the terrible prejudice that exists toward and within the East Asian community.</div>
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This film breaks my heart. Money-strapped immigrants, following the law and just trying pull in a couple extra hundred dollars, are harassed by police while sleeping on dirty sidewalks in garbage bags. This film really is an allegory for so many major influences in the U.S.: immigration, capitalism, inequality, and prejudice.<br />
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Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-23219316467672015012014-09-28T13:59:00.001-04:002018-03-10T00:23:51.534-05:00An Open Letter to American MenDear Fellow American Men,<br />
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Why do so many among us hate women? The amount of harassment and violence we inflict on our American sisters is astounding. <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/domesticviolence/domesticviolencec.cfm">Millions of women</a> are physically or sexually assaulted every year.<br />
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The tremendous <a href="http://www.union.edu/offices/dean/sart/campus/">number of rapes</a> perpetrated on female college students is one issue that has gained more attention as of late. A relatively well-known case is that of <a href="http://time.com/99780/campus-sexual-assault-emma-sulkowicz/">Emma Sulkowicz</a>, a Columbia student that was raped by a classmate her sophomore year. But Columbia administration meted out little to no punishment for the offenders in Emma and other female students' cases. Leniency toward offenders is a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/14/2159721/college-serial-rapists/">common theme</a> for college rape.<br />
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What's sickening is that some of us (men) blame women for their own rape: "When a woman wears clothes like that, she's asking for it", "This is why women shouldn't get drunk at parties", "She shouldn't have gone to the party without bringing a friend". We say these things oblivious to how unjust it is that men can roam free wearing and drinking whatever they want while women must vigilantly prevent their own rapes.<br />
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Colleges, of course, are not the only places where violence against women occurs--or where it is treated lightly.<br />
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As many among us are football fans, you've likely heard about the Ray Rice story. Rice, a football star with the Baltimore Ravens, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/08/us/ray-rice-new-video/">knocked out</a> his then-fiancée (now-wife) in a hotel elevator. His male coaches and teammates strongly defended him. Ravens' owner Steve Bisciotti said (emphasis is mine):<br />
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"He's just been lauded as the nicest, hardest working, greatest guy on the team and in the community. So we have to support him. I think we'll be rewarded by him maturing and <b>never putting himself in a situation like that again.</b> </blockquote>
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"I've been on record of saying <b>my definition of character is repeating offenses.</b> If we're all one strike and you're out, then we're all in trouble. It's how you respond to adversity." </blockquote>
The takeaway: A man must repeatedly beat his wife or girlfriend before we punish him, and the focus should be on not getting caught. <br />
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NFL commissioner Roger Goodall initially gave Rice almost negligent punishment. But once the video of Rice hitting his fiancée surfaced in the public, Goodall suspended Rice indefinitely in order to put out the subsequent firestorm of pressure.<br />
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A <i>New York Times'</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/sports/football/in-domestic-violence-cases-nfl-has-a-history-of-lenience.html">report</a> last week revealed that domestic violence by NFL players has been all-too-common and "Players charged with domestic violence routinely received considerably lighter punishments than players accused of other offenses, like drug use or drunken driving." <br />
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Goodall responded to this issue: "We should have had the personal conduct policy reviewed more frequently, to make the changes necessary to deal with the issues that have changed."<br />
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What changing issues? Mr. Goodall, directing violence toward the loved ones in our lives has been considered abhorrent behavior for a long time. The only thing that has changed is that your record of wrist-slapping these men has been uncovered by the American public. <br />
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Brothers, you might be thinking, "Hey, I've never physically or sexually assaulted a woman in my life." Many among us strive to be fair, caring, and supportive fathers, brothers, husbands, boyfriends, and friends. But even if you are treating the women in your life with respect, there are those among us who are not. <a href="http://sapac.umich.edu/article/196">99%</a> of sex offenders are men, and the far majority of domestic violence is <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CFEQFjAH&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.futureswithoutviolence.org%2Fuserfiles%2Ffile%2FPerpetrator%2520Risk%2520Factors%2520Fact%2520Sheet%25202013.pdf&ei=nDooVMPGOtCeyATd_oKQBw&usg=AFQjCNHVPBukkLng-ySfZff9IOEJJtJ4Vw&sig2=nfQkfasT73McZne5pXCuaQ&bvm=bv.76247554,d.cWc&cad=rja">perpetrated by men</a>.<br />
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Furthermore, our violence against women is more than a few sociopaths among men. It is engendered by a culture in America that men have allowed to persist for too long. A male culture that encourages violence, objectifies women, and tacitly approves the harassment of women.<br />
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Take catcalling, for example. By making off-hand remarks to women that we don't know, men are creating an atmosphere of intimidation and indifference toward the harassment of women. The feeling women get from such common harassment was satirically demonstrated in a recent Daily Show skit:<br />
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Another issue is men's general objectification of women as primarily sexual beings. How many of you have been around friends (especially in male-dominated contexts, like sports teams or fraternities) who talk about women like sex-bots? Have you participated in or been present for conversation about calculating the number of times a man has had sex with a particular woman, or the number of women that a man has been with, or valuing women as a factor of their physical attributes? <br />
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And then there is the question of men's culture of violence. Toughness is often interpreted among us as a desirable male quality. Indeed, some women look for toughness in men. But we must separate our desire for physical and mental fortitude--which can be developed by women or men--with the concept of violence. Violence is a tool used to subjugate someone or coerce them to acquiesce to authority or specific demands. There are rare, rare circumstances in life under which violence is imperative and just. Violence is usually abused and overused by men as a method to get what we want. If a man uses violence regularly and unjustly, he may exude "toughness", but he also showing himself to be unscrupulous, disrespectful, and callous. The problem is that men do not emphasize the latter.<br />
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Brothers, to stop the epidemic of violence and harassment against women, we <i><u>absolutely must</u></i> teach one another and our sons that women are so much more than sexy, and violence is a tool of defense that should never be used to coerce others except under the most desperate of circumstances (such as when the absence of violence may lead to violence against many innocent people).<br />
