Is the Dragon shaking? Farmers' and Workers' revolt in China!
Sudhir Chadda, Special Correspondent
November 25, 2004

China’s Sichuan province earlier this month saw 100,000 farmers protesting against Chinese authorities. The farmers were protesting against the meager compensation paid for moving them from their homes and their farms in the river basin to mountainous and less fertile land. 

Two villagers and two policemen were reportedly killed. The government responded by threats and a show of force, and by imposing martial law in the region. The confrontation continued till the Chinese president and prime minister intervened, suspending all work on the project till the compensation issue was resolved. 

Sources in China say the protest and dissatisfaction is very widespread and is ready to explode. The Chinese farmer is getting sacrificed for the Chinese export of manufactured goods to the world. 

Barely two weeks earlier in a city in the same province, a government official sparked a riot when he beat up a migrant worker. Some estimates say that as many as 80,000 workers clashed with police in a night of rioting that forced the local government to call in paramilitary units from neighbouring towns. 

Many of the rioters were people evicted from their villages to make way for the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. These migrants are unemployed and are forced to live on a 70 to 80 yuan ($10) monthly allowance paid by the government. 

This is not Tinaman Square type revolt. The Chinese media have recently reported wide spread protests all over the country including the coastal cities. The gap between haves and have-nots has grown so wide with corruption in the Government and industrial military infrastructure that common people are rising up.
Early last month, 3,000 workers in an electronics factory in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in southern Guangdong Province sat on the main highway, disrupting traffic for hours. Around the same time, 5,000 striking employees in Dongguan, another manufacturing city in the same province, clashed with anti-riot police. In a textile factory in central Shaanxi province, nearly 7,000 workers took over and occupied the factory. In Xian, the capital of Shaanxi, the main bus terminal was blocked for more than a month by workers from a state-owned factory. Meanwhile, up to 10,000 retired workers have protested for days in Anhui province, demanding that authorities raise their pensions, which are being squeezed by rising prices. 
According to Outlook Weekly, a Communist Party publication, China experienced a staggering 58,000 major social unrest last year. This year the conservative estimates take the number to above 400,000. Eighteen million people have directly participated. 

In China the migrant workers are denied access to medical care, proper housing and education for their children. They have no trade unions or written contracts — although Chinese law guarantees these rights. They live in their factories in cramped dormitories, and need permission to go outside. They earn pitiful amounts far below the legal minimum wage, working for as little as $1 for a 12-hour day, six or seven days a week. 

Many of the Chinese migrant workers do not get paid on time. The employers pay them months later and sometimes they never get paid.

What does that mean for world economy? If there is a major revolution in China and the Government topples, the biggest user of commodities will stop working for a while. That will depress the world economy in no time.