WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:02.759 Hi everyone. As you might know, we don't get any 2 00:00:02.839 --> 00:00:07.200 sort of funding from any wealthy benefactors, academic institutions, governments, 3 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:11.080 or political parties. Our work is funded by you, our 4 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:15.039 listeners and readers on Patreon. In return, our supporters on 5 00:00:15.080 --> 00:00:18.440 Patreon get access to exclusive content and benefits like ad 6 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:23.000 free episodes, bonus podcast episodes, and two exclusive Patreon only 7 00:00:23.039 --> 00:00:27.800 podcast series, Fireside Chats and Radical Reads. So here's a 8 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:31.160 little preview of our latest Patreon only episode. You can 9 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:33.679 join us, help support our work and listen to the 10 00:00:33.719 --> 00:00:37.479 full episode today at patreon dot com slash working class 11 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:39.520 History link in the show notes. 12 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:48.240 As we come margin Martin and the Beauty of the Day, 13 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.000 A million dark in kegeens one thousand mil last grade 14 00:00:54.520 --> 00:01:00.280 are branden by the beauty. His Sun Sun discloses the 15 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:06.799 papal hereusden Roses Roses. 16 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:09.319 In two thousand and six, there was a big campaign 17 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:12.480 that got a lot of international attention because the ACF two, 18 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:14.599 in a very short period of time, set up union 19 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:17.719 branches in every Walmart store in China. And this is 20 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:19.480 something American unions had been trying to do for a 21 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:21.799 while and had failed. So people are very excited about this, 22 00:01:22.159 --> 00:01:24.599 and I actually did some research into one of the 23 00:01:24.599 --> 00:01:28.280 consequences of this, and just one example in a store 24 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:32.239 in nan Chung, which is the capital of Chiongxi Province, 25 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:35.079 they had these elections, they set up a union, and 26 00:01:35.079 --> 00:01:39.120 they actually had a reasonably democratic election. They elected a 27 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.640 guy who was very interesting and who really wanted to 28 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:44.560 push management on just some basic workplace stuff. He wasn't 29 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.959 organizing to overthrow the Communist Party or anything. He had 30 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:51.480 a few successes, and then very quickly the higher levels 31 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:54.480 of the union got anxious because they saw that he 32 00:01:54.599 --> 00:01:57.159 was kind of stirring up trouble and was making them 33 00:01:57.159 --> 00:01:59.599 a little bit nervous. He got fired and pushed out 34 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:02.719 with the consent of the higher levels of the union. 35 00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:04.799 So I think that that's just one example that demonstrates 36 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:07.439 some of the limitations. Even in those cases where you 37 00:02:07.480 --> 00:02:09.759 can have some sort of an election and someone who's 38 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:12.960 going to fight a little bit, there's real institutional. 39 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:16.000 Constraints given that the ACF T you on the whole, 40 00:02:16.280 --> 00:02:20.439 isn't organizing struggle. What forms do work as struggles in 41 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:23.879 China usually take then, and kind of how does the 42 00:02:23.919 --> 00:02:26.879 state relate to those struggles. 43 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:31.080 I think there is we're often a tendency to think 44 00:02:31.319 --> 00:02:36.360 China is exceptional. It's political institutions, it's political culture, et cetera, 45 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.520 et cetera, and we're often you know, what's happening in 46 00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:43.240 China is counterposed to sort of idealized version of the West, 47 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:45.879 if you will. So there's an idealized version of what 48 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:48.680 a union should be doing to fighting union very cross 49 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:52.599 so it's very radical, non bureaucratic. But actually that's now 50 00:02:52.599 --> 00:02:57.599 the the reality of most larger unions in Asia, in Europe, 51 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:02.120 in North America, rights mostly bureaucratic, very top down. Union 52 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:07.599 organizers are overworks, not given much resources, They are highly 53 00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:11.360 repressed or highly retarded against in workplace organizing. So I 54 00:03:11.400 --> 00:03:14.159 think this is actually very important point that we should 55 00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.599 be aware of in terms of not making that look 56 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.639 like that's the exception to some kind of idealized image 57 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:26.240 of whatever democracy. So society, unions, workers, etc. To your question, So, 58 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:30.960 for most of the last thirty