Zhang Yueran is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on political economy, (de)mobilisations, and the interaction between states and class forces in the Global South. He has also been involved in labour and left organising in both China and the United States.

The Chongqing Model One Decade On

Between 2007 and 2012, China observers around the world and a significant segment of the international left paid a great deal of attention to a city in China’s southwest, Chongqing. Under the leadership of the municipal secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s municipal government engaged in a set of extraordinary political […]

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Leninists in a Chinese Factory: Reflections on the Jasic Labour Organising Strategy

This summer marks the second anniversary of the failed unionisation drive at the Shenzhen Jasic Technology factory, an episode in China’s recent history of labour activism that has drawn massive attention from China observers, leftist circles, and media pundits around the world. Compared with other influential instances of contentious labour action in recent years, the […]

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The Jasic Struggle and the Future of the Chinese Labour Movement

This summer, the struggles of workers at Shenzhen Jasic Technology, a publicly listed private firm specialising in the manufacturing of welding machinery (hereafter referred to as Jasic), to form a labour union have attracted widespread attention both inside and outside China. The worker activists decided to push for unionisation in order to address a wide range of workplace grievances, such as an inflexible work schedules, under and late compensation for overtime work, excessive and unreasonable fines, and stringent workplace regulations (for instance, regulations that restricted access to bathroom breaks). The campaign was initiated in May, in the wake of the arbitrary firing of a worker.

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