Imagining globalisation: The world and nation in Chinese communist party ideology

The study of migrant workers in Hong Kong has given attention to Filipinas. There has been just one published study of Thais in Hong Kong, despite the fact that they are a significant minority, and about half of them are domestic workers. This article presents the results of a survey of Thai workers, assessing a range of issues: scale of migration for work, remittances, roles and aspirations in Hong Kong, and perceptions of work. The survey indicated that the Thais interviewed were reasonably satisfied with their life in Hong Kong. While most are involved in “low status” activities, Thais appear to do better than Indonesian migrant workers in terms of the wages and conditions they achieve, and report less abuse. In broader terms, migrant labour is one option amongst many for working class Thais seeking better incomes but seldom achieving upward class mobility].     

Street-level Politics: Labour Protests in Post-authoritarian Indonesia

This article discusses the promotion of economic “reintegration” programs among migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The programs include training migrants in savings and investment, business planning and entrepreneurship, with the immediate aim of helping them to achieve some steady income as an alternative to continued working overseas, and the longer-term objective of channelling migrant savings into national economic development “back home.” The reintegration programs are analysed in the context of hegemonic neo-liberal or popular capitalism, which inter alia, encourages the transformation of citizens with rights into entrepreneurs who can be held responsible for their own failures. It argues that such programs discipline rather than liberate migrant workers and that despite good intentions on the part of progressive non-government organisations (NGOs), represent individualistic solutions to structural problems which may undermine campaigns like the campaign for the rights of migrant workers and their families.     

UNDOCUMENTED INDONESIAN WORKERS IN MACAU

Presenting new research findings on undocumented Indonesian migrant workers in Macau, this article explicates the dovetailing arrangements between public and private sector interests that are systemically creating undocumented labor migration flows. It then shows how these arrangements are structurally inherent in the mutual competitiveness of globalizing nodes of wealth creation. Undocumented migration cheapens production costs and results in a flexible black market of vulnerable, right-less, and exploited workers. Contrary to illusions of an urbanizing Asia with expanding spaces for civil liberties, the development of globally competitive megacities, built and supported by low-skilled migrant workers, rests on a global underclass of transient workers who bear the human costs of transience and labor flexibility, enabling megacities to externalize such costs and enhance their global competitiveness. The article analyzes the vulnerabilities of undocumented Indonesian workers in the context of Macau's rapid economic development as an aspiring megacity The Macau government's laissez-faire tolerance of such workers is grounded in its need for human labor that is abundant, cheap, marginal, and disposable. The flow of Indonesian migrant workers into Macau is linked to Hong Kong's exclusionary immigration policies, which aim at extricating surplus migrant labor. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government refuses responsibility for its migrant workers in Macau because Macau is not recognized as an official destination. The article shows how public and private interests motivate increasing numbers of migrants to become undocumented overstayers in Macau, as they try to avoid oppressive practices in labor migration from Indonesia and the exclusionary policies of Hong Kong.     

The “Rights Awakening” of Chinese Migrant Workers: Beyond the Generational Perspective

ABSTRACT

?In the spring of 2010, the strike of the Honda workers in Nanhai instigated an on-going discourse on the “rights awakening” of the “new generation of migrant workers.” Since then, much has been written about these young workers, generally described as more pro-active and ready to stand up against their employers than the older and more subservient generation. Drawing from statistical findings from two factory-gate surveys in the metal mechanics and garment sectors in Shenzhen, this paper tests two hypotheses: (a) that workers of the younger generation are more cognizant of their legal rights than older workers; (b) that the younger generation wants to work fewer hours and to enjoy life more. We argue that this popular image of the younger generation of migrant workers is one-dimensional and reductive, as it focuses only on generational differences as an explanatory factor for worker activism, while ignoring other issues such as types of industries and payment systems. In this paper, we purport that these elements play important roles in shaping the attitude of this younger generation toward their work and rights.     

STATE-SOCIETY CONFLICT RADICALIZATION IN HONG KONG: THE RISE OF ‘ANTI-CHINA’ SENTIMENT AND RADICAL LOCALISM

Hong Kong has been facing an increasingly strong “anti-China” sentiment in recent years. More people are worried that existing Mainland-Hong Kong integration actually provides more opportunity for Beijing to exercise political control over Hong Kong, resulting in the loss of local identity. Political parties of the pan-democratic camp, which has been at the forefront of political activism since the 1980s, used to adopt a “milder” approach to oppose intervention from Beijing. However, with more Hong Kong people, especially localists, becoming sceptical towards this tactic, they have resorted to escalating things into “radical” protests or even bloody clashes with the authorities. During Chinese Lunar New Year 2016, a few hundred protesters joined the “Mong Kok Riot” and violently pelted police officers with bricks and glass, leading to more than 120 people being injured. The clashes may on the surface have been about hawker management issues, but, in fact, were fuelled by a growing discontent against the Chinese and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region governments. With more protesters prepared to take more radical actions against the authorities, state-society relations in Hong Kong are likely to enter an unprecedented period of tension.     