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We need to support one another to become better men in our families and communities. If you hear other men talking about women like they are objects or sex stats, don't just sit by passively. Speak up.<br />
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Sincerely,<br />
Kevin <br />
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<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-77753017013558514282014-09-20T13:37:00.002-04:002014-09-20T13:39:49.436-04:00"Socially Responsible" Capitalism Still Feeds the Disease<i>As part of an excellent analysis piece on the concept of social responsibility, I did an interview with journalist Toshio Meronek for </i>Truthout<i>. The article really touches on issues located at the root of the state of business ethics. I've copied the beginning of the article below. The full piece, published on September 16, can be read <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/26221-socially-responsible-capitalism-still-feeds-the-disease#14112309403901&action=collapse_widget&id=6022285">here</a>.</i><br />
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Capitalism with a conscience? That's the idea behind so-called "socially responsible" investments - buying stocks in companies that are screened for criteria like good labor practices, sustainability and whether or not the company is involved in arms manufacturing. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, an industry association, claimed in its latest report from 2012 that at least $3.74 trillion in the United States is invested with environmental and social impacts in mind.<br />
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Some socially responsible investments (SRI) weed out cigarette companies like Philip Morris; others shun companies with poor environmental records, like BP. But whichever investments you choose, there's a good chance you'll be profiting off companies with bad human rights records because the backbone of many SRI funds are consumer technology stocks - companies like Apple and Samsung, which have histories replete with labor and privacy abuses.<br />
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China Labor Watch (CLW) is one of the groups that investigates ongoing labor problems; Kevin Slaten is its US-based program coordinator. He spoke to Truthout about the reports his organization has conducted on Apple, which started to be heavily scrutinized around 2010 when activists brought attention to child labor in some of the factories used by the computer giant. Some of these same factories were the subjects of protests over a number of Chinese labor law violations and mass worker suicides.<br />
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According to Slaten, "We constantly find these symptoms, but the disease underlying these symptoms has not been properly taken care of for years. The disease is these companies want the most amount of products in the shortest amount of time."<br />
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<i>Read the rest of the article <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/26221-socially-responsible-capitalism-still-feeds-the-disease#14112309403901&action=collapse_widget&id=6022285">here</a>.</i><br />
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<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-33061159508864164152014-09-20T10:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T13:38:56.607-04:00More Exploitation, More Happiness: How Netizens Responded to a Deadly Factory Explosion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnrnliJE1SHYQ2Kqd6aet4WtlaT0w48haaFPNrbO1WgUsciLtZnpYJVRap9sbqrnt2j4efpfun0U1tyeSVXKCnUJl1U-GCeYl_087VIVkHWffXzGvyfEsV31EjSHYSCXtFjjaG1TZzqOk/s1600/wdp_1407017702_8654.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnrnliJE1SHYQ2Kqd6aet4WtlaT0w48haaFPNrbO1WgUsciLtZnpYJVRap9sbqrnt2j4efpfun0U1tyeSVXKCnUJl1U-GCeYl_087VIVkHWffXzGvyfEsV31EjSHYSCXtFjjaG1TZzqOk/s1600/wdp_1407017702_8654.jpg" height="255" width="400" /></a></div>
<i><br />This essay was originally published at </i><a href="http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/more-exploitation-more-happiness">ChinaFile</a> <i>on September 18, 2014</i>.<br />
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It was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in recent Chinese history. On August 2, a massive metal dust <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/08/03/china-car-parts-plant-blast-kills-69-hurts-187.html">explosion</a> killed 75 workers and injured another 186 at a factory in Kunshan, in Jiangsu province, that supplied wheels to General Motors. Asphyxiation killed more than 40 people almost immediately as oxygen in the production facility was consumed in an instant. Many of those who escaped suffered severe burns across their entire bodies as the flames instantly ignited the dust that covered their clothes and skin.<br />
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The explosion, like many workplace safety incidents in China, was preventable, and much of the blame for it rests with the factory’s owners and clients. But Chinese Internet users, who spread news of the blast over social media, tended to direct their outrage at the Chinese government, treating the explosion as a symbol of their leaders’ failure to value human life as highly as economic growth, a sentiment mordantly expressed through the popularization of the Chinese phrase “More exploitation, more happiness.”<br />
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According to Chinese media reports aluminum dust concerns at the factory, which is owned by the Taiwanese-invested Zhongrong Metal Products, had been an issue since at least 2010, when workers <a href="http://www.mingpaocanada.com/tor/htm/News/20140809/tcaf1_r.htm">protested</a> at the front gate over pulmonary infections and other diseases caused by <a href="http://view.news.qq.com/original/intouchtoday/n2875.html">dust inhalation</a>.<br />
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The production facility was full of aluminum dust. A worker named Liu Fuwen <a href="http://view.news.qq.com/original/intouchtoday/n2875.html">told</a> a <i>Beijing News</i> reporter that every day before their meal breaks, each production line would fill a paint bucket with accumulated dust from their work stations. Another worker told Tecent’s <i>InTouch Today</i>, “When eating, each person’s body was covered in dust. It was like coming out of a brick kiln.” The factory’s managers would reduce production output on inspection day and wait until inspectors arrived to start up the machines, <a href="http://www.nanzao.com/tc/china/34155/kun-shan-bao-zha-yi-zhi-71si-qi-ye-jian-meng-hun-guo-guan?hmsr=edm&hmmd=edm&hmpl=trad_chinese&hmkw=&hmci=20140804">according</a> to the <i>South China Morning Post</i>.<br />
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GM <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/gm-doesnt-plan-to-change-supply-chain-safety-process-1407236398?mod=WSJ_US_LatestHeadlines">distanced</a> itself quickly. “[Zhongrong] was a supplier to a supplier, as opposed to us, so we are a couple of steps removed,” said GM President Dan Ammann. But global corporations selling major brand products understand factory conditions in their supply chains. Perhaps more so for GM, given its <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/business/victims-begin-filing-claims-in-gm-case.html?_r=0">recent troubles</a> with the safety of its ignition switches.<br />
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The local government, for its part, failed to crack down on clear dust-related safety concerns at Zhongrong. Kunshan Fire Department official Wu Shenfei told <i>The Beijing News</i> that a fire broke out in June at the plant due to overheating of a dust removal machine. While factory workers put out the fire before it spread throughout the facility, firefighters learned what had caused it. One veteran factory worker <a href="http://finance.sina.com.cn/chanjing/gsnews/20140804/023919900090.shtml">told</a> <i>The Beijing News</i> that Zhongrong was subsequently given a directive by the government to fix the dust-removal problem. That the factory’s management decided to ignore officials and continue production as usual is in part a failure of monitoring and enforcement bodies to compel compliance.<br />
