Discussions of Chinese labour are generally dominated by stories of exploitation. Relatively little attention has been paid to the fact that over the past two decades the Chinese authorities have developed an impressive body of labour laws and regulations. There has been even less notice of the fact that this legislation was widely disseminated among the Chinese public through the official media, or of how these laws have regularly elicited widespread domestic discussion. But how to reconcile these notable legislative achievements with the global image of a government that apparently does not care for the wellbeing of its workers? In Hegemonic Transformation (Palgrave Macmillan 2017), Elaine Sio-Ieng Hui addresses this paradox.

The topic of human rights is highly contested and subject to a range of diverse interpretations. This is even more apparent in authoritarian contexts like China, where political leaders pass progressive laws and regulations, and sign international treaties, while at the same time regularly cracking down on those citizens who attempt to proactively claim the very rights assigned to them by officialdom. In this conversation, Eva Pils—author of Human Rights in China (Polity, 2018)—and Elisa Nesossi discuss the significance of human rights in today’s China. They look at the challenges that both discourses and practices of human rights pose, not only to the Chinese authorities and citizenry, but also to those outside the country.

In the past decade scholars have put forward several scathing criticisms of Chinese labour NGOs that go well beyond the usual concerns about the lack of transparency and internal democracy. Some have criticised them for being nothing less than ‘anti-solidarity machines‘ that, by putting too much emphasis on an individualistic view of rights, hinder the […]