years, striking China have 59 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:35.319 been almost entirely organized by workers themselves or by workers 60 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:39.080 working in those workplaces. Of course, independent unions are not 61 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.919 allowed or criminalized. So if you'll try to organize an 62 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:46.719 independent union, the chances are you'll be arrested. I think 63 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:49.800 maybe waitin a few days. There are small labor and 64 00:03:49.840 --> 00:03:53.479 jills you can think of themselves, worker centers of a 65 00:03:53.479 --> 00:04:00.080 few staff, interesting in labor rights, skilled trainings, auvacracy. I 66 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:02.919 think a small number of them do try to assist 67 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:06.400 workers in organizing, but they are you know, very small 68 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:10.159 and very fragmented, and I don't think they are you know, 69 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:13.199 for most of the workers they're organizing, their strikes are 70 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:16.319 organized entirely by themselves. And this is you know, what 71 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:19.720 we normally call wildcat strikes, that these strikes are that 72 00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:23.079 are not organized by officially by tue unions. But again 73 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:25.439 here I think I want to make this point that 74 00:04:25.720 --> 00:04:29.399 we talk about wildcat strike as the exception to the 75 00:04:29.480 --> 00:04:32.759 more conventional sort of union organized strike. But I think 76 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:36.480 if you look globally, WorldCat strikes may be the norm 77 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:39.600 rather than the exception, because they're very actually very few 78 00:04:39.800 --> 00:04:43.480 union organized strikes almost anywhere, and I think in China 79 00:04:43.959 --> 00:04:47.079 in many other places in Asia, so called wildcare strikes 80 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.480 actually are the normal kind of strikes where workers entirely 81 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:54.560 organize their own own actions. And as cause this for 82 00:04:54.920 --> 00:04:58.519 simple reasons that either the unions are stay controlled in 83 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.680 the case of China or Vietnam, so they do not 84 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:05.000 organize workers, they do not support workers strikes, or because 85 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:08.000 the union are very pro management, or they are in 86 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:12.639 this kind of union management cooperation framework, or just there's 87 00:05:12.639 --> 00:05:14.879 no union. Again, it's the case for I think, for 88 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:19.199 the majority of the workforce globally, where they never see 89 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:22.959 any union in their workplace. So it's interesting to see 90 00:05:22.959 --> 00:05:26.720 this kind of very direct formal confrontation between labor and 91 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:29.399 capital without the mediating role of the union. And I 92 00:05:29.399 --> 00:05:32.399 think if we again thinking critically about the role of 93 00:05:32.439 --> 00:05:36.279 the union in capitalists libert democracies, often their role is 94 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:41.199 not to push the struggle forward structurally or institutionally. Their 95 00:05:41.279 --> 00:05:44.199 goal is now to transcend or go beyond capitalism. Their 96 00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:46.800 the roal is to mediate the interests of labor and 97 00:05:46.839 --> 00:05:48.839 capital in some way. They of course they would push 98 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:51.319 for the interest workers, but they will necessarily have to 99 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:55.680 make compromises, Whereas when workers and capital are in this 100 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.839 direct confrontation, there's no mediation, and this kind of confrontation 101 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:02.199 actually see in law cases in China over the last 102 00:06:02.199 --> 00:06:06.360 twenty thirty years, workers end up winning their demands. There 103 00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:09.000 also some problem with it in terms of the after 104 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.800 twenty thirty years, you don't you still don't see you 105 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:17.040 mass tree union, movement of mass workers organizations. So that's 106 00:06:17.079 --> 00:06:20.319 another aspect of this. But in terms of winning actually 107 00:06:20.319 --> 00:06:23.519 this kind of direct form of worker theybor capital confrontation, 108 00:06:23.639 --> 00:06:26.800 actually end up being favorite workers in a lot of cases. 