Cross-Border Families in Hong Kong: The Role of Social Class and Politics

The massive relocation of industrial activities from Hong Kong to mainland China that followed in the wake of China's acceptance of foreign investment has given rise to two different sets of cross-border familial relations. In the first case, middle-class managers and technicians from Hong Kong have taken “second wives” during their stay in southern China. Hong Kong's mass media have been generally tolerant of this second-wife phenomenon, seeing it merely as a case of funglau (sexually potency), justifying it in terms of middle-class men's “soft spot,” and blaming the first wives for neglecting their duties. In the second case, workers from Hong Kong have crossed into the mainland in search of spouses because they believe that women in China are more affordable than those in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's restrictive immigration policies result in these mainland wives and children having to wait for ten years or more before receiving a one-way permit to migrate to Hong Kong. When they do arrive in Hong Kong, they have been discriminated against and condemned as causing Hong Kong's social and economic problems. This article examines how social class and politics have affected the way in which the mass media and the Hong Kong government have dealt with these two sets of cross-border families.     

香港族裔经济中的印尼华侨与华人

20世纪七八十年代,有不下20万的印度尼西亚华侨自中国内地迁居香港;而近30多年来,印尼家务工人亦接踵而至,其在香港的人数现已超过13万人。这两群看似毫不相干的移民,在21世纪全球化以及区域移民的大语境下相遇,共同构建了香港经济活动中奇特的族裔景观,具体包括印尼食品店、服装店、手机店、家具店等等。基于文化背景、语言条件以及香港公民身份等因素,第一代印尼归侨以及千禧年前后开始定居香港的印尼华人或自己充当雇主,或在族裔经济中担任雇员,自然而然成为在港印尼族裔经济的先驱者与主要获利者。本文根据2013年到2016年初的田野调查和深度访谈,梳理在港印尼华侨华人的移民背景以及类别,探讨印尼华侨华人如何在印尼家务工人移民潮的推动之下,启动他们的族裔资源,使之成为具有商业用途的资本,从而促进了过去十多年来香港印尼族裔经济的蓬勃发展。     

Positioning the product: Indonesian migrant women workers in Taiwan

There are two important phenomena at work relating to migrant labourers, and in particular to “caregivers” or “carers,” in the labour market of contemporary Taiwan. First, the formulation and promotion by brokers of nationality-based stereotypes that tend to channel migrant workers of different nationalities into different segments of the labour market. In terms of gender, women are predominantly channelled into sectors that are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. In the category of care giving, we see a trend toward a hierarchical structuring between Filipinas and Indonesians, with Indonesian women often doing the dirtier and more demanding jobs of caring for the sick and elderly. Second, despite the fact that the majority of Indonesian women workers are contracted to work as carers, a significant number actually work in various capacities in family businesses as well as working as maids in the family home. This reality does not reflect the picture projected by government statistics on migrant workers in Taiwan. Nor indeed is it given sufficient recognition in the research on Filipina domestic workers in Taiwan, which, for the most part, focuses on domestic workers working in that capacity. What appears to be a tightly controlled arena for migrant workers is, in fact, open to manipulation often resulting in a “double-exploitation” of the Indonesian woman worker.     

Citizenship,economy and social exclusion of mainland Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is often viewed as a Chinese immigrants' city. This article discusses three interrelated dimensions of the social exclusion of migrants designated as “new” Chinese immigrants in Hong Kong. First, it is argued that globalisation has triggered intense economic rivalry among world cities as they undertake economic restructuring. Second, the political attempts of territorial states to establish their own legitimacy and strengthen their governing capacity are major catalysts that induce the social exclusion of immigrants. Third, the nature and strength of local place-based social identity is vital to determine the difficulties new immigrants face in being included in the host society. After recounting the history of Chinese immigrants and their recent profile in Hong Kong, the article examines the relationships between Hong Kong's economic development and the state's immigration policies, and how Hong Kong's state policies have constructed a form of Hong Kong identity vis-à-vis Mainland Chinese, drawing out the mechanisms that determine the social exclusion of Mainland immigrants since the 1990s.