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Indeed, the August explosion has become a symbol to many in China of a lack of will among officials to enforce safety regulations and protect the rights of citizens when business interests are at stake. On August 5, the finance magazine <i>Caijing</i> reported that in order to attract business and investment to the area, the Kunshan government had published promotional materials that read: “The Kunshan people welcome your investment. The more you exploit us, the happier we get.”<br />
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Within three days, that article had garnered over 7,600 comments from netizens, many including scathing criticism of the government.<br />
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The original version of the article was taken down between August 8 and August 10. Many reproductions of the article also quickly disappeared. But apparently censors were selective and did not delete every iteration of the exposé; it can <a href="http://finance.qq.com/a/20140805/081071.htm">still be found</a> by using the original <i>Caijing</i> article’s title as a search term.<br />
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The comments from the article can still fortunately be viewed by going to the comment board’s <a href="http://comment.163.com/money_bbs/A2TQJDHS00252G50/A2TTCGNK.html">direct web address</a>. Some of the top opinions each garnered hundreds or thousands of “likes”:<br />
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“Who to blame! These are earnest business people who were turned rotten after they got here. The useless government is the real root of the sickness.”</blockquote>
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“The economy of southern Jiangsu is an economy that sells its people.” </blockquote>
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“Behind the neon lights are blood and tears.” </blockquote>
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“In Taiwan, would they dare?” </blockquote>
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“Don’t the textbooks say that black-hearted capitalists are the only ones who eat people [note: to “eat people” is an especially derogatory term for exploiting people]? But we are a socialist country! What is really going on here?”</blockquote>
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While many of the news articles reporting on the Kunshan government’s advertisement language have been expunged from the Internet, many of the related posts and comments on Weibo have remained.<br />
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Between August 5 and August 8, there were more than 700 results on Weibo related to the slogan “More exploitation, more happiness,” with some of those posts being shared dozens sometimes hundreds of times.<br />
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<a href="http://weibo.com/1651428902/BgUU7A8KG?type=repost#_rnd1407703357690">One post</a> from <i>21st Century Economic Reporting</i> accumulated 520 shares and 234 comments. A netizen sharing the post wrote: “No boundaries! An absolute loss of purpose to serve the people, degenerating into service of capitalists.” Many people on Weibo contrasted the Kunshan government’s attitude with the official socialist stance of the Chinese government. <a href="http://www.wyzxwk.com/Article/shidai/2014/08/325539.html">One article</a>, shared 93 times on Weibo, mentioned that in two separate places in China’s constitution it states: “socialist public ownership eliminates the exploitation of people by other people.”<br />
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On August 20, the Kunshan City Procuratorate (public prosecutor’s office) formally arrested the legal representative, the CEO, and the production safety director of Zhongrong for the crime of involvement in a serious labor safety accident. In response to one Weibo post of the news, <a href="http://weibo.com/2087169013/BjbrSqVdg?type=repost">comments</a> primarily turned back to the question of government responsibility. One person wrote, “Who really must be arrested are officials who drummed up ‘The more you exploit, the happier we get.’”<br />
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Serious labor violations, almost a ubiquitous reality for China’s working class, rarely gather widespread attention and anger on Chinese social media. Most rights abuse cases are more or less confined to a small (yet growing) network of labor scholars and activists.<br />
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But the Zhongrong tragedy and its ensuing investigation hit a nerve among those in the general public who feel that the country’s economic prosperity has been delivered by the government at the cost of equality and fairness.<br />
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As the public discourse around blame for the Kunshan factory explosion turned from wanton companies and negligent local inspectors toward foundational issues of China’s constitution and governing principles, officials apparently took notice, taking down many news articles discussing the Kunshan government’s policy.<br />
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We can hope that attention from the government will translate into political will for reform. The Zhongrong case should clarify again the need for legitimate worker representation. Until workers have a union looking out for them in their own workplaces, unsafe conditions and other labor violations will persist.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-38439030806097031072014-09-05T19:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T13:26:32.891-04:00Media Round-up: Lack of reform to working conditions at Apple supplier CatcherOn September 4, China Labor Watch (CLW) along with Green America published an investigative report (<a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/upfile/2014_9_4/2014.09.02_Suqian_Catcher_FINAL_PDF_UPDATE.pdf">PDF</a>) on a long list of labor and safety violations at factory called Catcher Technology in Suqian, China that manufactures Apple computer and phone parts.<div>
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In addition to the approaching iPhone 6, this report followed 16 months after CLW had already reported similar labor abuse to Apple. But Apple failed to take the necessary action to see through reform. </div>
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In the wake of this report, I had a chance to discuss findings and underlying causes with <i><a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/report-alleges-labor-violations-at-apple-supplier-in-china-1409845953">WSJ</a></i>, <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/12/apple-harmful-chemicals-factories-labour">The Guardian</a>, </i>the<i> <a href="http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1585293/apple-supplier-based-china-accused-labour-violations-us-watchdogs">South China Morning Post</a>, </i>and<i> <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-chastised-for-unsafe-working-conditions-in-supplier-factory/">CNET</a>. Voice of America</i> did a <a href="http://m.voachinese.com/a/chian-apple-2010907/2441364.html">Chinese-language interview</a> with me. I also stepped onto CNBC's <i>Squawk Box</i>, which you can view below.</div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85098); color: #cccccc; font-family: Arial, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="true" bgcolor="#131313" height="298" src="http://player.theplatform.com/p/gZWlPC/vcps_inline?byGuid=3000307803&size=530_298" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="530"></iframe></span>Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-31364738029832571442014-08-17T23:48:00.000-04:002014-09-20T12:00:19.027-04:00What is the Chinese Dream?Over the past three decades, every Chinese Communist Party chairman, upon his taking the reigns of power, has developed a grand guiding principle rolled up into a nifty rhetorical package. Not much unlike U.S. politicians' campaign slogans, in the 1990s, it was Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" (三个代表), and in the 2000s, Hu Jintao's "Scientific Development" (科学发展观).<br />