109 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:30.480 And two questions about the state approach to labor and 110 00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:33.879 workers struggle, and I think again here is sort of 111 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:38.000 undergone several phases, if well, since the nineteen nineties. I 112 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.720 think for most of the nineteen nineties, the trans state 113 00:06:41.199 --> 00:06:46.319 didn't really treat these megro workers very seriously because you know, 114 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.519 for the first ten years or so, ten to fifteen 115 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:51.480 years or so of this rural migration to the cities, 116 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:54.040 I think the trans government and I think a lot 117 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:56.680 of people in public think they are just transient, right, 118 00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.399 So that's why they're called rural mecro workers. They will 119 00:06:59.399 --> 00:07:02.279 come to the state for work for maybe ten months, 120 00:07:02.399 --> 00:07:04.319 nine months, and ten months, they go back for a 121 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.480 chance in a year for a couple of months, and 122 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:09.240 maybe after several years they are enough money in the 123 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:11.680 city and they will just go back to the countryside 124 00:07:11.720 --> 00:07:16.279 and settle so the traditional image of workers is that 125 00:07:16.399 --> 00:07:21.160 of stay owned state sector industrial workers, and those so 126 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:23.759 called pithon workers, that's kind of their names in Chinese 127 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.160 are just hybrid pithon workers. But maybe the pison part 128 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:30.759 was even more important than the worker part. So they 129 00:07:30.879 --> 00:07:34.759 really just tries. They didn't take workers right very seriously 130 00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:38.759 until workers start to protest more and more and you 131 00:07:38.839 --> 00:07:41.279 start to see the rise of workers protests and strikes 132 00:07:41.399 --> 00:07:45.639 late two thousands and early tens, where again, as I mentioned, 133 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.680 there are thousands and probably tens of thousands strikes a year, 134 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:53.120 and that's when the trans governments start to realize they 135 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:56.600 have to find some way to deal with class conflict. 136 00:07:57.040 --> 00:07:59.199 And there are of course two sides to it. One 137 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:02.800 is depression. If you are a very high profile worker leader, 138 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:06.680 you may be highrassed, you may be attacked, assaulted, or 139 00:08:06.680 --> 00:08:09.040 you may be jailed. But there is also other part 140 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:13.160 of that which is more consolidatory, and there's parts to that, 141 00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:16.920 minds legislation. So trying to in the eight to the 142 00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:21.360 nine start to implement pro labor legislations, labor contract laws, 143 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:25.480 laws on mediation and arbitration, and actually those are if 144 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:29.319 they are implemented, are actually quite in favor workers. And 145 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:32.159 then there's other part, which is the XFT you and 146 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:36.240 state state institution that actually start to play a mediating 147 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.000 growth because they see labor and capital confy had to 148 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:42.000 mediate in some way, so they start to implement with 149 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:46.440 institution reform in order to mediate. And then the final 150 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:49.279 part of this is it changed again in the second 151 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:52.960 half of the twenty tents, where I think the trands 152 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:56.320 state revert back to a more repressive kind of approach. 153 00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:59.639 So they start to shut down labor and jails their 154 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:04.559 rights and put very harsh surveillance on worker organizers and 155 00:09:04.919 --> 00:09:07.919 regularly harass, you know, anyone would try to do anything 156 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.519 to do its labor, and so you began to see 157 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:13.279 kind of much more exclusionary of the world and much 158 00:09:13.279 --> 00:09:16.960 more repressive approach by the state to the working class. 159 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:20.399 Yeah, you've both actually kind of touched already onto the 160 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:23.039 next section that I wanted to talk about, But I 161 00:09:23.080 --> 00:09:26.440 wonder if you might particularly of this sort of two 162 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:31.759 thousand twenty tens periods, could you maybe talk about any 163 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:36.559 particular struggles which seem kind of emblematic of that period. 164 00:09:37.120 --> 00:09:40.919 I think the most famous strike from this period is 165 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:45.879 the twenty ten Honda strike. And this took place after 166 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:48.000 the economic crisis two thousand and eight, which had a 167 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:50.840 big impact in China, and you had about twenty million 168 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:53.639 migrant workers that lost their job. But in contrast to 169 00:09:53.639 --> 00:09:57.039 what was happening in western countries, China really resumed growth 170 00:09:57.080 --> 00:10:00.600 quite quickly, and so you see a period of high 171 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.720 speed growth, but also growth in wages and a really 172 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:07.120 severe tightening of the labor market that's happening in this 173 00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:10.080 period of time, which gives workers some kind of structural 174 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:12.879 advantages that they may might have been enjoying quite as 175 00:10:12.919 --> 00:10:15.600 much before. So in twenty ten, you have this factory. 