“We asked for workers but human beings came.” Max Frisch(quoted in Hollifield,2000:149)     

Haven under erasure?: Hong Kong,global Asia and human rights

Discussions of Hong Kong's human rights situation tend to focus on the ex-colony's struggle to protect civil and political rights against the encroachment of the Chinese state. Without contradicting the well-grounded concern with Hong Kong's human rights future articulated in these discussions, this article offers a complementary narrative of human rights development in post-1997 Hong Kong that looks beyond the national frame of such discussions. Drawing attention to Hong Kong's position as a regional centre in the struggle for human rights in Asia under globalisation, the article argues that the activities of local and transnational human rights advocacy groups in the city show positive and promising possibilities of coalitional solidarity on the ground of human rights. Notably, the protests against national security legislation opened up opportunities of articulating diverse struggles for the rights of various social groups, including migrant groups, with the local struggle for civil and political rights. A perspective of Global Asia enables a reading of this important episode in Hong Kong's struggle for human rights that suggests more open-ended future possibilities than the common nationally-framed accounts.     

Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong: The Case of the Dockworkers’ Strike in 2013

By analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a practical strategy of social activists to support labour rights under the specific context of vulnerable structural power, weak institutional power, failed political unionism and a vibrant civil society. Social movement unionism has a “double-edged sword” effect on workers’ power: on the one hand, it has the potential to create societal power and strengthen associational power; on the other hand, it may compromise workers’ militancy and the possibility of stronger workplace bargaining power during workers’ struggle.     

Alienation and labor export in the context of globalization

Beginning the early 1970s the Philippine government embarked on labor export as a development strategy to deal with its debt crisis, largely a consequence of structural adjustment policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Labor export has since become a major feature of globalization in the Philippines. This article argues that Philippine labor export in the context of globalization creates sites of and resistance to alienation. It examines the different forms of alienation that Filipino migrant domestic workers — who comprise the bulk of Philippine export labor — experience, drawing on qualitative/ethnographic data from fieldwork conducted in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vancouver, Rome, and Chicago. Viewing alienation as a dialectic, the article examines various forms of alienation—familial alienation, commodification of migrant/export labor, political and cultural alienation — and discusses the different ways that migrant domestic workers deal with them. Situating its analysis within the interlocking aspects of experience-context-resistance, the article shows how these forms of alienation are structurally/contextually produced and contested, with careful sensitivity to the complexity in tackling the root causes of alienation in the context of neoliberal globalization.     

Theoretische Überlegungen zur Entstehung von Gewalt in Protesten: Eine situative mechanismische Erklärung

This paper connects recent findings in sociology, criminology, social psychology and neurosciences to develop a mechanism-based explanation of the emergence of protest violence. The theoretical considerations connect Charles Tilly’s and Sidney Tarrow’s relational sociology with Randall Collins’ emotions-based micro-sociology of violent confrontations and Herbert Blumer’s symbolic interactionism. The goal is to contribute to the development of a mid-range theory that can explain the emergence of violence in generally peaceful protests conclusively and that is empirically verifiable. The paper assumes that instead of protesters’ or police officers’ motivations and strategies, three situational factors are crucial for the emergence of violence in protests: interaction, emotion and interpretation during the protest event. Due to actors’ situational interpretation specific combinations of interactions form relational processes that trigger emotional mechanism of “tension and fear”, as conceptualized by Collins. Together with “emotional dominance” during the protest, tension and fear forms the emotional process of “attacking the weak” and thereby prompts violence even in protests of generally peaceful protest groups.     

Anti-Iraq War Protests in Turkey: Global Networks,Coalitions, and Context

This article examines how Turkish citizens participated in protests against the Iraq War and why civil society organizations were able to mobilize tens of thousands of people across the country despite the institutional weakness of the Turkish peace movement. The Iraq War case is important in that its scale and level of protest mobilization were unprecedented based on any other anti-war protests in Turkey. Using content analysis of newspaper reports of anti-Iraq War protest events, this article maps the patterns and forms of protest against the Iraq War and argues for the importance of global networks, coalitions among organizations, and political context for protest mobilization.     