<br />
Soon after Xi Jinping became the top official in China, he developed a phrase that would become his political slogan: "The Chinese Dream" (中国梦). But amidst increasing amounts of both real and perceived inequality, some in China do not feel that they are enjoying the dream, especially migrant workers who built much of that dream with their bare hands. <br />
<br />
Over <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/multimedia/video/chinese-dreamers">at ChinaFile</a>, Sharron Lovell and Tom Wang asked a few young Chinese people about their dreams. One of the most memorable quotes for me was from a young man who said:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"If there weren't any migrant workers, it would be impossible for China to develop this fast." ... "The place you live was built by migrant workers. What you're eating was grown by migrant workers. What you're wearing was produced by migrant workers." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“如果没有农民的话,中国不可能发展这么快。”... “你住的地方农民工建的,你吃的农民工种的,你穿的农民工做。”</blockquote>
See the entire video below.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/103081295" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe>Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-75690632036701489992014-08-13T22:10:00.000-04:002014-08-13T22:10:06.895-04:00The end of newsies<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zyPudFHrJDjclYJlWpsVj6oT3rqkyAserIunDgBlP6phDD8tNTn9NmAampxcR4gacb-5CduPl43fcQAmflIkPylckvMjClVj_xMMgBL6JQvjR33U9oiSELK3S1IdyhdeO9vHZgznNBE/s1600/child_labor_newsies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zyPudFHrJDjclYJlWpsVj6oT3rqkyAserIunDgBlP6phDD8tNTn9NmAampxcR4gacb-5CduPl43fcQAmflIkPylckvMjClVj_xMMgBL6JQvjR33U9oiSELK3S1IdyhdeO9vHZgznNBE/s1600/child_labor_newsies.jpg" height="288" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Child newsies in 1906. "Midnight at the Brooklyn Bridge" -- Photo by Lewis W. Hine. Transfer from Photo League Lewis Hine Memorial Committee. Ex-collection of Corydon Hine. Copyright George Eastman House Collection.<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Stepping off the Long Island Railroad train, I look up to catch my bearings. Seventh Avenue is to the right, and I follow the stream of morning passengers toward the steps that lead up into the main hall of the train station.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">After squeezing out of the narrow stairway, people around me seem to multiply into a enormous crowd of commuters, filling the large hallways of Pennsylvania Station. The mass of people flows like an urgent river toward the main exit up to the street level. I jump into the stream, bobbing and weaving between groggy businesspeople and office workers.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Heading up the Seventh Avenue escalator, daylight shines down into the chamber of Penn Station. And then I begin to hear the clear calls emerging from the light, as if welcoming commuters into the busy Midtown streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">“AM New York. Come on, come on! Pick it up pick it up. AM New York!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">“Macy's Macy's coupon coupons. Macy's coupons.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I stepped off the escalator, greeted with a bellowing, drawn out call, “Metrooo!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="236" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qh3Vo_6oTcc" width="420"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">These were the newsies, the people tasked with distributing free newspapers around New York City. And every morning, multiple newsies assemble at the entrances to Penn Station where thousands of people flow outward.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Most mornings I experience this scene. Sometimes I grab a paper. But recently, while walking through the newsie group, I thought back to the Newsies story, a well-known Disney musical film that was later adapted into a Tony award-winning Broadway show.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">In the rural suburban Midwest school where I grew up, I had the opportunity to watch the Newsies movie more than one time. It left me believing that the mandatory first utterance of any newspaper hawker must be: “Extra extra! Read all about it!”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lqPuGMgT6yw" width="420"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This newsie stereotype quietly followed me for nearly two decades, through my life in Columbus, the capital of Ohio, Washington D.C., Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan, and Qingdao in China's Shandong Province.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But it was not until I moved to New York City in 2012 that I really became aware of any newsies in the urban environment. Despite populations of up to eight million, none of the cities in which I had previously lived had a newsie population to speak of.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">In New York I finally got a dose of in-person newspaper distribution. And what I saw was initially disappointing to me. Whereas the young men in the Newsies would supposedly attract bystanders by announcing juicy headline news, real-life newsies would either stand silently, stoically offering papers to the world around them, or simply call out the name of their paper. At best, you would hear about the store coupons contained in the paper.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">In my childhood, I had developed an archetype of a newsie that represented democratic ideals. News media is the fourth estate, and newsies are the grassroots of journalism, educating the public on-the-spot about political corruption or major social developments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">My naïve ideal of a newsie was shattered by the reality in New York City. Of course, my ideal itself was historically questionable. At the turn of the 20th century, newsies in New York City were practically an army of <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/10/17/lewis_hine_s_photos_of_children_selling_newspapers_on_view_at_the_international.html">child labor</a>, desperate to sell papers for survival. They might well have said anything to get rid of the product in their arms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But even if newsies were selling papers premised on headlines, the nature of the product may have changed over the past 100 years. Most of the newsies I encounter are not selling anything, in fact; they are giving away free papers. These business model for free papers like AM New York or the Metro is premised on advertisements in its pages. This may explain in part why I will hear more about the coupons than the headlines.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">The ideal of the newsie as I knew it is dead. I guess I'll just have to open the paper (or turn on my cell phone) and get up-to-date on the news myself.</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-66079606066731157462014-07-16T12:32:00.000-04:002014-09-20T13:08:04.849-04:00Media Round-up: Child labor at Samsung supplier ShinyangOn July 10, CLW <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/report/90">exposed another case</a> of child workers making Samsung products at a Samsung supplier plant in southern China called Shinyang Electronics. Beside child labor, there were a list of 14 other labor abuses, such as 120 hours of overtime per month, unsafe working conditions, and more.<br />
<br />