176 00:10:15.919 --> 00:10:18.519 It's in a city close to Guangzhou in southern China, 177 00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:22.480 wholly owned by Honda, just producing transmissions, and it's in 178 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:25.720 the city of nan High and a strike happened. It 179 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:28.320 was just organized a small group of workers from Hunan 180 00:10:28.399 --> 00:10:31.840 Province who had trust with each other, and they stopped 181 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:37.919 working in the transmission assembly workshop of the transmission plant, 182 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:41.919 and very quickly thereafter the other workshops had to stop 183 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.480 because of this kind of just in time production, and 184 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:47.600 so they couldn't proceed, and within a matter of days, 185 00:10:47.639 --> 00:10:50.759 Honda's entire supply chain within China was shut down and 186 00:10:50.799 --> 00:10:53.159 the company was losing I think tens of millions of 187 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:56.399 dollars every day, So it had a huge national and 188 00:10:56.519 --> 00:11:00.879 international impact. And the thing that was really interesting, there's 189 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:02.519 a number of things that were really interesting about this. 190 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:05.480 The first was that workers were very militant and they 191 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:08.480 were very insistent, not just on having the laws implemented, 192 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:12.120 but they were demanding to have a wage increase above 193 00:11:12.159 --> 00:11:14.480 and beyond what they were legally entitled to, which was 194 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:17.320 something of a departure from the dynamics of labor unrest 195 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.120 that we had seen previously. Right, workers are on the offensive, 196 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:23.519 but they weren't just demanding economic gains. They were also 197 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:27.960 demanding unionization. They didn't like the union officers that existed there, 198 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.080 and they wanted to be able to directly elect their 199 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:32.799 own union representatives. That showed a kind of higher level 200 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:37.000 of political consciousness that was beginning to develop at the time. 201 00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:40.039 They also had At this point, it was kind of 202 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:43.519 the most developed that Chinese civil society was, and so 203 00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:46.960 there was support from NGOs in the area as well 204 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:50.639 as kind of pro labor a student and academics who 205 00:11:50.639 --> 00:11:53.919 were in the area. And it's worth noting that at 206 00:11:53.960 --> 00:11:57.799 following previous patterns, the union organized directly against them, and 207 00:11:57.799 --> 00:11:59.799 in fact, the union organized a bunch of thugs to 208 00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:01.360 go and try and break the strike. So it was 209 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:03.879 a very, very kind of nasty, but the workers want 210 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:07.039 They got a huge wage increase, they were promised that 211 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:10.279 they'd be able to elect their own union representatives. Ultimately 212 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:12.679 that that ended with a lot of frustration, but a 213 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:16.960 process was initiated, and they did so with support from 214 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:20.120 the much from the provincial level of the union federation, 215 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:22.480 who saw this as maybe an example that they could 216 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:24.480 use to begin to develop some sort of system of 217 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:28.279 more regularized labor relations. The other thing that happened is 218 00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:30.440 it got a lot of coverage. Chinese media was also 219 00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:33.080 more open at the time, and there was a strike 220 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:35.320 wave in the auto industry, and you had many other 221 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:37.720 plants in the region and around the country that were 222 00:12:37.759 --> 00:12:39.960 going on strike at that period of time, and all 223 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:42.720 of them basically were winning big wage increases. That was 224 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:45.159 the moment that Kevin and I were very involved in 225 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:47.360 a lot of the activism that was happening there, and 226 00:12:47.440 --> 00:12:51.200 I think was the most optimistic period. Very shortly thereafter, 227 00:12:51.240 --> 00:12:54.799 you begin to see growing repression and less willingness to compromise, 228 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:56.480 both on the part of state and capital. 