this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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As long as it isn't undermining the socialist system, strikes to happen and are supported by the CPC, even. Unions cannot legally be independent from the ACFTU.
Do you have some major examples where a legal strike was allowed to happen? From what i can tell illegal strikes happen are often not fully procecuted (Heaven is high and the emperor is far away after all) but legal strikes from the sanctioned ACFTU do not seem common, im guessing because of the top down structure of the org, but i could be mistaken there.
Strikes are generally uncommon across the board these days because the system works well and is constantly improving. A great article on the modern class struggle in China between the proletariat and national bourgeoisie is This is a Great Struggle, and it elaborates on the role of the CPC in the class struggle (for workers, against capitalists).
That is not the data i am finding https://chinaworker.info/en/2024/03/30/44910/ Even within the link you provided (which seems vastly more interested in national state interests than workers interests).
You linked a trotskyist "China watching" org, of course they are going to portray China as though it's in crisis when it's steadily doing better and better. This is why China's approval rates are so high:
Secondly, the link I provided talks about worker interests, in China the interests of the state are aligned with the interests of the workers, hence the worker backlash against Lenovo.
You've shared this picture twice, but i cant find the study related to it.
Do you have better sources on tracking strikes in mainland China? The only other places i found info were US finance reporting on as a mattet of investment concern.
Wasn't too hard to find, IMO.
Overall, it's difficult to find accurate data on strikes in China in english that's not intentionally massaged or outright fabricated. There's a ton of money in distorting it. However, it's important to recognize that China's system is broadly supported, and strikes are not as necessary to enact systemic changes.
You do see why the argument that strikes are rarely allowed but conveintly thats ok because they are needed or wanted isnt very convicing right?
I can seem to find numbers supporting that are a rise in strikes which line up with the global trend of economic unrest, I can not find numbers suggesting what you are saying though, and instead you seem to be suggesting that yes there is an increase of illegal strikes but no body actually or needs them because the states interests are the peoples interests. That seems inconcruent to the data showing that people are in fact striking. Which is why i was asking about different data sources. Id take non-english data sources as well to be honest. Translatinh the label and methods may take some effort but i can Arabic Numerals in almost any context.
Even by western sources, strikes are falling. You keep framing them as "illegal strikes," and in general seem content on just parroting anti-China viewpoints. If they are striking, it's because China is bad, if they aren't, it's because they aren't allowed to, etc etc. It's as Michael Parenti puts it, a "non-falsifiable orthodoxy."
My point from the beginning is that China does have some strikes, but the context of said strikes is different from capitalist countries and as such trying to use "number of strikes" as a state of worker well-being is poor logic. The numbers do back broad support for China and for socialism, which is why I've shared them.
Im not seeing what you are saying represented in the link you provided.
Groups like CLB are saying that the strikes they are tracking are illegal strikes because the official unions are not acts on the demands of their members. Basically the sole source ive found and that you have shared. We seem to have no data to point that says otherwise.
The steelman version of what you present to me is that China has no need for strikes and that all reporting on strikes is false. Implying every group of workers in China are content to live and die in service to States ambitions as all interpersonal conflict between employer and employees is mediated without fail in some other system besides collective barganing and worker's demostrations of solidarity.
Am i to believe that AND that China a safe place for foreign investment as is also claimed by the CCP? And if so, how?
No, you're again mischaracterizing my point. I stated clearly my beliefs in the last comment, and now you're sealioning.
My point still is that if the working class fighting for better conditions for themselves is illegal the state is not on their side. Which by the numbers it is.
This is just an example of it but is part of larger trend of extreme (worse than the US on rights is extreme) worker explotation and supression.
Strikes are not the main way workers fight for better conditions for themselves in socialism, the society as a whole is oriented in a fashion where this is achievable by reform and referendum, democratic institutions. Strikes can and have been used by western, anti-communist groups against socialist systems, and this is what's illegal. You're again falsely pretending the PRC and US Empire have the same economic system, and thus mechanisms like strikes have the same utility in each, but that's not the case. Strikes are more useful in capitalist economies where the state is on the side of the capitalists.
It's exactly what you're saying. Workers wield collective power through the state in the PRC, that is their primary means. Tracking strike numbers isn't an accurate assessment of the health of the economic system or the support workers have for socialism. Instead, looking at metrics I've shared like worker confidence in the system and support for it directly state that people broadly support the system overall.
Your comments about Xinjiang were removed because they were Fox News-style conspiracy theory, not actual grounded analysis. I already linked what I recommend you check out.
Then why would there still be so many examples of workers effectivally saying otherwise despite the legal risk?
There aren't. The system isn't perfect, of course, but overall the working class supports their socialist system, and believe it represents their interests. Strikes are largely against capitalists when they do happen, not socialism. You've been shown several times that the system is consistently and overwhelmingly supported by over 90% of people, far higher than western countries, yet you continue to hem and haw around that while vaguely gesturing towards the fact that strikes exist in China, as though that alone is a point.
The fact that strikes are illegal and against capitalists implies the state is protecting capitalist intetests and not worker interests.
Strikes are not illegal in China. Strikes are regulated. Again, the people support their system broadly, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned, capitalists are regularly executed by the state. You keep affirming a view of China that does not exist, ie one where capitalists are empowered at the expense of workers, when the opposite is true, and is why the studies you've been shown reflect extremely positive views of society and the direction China is going in among the working class.
No, this is wrong on all accounts. The fact that over 90% of people support the system and believe it to be headed in the right direction, the fact that the large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and the fact that year over year conditions are rapidly improving for the working class do not support your claims.
There are not "concentration camps." The existence of strikes that additionally break the law do not mean strikes are illegal. Western, state-funded propaganda outlets like the Victims of Communism Foundation, BBC, and Radio Free Asia do not honestly depict the PRC. Wealth disparity is falling in China, and more importantly working class conditions are dramatically improving and have been for almost a century.
You have a very confused and distorted view caused by looking at relatively minor problems as though they are widespread and massive. You also have no evidence backing your claims, other than the idea that strikes exist in China. The working class became the ruling class at the founding of the PRC, and has been since. There has never been a time where capitalists have become the ruling class. There hasn't been a successful counter-revolution.
I think if you want to understand China more, you should at least familiarize yourself with the basics of Marxism-Leninism. You can use my intro ML reading list, or Qiao Collective's SWCC intro reading guide.