There was a considerable media follow-up on the heels of the report. Among the stories, I spoke on CNN's <i>Quest Means Business </i>and<i> </i><i>WSJ Live,</i> and <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/samsung-investigating-child-labour-allegations-factory-china-1456175">interviewed</a> with the <i>International Business Times.</i> The videos are below.<br />
<br />
<u>CNN clip</u><br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="234" src="http://www.cnn.com/video/api/embed.html#/video/business/2014/07/15/qmb-china-samsung-child-labor-kevin-slaten-intv.cnn" width="416"></iframe><br />
<br />
<u>WSJ clip</u><br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="234" scrolling="no" src="http://video-api.wsj.com/api-video/player/iframe.html?guid=8D296A9F-8443-498F-9A47-AA5FBA1B36E0" width="416"></iframe>Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-74732908572174370472014-07-04T17:52:00.003-04:002014-09-20T12:01:57.668-04:00As Hong Kong Rocked in Protest, Transformers 4 Plays Chinese Politics: Critics Call Director "A Giant Tool"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQV-tnIFYLbQRJJ-At4h4Rs2jB_TT3SQ3G-TvG8xwfaZ0zoVzGDR2oPBw3nW-lYF12N4EW_q0cTsCrLmOMK3ol9sWkgihx_oQvkahSLXqyd0U3LnGWptXgDU2YmerBQkhGC50jid6fv8/s1600/transformers-age-of-extinction-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQV-tnIFYLbQRJJ-At4h4Rs2jB_TT3SQ3G-TvG8xwfaZ0zoVzGDR2oPBw3nW-lYF12N4EW_q0cTsCrLmOMK3ol9sWkgihx_oQvkahSLXqyd0U3LnGWptXgDU2YmerBQkhGC50jid6fv8/s1600/transformers-age-of-extinction-8.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
A few hours ago, I was sitting in a local theater with my wife watching <i>Transformers 4</i>, the latest iteration of Director Michael Bay's "robot porn" series. (The fact that we paid money to see it is perhaps an admission of a guilty indulgence.)<br />
<br />
Trying to keep warm in the chilly theater, we were enjoying that special Bay combination of explosions, CGI, and corny star-studded humor. All of a sudden, there was a cut-away scene to the Chinese Ministry of Defense in which a top official says "the central government will defend Hong Kong at all costs"!<br />
<br />
I felt like my sci-fi escapism had been blind-sided by a Communist Party public service announcement.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Beginning in Texas, and making it's way through Chicago, the movie eventually landed (and ended) in China. This was a reflection of both the Chinese money behind the film--China Movie Channel and Jiaflix Enterprises--as well as Paramount Pictures' hope to enjoy a big payday at the Chinese box office, which is set to <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/china-box-office-will-surpass-us-2020-report-says-66866/">overtake</a> the U.S. as largest market for motion pictures in the near future. <br />
<br />
After making a run through Beijing, the eye-melting finale of the movie takes place in Hong Kong, where Optimus Prime and his Autobot chums save the world while riding transformer dinosaurs. (Dinoformers doesn't sound right, and transosaurs sounds like a Decepticon gay pride parade, so I will stick with transformer dinosaurs for now.)<br />
<br />
Hong Kong, like Chicago in the previous <i>Transformers</i> flick, ends up being pummeled by robot baddies. In response, a Hong Kong security official exclaims that the "central government" should be called in for help. Moments later the film cuts to Beijing where, as I mention above, the defense minister resolutely states that "the central government will defend Hong Kong at all costs".<br />
<br />
This is a clear political statement, especially given the intense and mounting turmoil that has <a href="http://time.com/2948545/hong-kongs-people-are-left-wondering-how-long-they-will-have-to-wait-for-genuine-democracy/">rocked Hong Kong</a> in recent months as locals oppose the perceived infringements on their liberties by the forementioned Chinese "central government".<br />
<br />
What's more, the statement by China's Minister of Defense in the film plays absolutely no consequential role in the movie's plot. It is not a twist or even comic relief. It is an utter non sequitur. The central government does not defend Hong Kong, which is ultimately saved, as expected, by the Autobots and leading actor Mark Wahlberg. The Chinese military does not even make an appearance until the final scene when the dust has settled and Optimus Prime is delivering his closing remarks--setting us up, no doubt, for Transformers 99.<br />
<br />
If that declaration by the defense minister, to protect Hong Kong to the end, is irrelevant to the film, then it was only given screen time because the Chinese government--either directly or via the Chinese companies funding the film--wanted to use this unprecedented international platform to establish a political stance with audiences both foreign and domestic.<br />
<br />
Such a conclusion implies that Michael Bay would do anything to make sure the film reached China's massive market, which loved the previous <i>Transformers</i> flicks. (Also not the shameless product placement for Budweiser, 伊利 milk, and others in the movie.)<br />
<br />
Critics on both sides of the Pacific have blasted Bay for kowtowing to China, such as criticism from <a href="http://variety.com/2014/film/news/transformers-4-vs-snowpiercer-what-michael-bay-and-bong-joon-ho-have-in-common-1201256360/">Variety</a> and the <a href="http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1546529/transformers-age-extinction-terrible-movie-hilarious-watch-hongkonger">South China Morning Post</a>. The former magazine calls Bay a "giant tool", writing that "Bay hasn't a clue how to engage with Eastern culture, assuming
engagement means more than blowing it up and mining it for product
placements and stereotypes" ... "Bay, who has no compunction about mocking the
smugness and inhumanity of the American left, displays no such swagger
when it comes to critiquing the government of a foreign superpower. Far
be it from this filmmaker to bite the hand that feeds him."<br />
<br />
I'm sure Bay has a hard time hearing any criticism through mountains of cash he's earned from a number of blockbuster hits. Indeed, <i>Transformers 4 </i>is set to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhughes/2014/07/03/transformers-age-of-extinction-tops-400-million-could-break-records-in-china/">break sales records</a> in China.<br />
<br />
But the Chinese government statement in <i>Transformers 4</i> is less important for what it says about Bay than what it says about the state of international media's relationship with China.<br />
<br />
Movie studios, directors, and actors are going to increasingly fawn after China's huge and growing movie audiences. Assuming that the Chinese government continues to draw distinct political lines in the sand--Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, human rights activists, political corruption at the highest levels, etc.--we will probably see a greater number of foreign film players ready to either avoid those issues or bend to the will of the Chinese government in order to maintain access to the country's market.<br />
<br />
As this disinfected image of China is disseminated around the world through Hollywood films, people who may not usually pay attention to China will come to understand a version of the country filtered by its government. As Perry Link recently put it in a <a href="http://www.chinafile.com/Debate-Over-Confucius-Institutes">ChinaFile discussion</a>: "[W]e are left with a picture of China that is not only smaller than the whole but crucially different in nature."<br />
<br />
But maybe I'm making too much of that moment in the <i>Transformers</i> movie. SCMP's Hong Kongese critic wrote: "When that part came on, nearly everyone in the theatre with me laughed out loud." Only time will tell if we can disregard it as a laughing matter.<br />
<br />
<br />