229 00:12:56.759 --> 00:12:59.720 I also remember that periods as a real period of 230 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:02.440 not even just in China really, but you know that 231 00:13:02.519 --> 00:13:06.320 kind of early twenty tens international an the austerity movements 232 00:13:06.360 --> 00:13:09.799 and things like that, and seeing workers in China go 233 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:13.240 on huge strikes as they were at the time, it 234 00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:15.559 sort of felt like it was all part of a 235 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:20.159 growing internationalism that was coming back around again. Your book 236 00:13:20.200 --> 00:13:22.799 actually also goes into a lot about the crisis in 237 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:28.320 social reproduction and specifically you know how that crisis affects women. 238 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:31.360 Could you maybe just give a brief explanation of what 239 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:35.240 you mean by social reproduction and what its crisis in 240 00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:36.720 China actually looks like. 241 00:13:37.320 --> 00:13:42.840 Sure, So, social reproduction we think about as the maintenance 242 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:46.679 and the regeneration of social life on both a daily 243 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:49.399 and an intergenerational basis. Right, So, these are the provision 244 00:13:49.399 --> 00:13:52.200 of all the things that people need to survive biologically 245 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:55.399 but also to survive socially. Right, So, you need house, 246 00:13:55.559 --> 00:13:58.279 you need clothing, you need food, you need healthcare, et cetera. 247 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:01.600 But you also need some time work to be able 248 00:14:01.639 --> 00:14:05.000 to spend time with your family. Whoever you might care 249 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:08.240 for and love and to be able to live a 250 00:14:08.320 --> 00:14:11.879 kind of a dignified and meaningful life. And again, this 251 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.440 is a process that happens on kind of a daily basis, 252 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:20.799 but also intergenerationally between parents and children. And China's experiencing 253 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:25.159 a severe crisis of social reproduction. It's one again to 254 00:14:25.159 --> 00:14:27.000 come back to a theme that we've touched on several 255 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:30.279 times already. It's one that very closely mirrors things that 256 00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:32.039 are happening in lots of other countries, and I think 257 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:36.159 it's another opportunity to kind of de exceptionalize China. The 258 00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:39.559 headline number that you can use to kind of understand 259 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:43.440 this crisis of social reproduction is the falling fertility rates. 260 00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:46.960 And if you look at fertility rates in China over 261 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:50.200 the last forty years, they have dropped, and they've dropped 262 00:14:50.200 --> 00:14:53.519 really precipitously just in the last few years. Now. People 263 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.360 might know about the so called one child policy that 264 00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:59.519 was enacted for the eighties nineties into the twenty tens, 265 00:15:00.120 --> 00:15:04.039 and of course that somewhat you know, artificially depressed the 266 00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:06.159 fertility rate, and there was a lot of human rights 267 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:10.279 violations that came along with that, forced abortions for civilizations 268 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.200 and things of that nature. But one of the things 269 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:17.039 that I think is really surprised demographers but also really 270 00:15:17.080 --> 00:15:20.639 surprised the state, is that once they've lifted in essence, 271 00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:23.720 they've ended that there's now nominally a three child policy, 272 00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:26.360 but you can have as many kids as you want. Actually, 273 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:30.159 the fertility rate has continued to crater right, and so 274 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:34.159 now it's right around one, which means that it is 275 00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:36.879 lower than It's much lower than the United States. It's 276 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:39.519 lower than most of Western Europe, although I believe Southern 277 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:43.279 European countries Italy, Spain might be a little bit lower. 278 00:15:43.600 --> 00:15:45.960 And it's in league with the place that have the 279 00:15:45.960 --> 00:15:48.960 lowest fertility rates in the world, places like Taiwan, South Korea. 