Support for and Opposition to Democratization in Hong Kong

It is not easy to say what proportion of Hong Kong residents support democratization. Although the overwhelming majority of Hong Kong people support universal suffrage of the chief executive, public opinion in Hong Kong is divided into two opinions about whether they should accept the Chinese-style of democracy in which candidates are selected before election by the Chinese Central Government to exclude pro-democracy camp candidates. The majority of Hong Kong citizens do not want a person from the pro-democracy camp who is not on good terms with the central government to become the chief executive, and the “Occupy” movement was not welcomed because of prolonged occupation of the major streets. It is not easy for the pro-democracy camp to persuade conservative ordinary people to support full-democracy, and even if they succeed in changing public opinion, the central government and mainland people will become the next obstacle. The future perspective of Hong Kong's democratization is not bright, but young people's demand for democracy is very strong and they may well change Hong Kong society. It may also be possible that a wave of political consciousness among the young could eventually also sweep mainland China.     

“Let's See What Happens”: Hope,Contingency, and Speculation in Nepali Student Activism

This article analyzes Nepali student activists’ resistance and resilience as strategies that foreground their aspirations within existing political constructs. While they may enter into party politics through student organizations, they downplay their roles as political party foot soldiers. By focusing on their creative strategies and coping mechanisms during the political movement that ousted the monarchy in 2006, I highlight the nature of hope in youth political action through a common phrase they use: “Let's see what happens.” Using the concept of “subjunctive instrumentality” and ethnographic engagement, I analyze students’ internal micro-politics alongside public protests to demonstrate how they interweave the categories of idealism and opportunism, simultaneously inhabiting both in a way that makes politics personal and the personal political. These student activists’ “not-yet” orientation, in which they mobilize political, temporal, and symbolic contingencies, provides alternative templates for the present and visions for the future.     

Governance and Conflict

Within a global gendered economy based on an international division of labor, Filipina migrants have become nannies, maids, and caregivers in affluent homes in numerous Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Filipina migrants who seek employment as domestic workers abroad have been described as “classical” transmigrants who keep in touch with family members back home and commute between their countries of origin and their destinations. In this article — based on ethnographic research in Israel, Palestine, and the Philippines between 2003 and 2008—the author argues that Filipina migrants are transnational in a much broader sense than commonly discussed in studies on migration: engaged in border-cross-ing journeys through a number of nation states, many Filipina migrants move on and on rather than back and forth. They do so within a global hierarchy of desirable destination countries, ranked according to the differences between nation-states with regard to salaries and the legal entitlements migrants can claim, the costs and risks migrants have to take in order to enter, and these countries’ overall subjective and imaginative attractiveness. By migrating on, Filipina domestic workers acquire an intimate picture of the Middle East “backstage.” Some even become self-pro-claimed Middle Eastern experts or politically active Christian Zionists or sentimental Orientalists, who, in spite of their Christianity, miss fasting on Yom Kippur or during Ramadan as they continue their journeys toward Western Europe and North America, where they have hopes of living and perhaps gaining citizenship.     

A REPORT OF THE 2019 HONG KONG PROTESTS

This article is written by a former Royal Hong Kong Police of?cer whose service included Special Branch engaged in counter-terrorism intelligence, and who is currently resident in Hong Kong. It offers a detailed chronological overview of the development of the 2019 protests in Hong Kong; analyses the problems with the political response on the part of the Hong Kong and Beijing governments; it also looks at the tactics employed by the protesters, and critically examines the tactical and strategic response to the protests by the Hong Kong police. It also discusses the broader social and economic causes of the protests, and how the Hong Kong government might best respond to these challenges.     

Policing protest in the Australian Capital Territory: the introduction and use of the Public Order Act 1971

This article examines the reaction by the Australian Federal Government to the protest movements of the 1960s–1970s and their attempts to use public order legislation to thwart radical discontent in Australia. It argues that the Public Order (Protection of Persons and Property) Act 1971 was aimed at the threat of “violent” protests, particularly the tactic of the “sit-in”, and that to this end, the legislation was an overreaction to the actual threat posed by the protest movements at the time. It also shows that after a long gestation period, the Act was ill-equipped to deal with the changing nature of demonstrations in the 1970s, such as the problems caused by the erection of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Thus, after an initial flurry of use in mid-1971, the law has been seldom used since.     

Resistance to Privatization: Why Protest Movements Succeed and Fail in Latin America

Why do some protest movements in Latin America succeed in rolling back privatizations while others fail? This article argues that protests against privatizations have tended to succeed under two conditions. First, privatization's opponents form linkages (or “brokerage”) across multiple sectors of society. Broad coalitions are more likely to achieve their goals, while groups acting alone, such as labor unions, are more easily defeated or ignored by governments. Second, civil rights are protected but political representation is weak. In that case, opponents have the legal right to protest, but are unlikely to have opportunities for communicating their concerns through formal institutions, which prompts them to channel their demands outside of existing political institutions. Using case examples and logistic regression, this study confirms these arguments and discusses the implications for democracy in the region.