2014.07.05 UPDATE: A friend reminded me that the proper terminology for a transformer dinosaur is a dinobot. Glad that's resolved.Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-14786680030103268522014-05-24T09:26:00.000-04:002014-09-20T12:02:53.810-04:00Government Steps Up To Labor’s Demands: Importance of Yue Yuen Shoe Factory Strike<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPw9R5xzOJs5F1lN5xwDHsN8-w1vPi0r_zt2iYQyBrgAGdxbj6YMlmkT_iegCcYPvDfUp-FykkpzhPTVaWAqh4zCyqzRvQWRDwZjExosoTCYA2oJKoZ6Wy1ABzfq-E5VBOnqigoPLbmfU/s1600/5492-main.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPw9R5xzOJs5F1lN5xwDHsN8-w1vPi0r_zt2iYQyBrgAGdxbj6YMlmkT_iegCcYPvDfUp-FykkpzhPTVaWAqh4zCyqzRvQWRDwZjExosoTCYA2oJKoZ6Wy1ABzfq-E5VBOnqigoPLbmfU/s1600/5492-main.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo provided to China Labor Watch by Yue Yuen worker.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>This essay was originally <a href="https://www.chinafile.com/China-Government-Steps-Up-To-Labor-Demands">published</a> at ChinaFile.</i><br />
<br />
On April 14, most of the 40,000 workers at the Dongguan Yue Yuen shoe
factory—supplier to Nike, Adidas, and other international brands—began
what would become a two-week work stoppage. While there are thousands of
strikes in China every year, the Yue Yuen action broke the mold by
attracting an unprecedented show of government support for
worker demands.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Rooted in grievances over illegitimate labor contracts, concerns
about a factory relocation, and unpaid mandatory contributions to their
pensions—a safety net akin to America’s Social Security—labor experts
say the Yue Yuen action was the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/30000-workers-striking-at-chinas-biggest-shoe-factory-2014-4#%21HUMat" target="_blank">largest private sector strike</a>
in modern Chinese history. Not only was it bigger, but it lasted much
longer than typical Chinese strikes, which often are resolved or
suppressed within a couple of days. Unions in Dongguan City and the
Guangdong provincial capital Guangzhou intervened, international media
covered the conflict, and solidarity protests broke out both in a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/22/strike-spreads-chinese-supplier-adidas-nike-yeu-yuen-factory-jiangxi-guangdong" target="_blank">neighboring province</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/850524391631321/?ref=22" target="_blank">around the world</a>. The strike cost Yue Yuen $27 million, a loss that could <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304163604579528504234144092" target="_blank">more than double</a> if the factory is forced to make good on unpaid pension contributions.<br />
<br />
The strike ended on April 28 without a clear resolution, as the company and local security forces <a href="http://www.chengbiancun.com/2014/0429/41091.html" target="_blank">pressured workers</a>
to return to their jobs, according the Beijing-based non-governmental
organization Chengbiancun. However, union and other government officials
made public statements <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/30000-workers-striking-at-chinas-biggest-shoe-factory-2014-4#%21HUMat" target="_blank">generally supportive</a> of the workers’ position and <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/pdf/2014.04.23_Dongguan-union-response.doc%E2%80%9D" target="”_blank”">called for an election </a>of worker representatives.<br />
<br />
Notwithstanding its record-breaking size and duration, the Yue Yuen
strike reflects the current overall landscape of China’s labor movement,
which, though increasingly active, does not yet have the organizational
capacity needed to coordinate a strike that results in lasting powers
of collective bargaining.<br />
<br />
The latest official statistics available show the number of labor disputes in China <a href="http://www.chinadmd.com/file/e3pic3ioaseirieoerzuspv3_2.html" target="_blank">rose</a>
to nearly 700,000 in 2008 from 48,000 in 1996. Labor unrest has grown
as economic resources are diverted away from China’s coastal regions,
tightening the labor pool in manufacturing centers along the Eastern
seaboard. Against this backdrop, a decade of grassroots labor law
education—especially in the Pearl River Delta—has helped build workers’
awareness of their rights and <a href="http://www.sociology2010.cass.cn/upload/2010/11/d20101126114156186.pdf" target="_blank">bolster their willingness</a> to defend those rights in the courts and on the streets.<br />
<br />
This rights defense consciousness was evident during the Yue Yuen
strike, which was initiated by veteran workers concerned about their
pensions and later became factory-wide action involving workers of all
ages. A week in, the strike <a href="http://www.chengbiancun.com/2014/0422/40981.html" target="_blank">inspired</a>
a rare case of cross-regional labor solidarity, when thousands of
workers staged a protest in another Yue Yuen factory in neighboring
Jiangxi province, according to the NGO Chengbiancun. Emboldened by their
strike’s durability and the attention it drew, Dongguan Yue Yuen
workers even demanded a 30 percent pay hike, a demand above and beyond
what the law mandates.<br />
<br />
Despite a growing awareness of labor rights, Chinese strikes
typically lack effective organization and are short-lived and isolated.
Chinese law prohibits unions operating independent of the All-China
Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), whose chapters are usually
subordinate to local political interests and thus business interests.
Union law says that the ACFTU should have a chapter in every factory
with at least 25 employees, but it rarely does. Even in factories with a
union, its chairman is most often management-appointed and largely
inactive in the defense of labor rights. Hundreds of investigations by
China Labor Watch, a U.S.-based monitoring group, found that most
factories didn’t have a functioning union. As a result, worker
grievances often are left to fester.<br />
<br />
The Yue Yuen strike lacked central organization. This prevented the
company and security forces from targeting and suppressing organizers.
In contrast with many previous actions in China, no particular
individual or group stepped forward to claim leadership. As a result,
negotiation between the Yue Yuen workers and management was more
difficult. Without worker representatives to call company officials to
the negotiation table, the union surveyed Yue Yuen’s workers in order to
understand their demands.<br />
<br />
Workers overcame some limitations of their weak formal organization
by using social media. Early on, striking laborers shared information
via online chat groups on Tencent QQ, the nation’s largest instant
messaging platform. A protest of thousands at Yue Yuen took place on
April 5. In the ensuing week, word spread among workers that the factory
might be closing without paying years of overdue retirement benefits,
leading to the largest movement on April 14.<br />
<br />
Worker pensions in China are by law supposed to be paid into a fund
each month by both employees and employers. Employees ultimately enjoy
access to these funds after they retire. In the past, migrant workers
generally did not want to pay into retirement funds because they could
not transfer the money from where they worked back to their
home regions.<br />
<br />
At the very end of 2009, China’s State Council released a <a href="http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2009-12/29/content_1499072.htm" target="_blank">new set of rules</a>
which allowed migrant workers to transfer their retirement benefits
across provinces. In the past few years, more and more migrant workers
at private companies have tied demands for unpaid retirement benefits to
a rising number of labor actions. China Labour Bulletin’s <a href="http://www.numble.com/PHP/mysql/clbmape.html" target="”_blank”">Strike Map </a>,
which tracks hundreds of actions annually, shows an uptick in
pension-based strikes in the past three years. The Yue Yuen strike is
the largest action to date premised on such a grievance.<br />
<br />
While the Yue Yuen strike reflects the landscape of Chinese labor politics, it also has the potential to change that landscape.<br />
<br />
Since 1997, all employers must, by law, pay into employee pensions.