280 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:52.360 It's lower than Japan now, I believe. And this is 281 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:56.200 just kind of an indicator, right about how people are 282 00:15:56.200 --> 00:15:58.759 feeling about bringing children into the world. And there's a 283 00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:01.000 lot of reasons that people are anxious about it. And 284 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:02.840 some of it may be the political instability, some of 285 00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:07.840 it may be climate change, but there's other explanations which 286 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.000 are basically it is very hard to bring children into 287 00:16:11.039 --> 00:16:14.320 the world because all the things that you need to survive, 288 00:16:14.759 --> 00:16:19.960 including critically housing, education, health care. Those are the big ones, 289 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.480 but also we should include elder care in there have 290 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:26.639 become much much more difficult for Chinese people to organize 291 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:30.159 as they have been marketized, as the cost has increased 292 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.480 a really dramatically, and you know, with respect to the 293 00:16:33.559 --> 00:16:36.639 question of elder care, China is now a rapidly aging society. 294 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:41.639 So if you are a single person of childbearing Asian, 295 00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:45.200 your your twenties, thirties, whatever, and you're thinking about having 296 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:47.200 a child, well, first of all, you have to think 297 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:49.360 about taking care of your aging parents. And there is 298 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:52.960 definitely not adequate facilities for elder care in China, which 299 00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:54.919 again doesn't make it at all exceptional in the world. 300 00:16:55.679 --> 00:16:57.559 And as the costs for all these other things have 301 00:16:57.639 --> 00:17:00.399 gone up, that's going to really give you pop. Now 302 00:17:00.480 --> 00:17:03.720 it's really important to note, of course, the gender dynamics 303 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:05.920 of this, because the expectation in China, as an all 304 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:09.200 patriarchal societies, is that women are going to take on 305 00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:11.440 all of the labor or almost all of the labor 306 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:14.599 that's associated with social reproduction, with caring for children, with 307 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:18.240 caring for older people, etc. And one of the things 308 00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:23.079 that that makes trein actually pretty exceptional is that, in 309 00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:27.039 contrast to global trends, the gender pay gap between men 310 00:17:27.119 --> 00:17:29.839 and women has actually been getting bigger in China over 311 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:30.759 the last forty years. 312 00:17:30.839 --> 00:17:30.920 Now. 313 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.119 That's actually, I think more of a comment of the 314 00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:35.640 progress that was made in the male era, where the 315 00:17:35.720 --> 00:17:38.759 pay gap was very very small, almost non existent, not 316 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.000 non existent, but very small, and it is wide and 317 00:17:41.079 --> 00:17:43.759 significantly and so now it's much more similar to other 318 00:17:43.880 --> 00:17:46.480 capitalist countries. One of the ways that they've tried to 319 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:48.480 resolve this, and here you can see that it's not 320 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:50.880 just a kind of a gender form of gender oppression, 321 00:17:50.920 --> 00:17:53.640 but there's other forms of social hierarchy involved, is by 322 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:56.880 trying to push those costs of social reproduction specifically onto 323 00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:00.799 rural women. How does that work well, is you can 324 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:03.599 see the fiscal reorganization of the state, which has really 325 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:06.920 undermined the basis of social reproduction and rural areas and 326 00:18:07.119 --> 00:18:10.319 created this big urban bias, right so that people so 327 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:13.680 that women in rural areas and especially grandparents in rural 328 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.359 areas have to take on a disproportionate share of child 329 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:18.839 rearing while the young, younger people are out working in 330 00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:22.119 the cities. And so you have a kind of reorganization 331 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:25.960 of the family structure in rural areas where it's almost 332 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:29.240 the norm in many places to have grandparents looking after 333 00:18:29.400 --> 00:18:32.160 children while the parents are way that's hard work, especially 334 00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:34.160 you're going to do your sixties, seventies and even eighties. 335 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:36.720 It's hard work to look after children. And then the 336 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:40.000 other way that it works is by bringing domestic workers 337 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:45.400 into relatively well off urban households. And the domestic workers, 338 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:47.119 in contrast to most places in the world, are not 339 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:49.839 sourced from elsewhere in the Global South. Y're sourced from 340 00:18:49.880 --> 00:18:54.480 rural China, right, So almost all of the domestic workers nannies, etc. 341 00:18:55.160 --> 00:18:57.160 Come from rural China to urban China, and they are 342 00:18:57.200 --> 00:19:01.559 paid substandard wages to essentially make the lives of urban 343 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:04.079 women somewhat easier. It's not to say that