The Price of China's Economic Development : Power, Capital, and the Poverty of Rights by Hong Zhaohui

Author:Hong, Zhaohui [Hong, Zhaohui]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2015-10-10T07:00:00+00:00

ALTERNATIVE DIRECTIONS

The discrimination against migrant laborers stems from their poverty of rights. The long-standing deprivation of Chinese migrant laborers freedom to migrate establishes a social system similar to the Indian caste system and American slavery and represents a kind of institutional debt and national wrongdoing. In my opinion, several steps can be taken to reduce this debt and rectify the historical wrong.

First, it is necessary to realize that the prevalent discrimination against migrant laborers in China is not localized behavior; rather, it is a nationwide issue that is deeply embedded in the country’s historical and institutional traditions. As a result, it may take more than one or even two generations to successfully readdress the long-accumulated injustices. Visible hindrances to migrant laborers’ free migration may disappear in the near future, but the invisible invasion of their civil rights, emotional oppression, and cultural discrimination will last for a long time. Similarly, as a system, American slavery ended 150 years ago, yet racial discrimination against African Americans remains an intrinsic part of contemporary American society. Also, the Indian caste system still overshadows some people’s perceptions and behavior in India today. In China, systemized discrimination against farmers has been a part of the cultural and social DNA of urban residents since 1949, and it will take conscientious and concerted efforts across the country to eventually repair the damage.

On the other hand, it is possible, and in fact necessary, to start the long process of rectification. To begin with, blatant and written forms of discrimination should be eliminated in legal provisions, media pronouncements, and job advertisements. In addition, discrimination in spoken form, including public or private statements, should also be eradicated, while fair, just policies and actions should be endorsed. Last but not least, public consciousness must change, making it clear that discrimination against migrant laborers is shameful and that society as a whole has the responsibility of upholding justice. Recent years have seen some efforts at reducing written discrimination, but spoken, behavioral, and conceptual discrimination are still widely practiced in China. In the United States, both written and spoken discrimination would surely invite serious lawsuits, though admittedly behavioral and conceptual discrimination still exist.

Second, it is difficult, if not impossible, for any government to voluntarily admit its own misconduct. Farmers’ resistance and public support are necessary for stamping out the poverty of migrant farmers’ rights. During the past sixty-five years, Chinese farmers and migrant laborers have not mounted voluntary, persistent, and nationwide protests against the various kinds of discrimination that have been inflicted upon them, nor have they had their own union or leadership, let alone an effective platform to safeguard their rights and interests. They have become the “silent majority.”125

As a result, the government has taken advantage of migrant laborers’ lack of resistance and continued its iniquitous policies. If migrant laborers today protested with the amount of willpower and energy exhibited by the “intellectual youth” (zhi qing) who demanded their rightful return to the cities right after the Cultural Revolution, they would see improvement of their situation.

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