But the reality is that coverage is far from universal. In 2011, more
than <a href="http://www.eu-china.net/web/cms/upload/pdf/materialien/2011_Wan_Xiangdong-Comparison_Migrant_Workers_in_Pearl_and_Yangtze_River.pdf" target="_blank">70 percent of migrant workers</a>
in China’s core manufacturing regions said that their company did not
provide pensions. In more than 400 factory investigations over 14 years,
China Labor Watch has seldom discovered a company that pays into worker
pensions in accordance with the law. Though Yue Yuen’s workers are not
the first to <a href="http://www.chengbiancun.com/2013/0808/33701.html" target="_blank">strike for unpaid pensions</a>, the size and duration of their strike forced the government to deliver an unprecedented response.<br />
<br />
In a <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/pdf/2014.04.23_Dongguan-union-response.doc" target="_blank">document</a> released on April 24 by the Dongguan City chapter of the ACFTU, the Dongguan
Social Security Department announced that Yue Yuen had broken the law by
failing to pay years of pension contributions. The next day, the
spokesperson for the national-level Ministry of Human Resources and
Social Security, Li Zhong, told a press conference that the Dongguan Yue
Yuen shoe factory had “indeed not accurately reported social insurance
payments,” or <i>yǎnglǎo bǎoxiǎn</i> (养老保险) and <i>shèhuì bǎoxiǎn</i>
(社会保险)—what the pension contributions are called in Chinese. Taken
together, these responses bolstered the Yue Yuen workers’ demands for
their unpaid pensions. Based on information provided by Yue Yuen workers
after the strike, the company will begin to make pension contributions
in arrears in June, provided the workers themselves make
commensurate payments.
<br />
Moreover, the government’s response seems to set a precedent that
could be applied by other workers who have been refused benefits by
their employers. On May 1, China’s Labor Day, 1,200 Shenzhen-based
workers at 101 companies, including at factories belonging to
telecommunications parts manufacturers such as Foxconn and Huawei,
signed a joint statement expressing support for the Yue Yuen strike. The
workers demanded that the Shenzhen government quickly publish specific
rules on how their workers’ retirement benefits should be repaid “in
order to alleviate labor disputes that are intensifying day by day.” The
statement and a photo of the signatures on it were published on a Weibo
<a href="http://weibo.com/p/1005051877181895/weibo?from=page_100505_home&wvr=5.1&mod=weibomore" target="_blank">microblog</a>
by a user with a handle that translates to “can’t take it anymore” and
also sent to the Shenzhen Social Security Department, to the Shenzhen
chapter of the ACFTU, and to a number of local labor NGOs. The microblog
message was forwarded over 200 times.<br />
<br />
Historically, the ACFTU has largely failed to fulfill its role as a
labor rights defender. As it did in the Yue Yuen strike, a local ACFTU
chapter normally enters a labor dispute only after the action escalates,
playing catch-up to find a resolution that will quell unrest. But in
April at Dongguan Yue Yuen, the local branch of the ACFTU went further,
openly calling for Yue Yuen worker representatives to be elected, an
action that it said it would help coordinate. The strength of the Yue
Yuen strike gave the ACFTU the leverage to call for legitimate
factory-level labor organization and collective negotiation in
the future.<br />
<br />
The open support for the Yue Yuen workers’ position by the union and
by Social Security Department officials indicates that the strike
encouraged a shift in the government’s position on labor. Ever since the
Chinese Communist Party’s Reform and Opening in 1978, local politicians
have been graded largely on their ability to deliver economic growth.
As has been widely documented, a one-sided emphasis on growth has led to
imbalances, such as deep social inequality and environmental
degradation. During disputes, business interests typically overshadow
labor interests. The courts tend to split collective lawsuits into
individual cases, making the process more costly for individual
plaintiffs. Security forces often suppress strikes and demonstrations
before resolutions are reached, and any deals struck are usually done so
between companies and government officials behind closed doors.<br />
<br />
The first days of the Yue Yuen strike seemed to follow a similar
script when riot police violently dispersed workers during a march
toward the Dongguan city government building. Two labor activists were <a href="http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/05/chinas-officials-muzzle-labor-activists/" target="_blank">detained</a>
for aiding the striking workers. One is still in custody. But security
forces seemed less intent on ending the massive labor action than
containing it within the factory premises, allowing it to continue for
14 days. Moreover, the government did not emphasize the criminality of
the strike.<br />
<br />
While it would be an overstatement to call this a sea change, the Yue
Yuen event suggests that the government is shifting toward a fairer
balance between the interests of labor and business, spurred on in part
by labor action. Another sign of a change in Guangdong province is a <a href="http://labornotes.org/sites/default/files/guangdong.negotiation.regulations.2013.pdf" target="_blank">draft law</a> that would support collective negotiation.<br />
<br />
There is a possibility that such rebalancing could encourage
companies to pull out of China due to rising labor costs. While this
trend is being <a href="http://gongkong.ofweek.com/2014-03/ART-310005-8420-28788227.html" target="_blank">debated</a>,
China’s manufacturing industry is still massive, with about 100 million
workers. The migrant worker population is bigger yet, at around 270
million. Ensuring that the rights and interests of this population are
respected by all companies, domestic and foreign, could support the
CCP’s stated goal of stamping out social inequality. If the government
is in fact increasing support for worker demands and even supporting the
organization of labor unrest, workers will have more to gain from
initiating strikes. Though Yue Yuen strike has broken a number of
records for labor action in China, it has also provided opportunities
that ensure that the greater Chinese labor movement still has its best
days ahead.<span class="cube"></span>Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-79614391862278952992014-04-28T18:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T12:03:20.041-04:00CBC (The Current) interview on Yue Yuen strikeOn Monday April 28, I went to CBC's studio in Midtown Manahattan to chat with The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti about the progress of the hitoric Yue Yuen strike. The entire segment on the story can be listened to hear: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2452825479Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-60388738165941547832014-04-23T23:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T12:03:56.029-04:00NBC News interview on progressing Yue Yuen Strike<i>As it entered the 40,000-strong Yue Yuen shoe factory strike entered its second week, NBC New's Alastair Jamieson interviewed me on some aspects of the protest. The full article is below.</i><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Worsening China Factory Strike Threatens Adidas, Nike Sneakers</span></b><span class="stack-byline-spread-l"><br />By Alastair Jamieson and Eric Baculinao</span><br />
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BEIJING - A wage dispute at a huge
sneaker factory that supplies brands including Adidas and Nike escalated
Wednesday, highlighting the growing problems faced by China’s
manufacturing powerhouse. </div>
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Workers at the plant –
owned by the world's largest maker of sneakers, Yue Yuen – earn as
little as $1.67 an hour making shoes that can sell for up to 100 times
as much in the United States. </div>
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Tens of thousands of
employees have been off work for a second week, forcing Adidas to switch
production to some of its other suppliers. At least one organizer was
arrested by police and has not been seen for 24 hours, activists told
NBC News Wednesday after a settlement offer was rejected. </div>
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At the core of the
dispute is the issue of historic underpayments for social security and
housing fund contributions, but the issue goes far beyond the shoe
plant. </div>
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Workers throughout China are
demanding not just higher wages but better social insurance as they face
the prospect of supporting a <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/101198566">rapidly aging population</a>.