urban women 344 00:19:04.119 --> 00:19:06.319 themselves don't face all kinds of struggles, but that's the 345 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:08.640 way they've tried to balance it, and it hasn't worked 346 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:11.559 right because, you know, some people think about it as 347 00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:14.799 like a reproductive strike. Women are not willing to have children, 348 00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:18.079 and this has created great anxiety on the part of 349 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:22.000 the country's patriarchs in the Communist Party this past year 350 00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:24.640 over the lunar New Year holiday, the government announced that 351 00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:27.359 they were putting a ban on sort of online discussion 352 00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:30.200 that was opposed to marriage or opposed to childbirth, basically 353 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:32.759 telling people no, no, no, like it's you know, it's 354 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:34.920 your patriotic duty to get married and to have children, 355 00:19:35.319 --> 00:19:37.440 but it is not working so far. Yeah. 356 00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:41.599 I think there's a part of your book where you've 357 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:45.240 got this really interesting quote from Hijin where he talks about, 358 00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:48.480 you know, it is the women's task to strike a 359 00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:52.480 balance between family and work and to take up social 360 00:19:52.519 --> 00:19:56.759 responsibilities while contributing to their families. It's so in keeping 361 00:19:57.640 --> 00:20:01.000 with actually quite a lot of the the sort of 362 00:20:01.079 --> 00:20:06.240 patriarchal discourse that we're getting from, you know, the resurgent 363 00:20:06.400 --> 00:20:11.480 kind of right across the West. It's quite striking, and 364 00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:15.319 I wonder if as part of that de exceptionalizing China 365 00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:19.279 that we've talked about, maybe there are other kind of parallels, 366 00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:22.680 things like I think you talk about restrictions on abortion, 367 00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:28.680 restrictions on LGBTQ rights, and actually this experience of migrant 368 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:33.279 women workers as kind of domestic help, you know, which 369 00:20:33.400 --> 00:20:36.200 is kind of famous in you know, the sort of 370 00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:40.519 the big wealthy cities London or New York, Paris and 371 00:20:40.599 --> 00:20:43.440 things like that, where often it would be women from 372 00:20:43.640 --> 00:20:46.640 like you said, from the global South who come to 373 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:51.119 do this work. In China, it's women from rural China. Again, 374 00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:54.640 it really feels like there are these really strong parallels 375 00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:58.720 of the gender regime of China with a lot of 376 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:01.480 Western countries. Does that feel fair or is that like 377 00:21:01.880 --> 00:21:02.880 a fair comparison? 378 00:21:04.240 --> 00:21:07.279 I think it's extremely fair. So, just to pick up 379 00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:09.559 on a couple of points that you made, if you 380 00:21:09.640 --> 00:21:12.000 think about how I'll just talk about the United States, 381 00:21:12.039 --> 00:21:14.880 the country that I know best. If you look at 382 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:18.480 how our country has tried to solve the crisis of 383 00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:23.240 social reproduction. For let's say, middle class and elite urban people, 384 00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:26.359 what is the hinterland that they can draw on. Well, 385 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.240 if you're in Los Angeles, your hinterland is Mexico or 386 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:32.160 the Philippines, right, And you bring in domestic workers, you 387 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:34.880 bring in nannies, you bring in elder care workers, you 388 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.640 bring in nurses from those places at depressed wages. Sociologists 389 00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:42.519 talk about these care chains, right, which is to try 390 00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:45.839 to understand that the global dynamics of this, if those 391 00:21:46.240 --> 00:21:48.400 people are coming from the Philippines or from Mexico or 392 00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:51.039 from elsewhere in Latin America to Los Angeles. That means 393 00:21:51.079 --> 00:21:55.160 that they're leaving behind their own care responsibilities in their 394 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:59.000 own country, right, which means it's similar to chrya. Oftentimes 395 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:02.319 you know elder people, you know grandparents that have to 396 00:22:02.359 --> 00:22:05.039 look after kids, and of course there's the emotional cost 397 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:07.039 of being away from your children for you know, key 398 00:22:07.160 --> 00:22:10.960 years of their development which cannot be quantified. So in 399 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:13.000 that sense, I think we just have to think about 400 00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:15.519 these these kind of global cities and what their hinter 401 00:22:15.640 --> 00:22:18.640