A rebellion against second-class status

[Donnachaidh]

http://socialistworker.org/2011/06/28/against-second-class-status

YOUNG WORKERS in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong rioted for three days in mid-June after security guards roughed up a married pair of street peddlers while removing them from a space in front of a supermarket. One account in the South China Morning Post said the guards first demanded a bribe and then delivered the beatings when the peddlers offered too little money.

The revolt, in Zengcheng, an hour's drive outside the affluent provincial capital of Guangzhou, was the largest in a string of recent cases where so-called migrant workers have rebelled against their second-class social status. In the same province just four days before, "clashes between migrants and police broke out after a worker in a ceramics factory was stabbed, allegedly on the orders of his boss when he went to ask for unpaid wages," according to the Financial Times.

Workers whose families originate in some other province receive low pay and are deprived of social benefits--such as public education, health care and unemployment insurance--that local residents are entitled to.

Residential registration, known as hukou, is hereditary, so a long-term urban worker may remain classified for life as a "migrant farmer" in much the same way that apartheid South Africa treated its Black workers as foreigners lacking the rights of full citizens. According to official figures, China has more than 220 million "migrants," whose cheap labor has formed the basis for the country's booms in construction and exports.

More at the link --

[Drale]

1. This is just a wild accusation but

China is going to have huge issues in the next 20 to 50 years, with there being 1 girl for every like 10 boys, a major food crisis coming up and the country pretty much always being on the brink of rebellion.

[DonCoquixote]

2. I agree

Yes, China is bad and bad, and yes, they will become a major power, if not the power, of the 21st century, however, they are going to get superpower size problems, without any of the freedoms. The real tipping point will be if they decide to conquer for resources, the way we did.