China: Capitalist Development and Popular Resistance

The colloquium will examine the roots of popular resistance in contemporary China, and consider the way in which it is affecting capitalist development and the political system.

The spectacular rebellion of the villagers of Wukan against the expropriation of their land by local officials in collusion with property developers, as well as the powerful series of strikes by factory workers in the export industries of Guangdong,  have made international headlines. The colloquium will examine the roots of popular resistance in contemporary China, and consider the way in which it is affecting capitalist development and the political system. Speakers will discuss the economic trends that have conditioned the protests--the property bubble, inflation, higher costs of borrowing, the slower growth of employment, and a stagnating world market. They will analyze the responses of governmental authorities, repressive and conciliatory. They will ask how conflicts at the level of the workplace and the village are altering local and national power structures and factional lineups…and whether they pose a threat to the political order.         

Iam-chong Ip is an editor at Inmediahk.net and has written and reported extensively on rural and industrial protests in China.

Ching Kwan Lee is the author of Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (2007).  She is also a co-editor of Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution (2007) and Working in China: Ethnographies of Labor and Workplace Transformation (2007).

Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s books include China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010) and Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (2009).