2
organization over the past 10 years.
7
These contentious episodes have attracted more
attention so far from Western scholars than has any other set of outcomes related to the
massive numbers of SOE lay-offs, such as policy responses or re-employment prospects.
8
Despite the paucity of data on workers’ protests and the practical difficulties of
conducting field research about these events, a number of explanations of observed
patterns of contention have been posited by China scholars in recent years. These
explanations have focused on grievances,
9
cognitive and collective action frames,
10
mobilizing structures,
11
claims,
12
tactics,
13
and targets of protest.
14
These aspects of
7
While there is little public data, Dorothy Solinger has uncovered an internal Public Security report
revealing that there were over 30,000 “mass incidents” of this kind just in the first 9 months of 2000:
Dorothy Solinger “Chinese Urban Jobs and the WTO” The China Journal, Number 49 (January 2003) –
p.87. Even in the early 1990’s, field reports suggested that affective ties between workers and their units
were already beginning to fray: Chih-yu Shih “A Research Note on Workers' Culture in China” Journal of
Contemporary Asia, Volume 24, Number 3 (1994) – pp.370
- 384.
8
Other aspects of lay-offs have also received scholarly attention. See: Solinger’s extensive work on re-
employment, most recently “Chinese Urban Jobs and the WTO”; also the large and growing Chinese
literature on policy responses and re-employment, e.g.: Cheng Liansheng “Zhongguo Fan Shiye Zhengce
Yanjiu (1950-2000)” [A Study of the Anti-Unemployment Policies of China (1950-2000)] Beijing: Shehui
Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2002; Qian Linlao and Wang Shaodan “Shilun dui Meikuang Xiagang Shiye
Renyuan de Jiuye Yuanzhu” (Examination of the Employment Aid for Laid-off and Unemployed and Laid-
off Workers in Coal Mines) Meitan Jingji Yanjiu, Number 2 (2002) – pp.57-58; and Yao Peidong
“Wanshan Shehui Baozhang Tixi, Tuijin Laonian Guanli Shehuihua” (Perfect the Social Security System,
Push Forward the Socialization of the Management of Old People) Shichang yu Renkou Fenxi, Volume 7,
Number 3 (May 2001) – pp.58-60.
9
Feng Chen “Subsistence Crises”; Hurst and O’Brien “China’s Contentious Pensioners”.
10
Marc Blecher “Hegemony and Workers’ Politics” The China Quarterly, Number 170 (June 2002) –
pp.283-303; “What Are Chinese Workers Thinking?” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
Association for Asian Studies, Washington DC, March 28, 1998; Ching Kwan Lee “Revenge of History”;
“From the Specter of Mao to the Spirit of the Law: Labor Insurgency in China” Theory and Society,
Volume 31, Number 2 (2002) – pp.189-228.
11
Dorothy Solinger “The Potential for Urban Unrest: Will the Fencers Stay on the Piste?” in David
Shambaugh ed. “Is China Unstable?” Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2000 – pp.79-94.
12
Feng Chen “Industrial Restructuring and Workers' Resistance in China” Modern China, Volume 29,
Number 2 (April 2003) – pp. 237-262.
13
Chen “Industrial Restructuring”; Solinger “Will the Fencers Stay on the Piste?” Yong-Shun Cai “The
Silence of the Dislocated: Chinese Laid-off Workers in the Reform Period” Ph.D. dissertation in Political
Science, Stanford University, 2001 – pp.243-251; “The Resistance of Chinese Laid-off Workers in the
Reform Period” The China Quarterly, Number 170 (June 2002) – pp. 327-344.
14
Chen “Industrial Restructuring”; Lee “Revenge of History”; Cai “The Silence of the Dislocated” –
chapter 7.
Convention