</div>
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“The fact that something
as nuanced as social insurance has led to a strike shows just how much
things are changing,” said Kevin Slaten of U.S.-based non-profit China
Labor Watch. “This generation of workers is a lot more aware of its
rights and this problem is not unique to this factory.” </div>
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China has enjoyed
decades as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse, but increasing labor
activism and a shortage of migrant workers is pushing up labor costs. </div>
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There has been a <a href="http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/worker-protests-china-surge-after-lunar-new-year">surge in the number of strikes and worker protests</a> since the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, according to the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin, which manages <a href="http://www.numble.com/PHP/mysql/clbmape.html">an online map of disputes</a>. It recorded 202 incidents in the first quarter of 2014, which it said was a 31 percent increase on the same period last year. </div>
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“This increase might
partly be explained by greater social media coverage but there does seem
to be a pronounced increase in activism on the ground,” it said on its
website. </div>
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The stoppage at Yue
Yuen’s Dongguan plant in Guangdong is already one of China’s biggest.
Workers on Wednesday rejected the Hong Kong-based company’s offer, which
included partial back payments for social security and housing, full
contributions for those benefits starting May 1 and a $37 monthly
cost-of-living allowance. </div>
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The workers are
demanding a 30-percent pay raise, a stronger commitment to future
contributions and the right to choose their own workplace
representatives.
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"We'll pay what is in the regulations, there should not be any concern on that," Yue Yuen spokesman George Liu told Reuters. </div>
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However, there were
signs of an escalation Wednesday when at least one activist helping the
workers was arrested by police. Zhang Zhiru, leader of the Shenzhen
Spring Breeze Labor Disputes Service, hasn’t been seen since his arrest
and his wife has been unable to contact him for 24 hours, another
activist told NBC News.
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“There is some uncertainty now on what will happen next” in the dispute, the activist said. </div>
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Adidas, the biggest
customer of the factory, said Wednesday that plant owners were in talks
with local officials in a bid to find a solution. The Germany-based
sportswear brand said it had more than 1,000 global suppliers and had
already taken steps to source shoes from other factories. </div>
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“We are closely
monitoring the situation and we can confirm that our supplier … is in
discussion with the local government and the trade union federation to
seek ways to address the concerns expressed by the workers,” said
spokeswoman Katja Schreiber in a statement. </div>
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“In order to minimize
the impact on our operations, we are currently reallocating some of the
future orders originally allocated to Yue Yuen Dongguan to other
suppliers.” </div>
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In a statement, Nike said it was
“aware of and concerned by the events at the Yue Yuen factory,” adding:
“We're continuing to monitor the dialogue between factory management and
the workers, as well as production at the factory.” </div>
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A typical worker the plant might earn around $400 a month depending on position and overtime, according to China Labor Watch, <a href="http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/upfile/2010_11_2/20101130143496.pdf">which published a report on the facility in 2010</a>. Hours vary in China’s factories, but a 60-hour week is not uncommon. </div>
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Hong Kong-based advocacy group <a href="http://globalmon.org.hk/content/open-letter-adidas-and-yue-yuen-dongguan-china">Globalization Monitor</a>
said some Yue Yuen workers discovered the factory had been underpaying
social insurance for years. One worker on a $480 monthly salary had been
getting social insurance contributions based on a salary of $288, the
group said. </div>
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Another Yue Yuen worker
told the Associated Press that there was a reluctance to accept new
offers because of the scale of the historic underpayments. </div>
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"Some have worked there
for more than 10 years, and in this case, they need to pay 20,000 to
30,000 yuan ($3,200 to $4,800)” to make up the difference, said
31-year-old Cui Tiangang, who cuts and glues rubber soles. “It is too
hard for the workers." </div>
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The company was not
immediately available to comment on the claims, but it has already
threatened to temporarily shift some production to its other factories
in Vietnam or Indonesia. </div>
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However, Slaten said labor disputes were unlikely to cause a manufacturing exodus. </div>
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“The infrastructure in
China is very good,” he said, and blue collar workers there are better
educated than their low-wage counterparts elsewhere in south Asia. </div>
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Chinese employers also
have the country’s uncompromising security forces on their side, as some
of the Dongguan strikers discovered when they were prevented by police
from marching through the city on April 14, according to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ca-hoozEGE&feature=youtu.be">a video uploaded to YouTube by China Labor Watch</a>. </div>
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“When labor costs are
kept down, protests violently suppressed and workers cannot use
different channels to defend their rights, it creates what companies see
as a stable business environment,” said Slaten. “Local officials
support these businesses because the growth of the local economy is more
important to them than the rights if individual workers.” </div>
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<i>Alastair Jamieson reported from London. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.</i> </div>
<br />Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7971426430678948233.post-50705919044325335312014-04-15T21:00:00.000-04:002014-09-20T12:04:23.390-04:00Interview on BBC World News about massive Chinese shoe factory strikeOn April 15, 2014, a day after a Dongguan shoe factory strike began that would continue ont April 28 and involve about 40,000 worker, BBC World News interviewed me about the event.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kznsjLyMJMU" width="500"></iframe>Kevin Slatenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07892885228803292894noreply@blogger.com0