Chinese capitalism reveals dark side
Mary-Anne Toy, Heyuan
July 7, 2007
MIGRANT worker Lei Mingzhong, 27, is unconscious on a trolley at Heyuan People's Hospital, the sheets stained with his blood.
It is Tuesday night, four days after about 40 thugs in the employ of Fuyuan Hydropower company attacked Mr Lei and 200 other striking workers on a building site in the southern province of Guangdong.
His attackers, wielding shovels, axes and steel rods, bashed Mr Lei and other workers last week after they went on strike over more than four months of unpaid wages.
Their protest delayed completion of Fuyuan's hydropower station in Dongyuan county, about an hour from the city of Heyuan. Mr Lei is brain-dead, but being kept alive, fellow workers speculate, because the police are postponing a murder investigation.
"He was dead at the field," Xiang Xiquan, one of the seven workers injured in the clash says from his hospital bed earlier that night.
"The first shovel blow killed him but after he had fallen they kept beating him," Mr Xiang, who suffered a broken leg, bruising and cuts, said. "They are using artificial means to keep him breathing, but it is just a pretence."
The brutal attack is the latest in what labour rights groups say is an escalating pattern of corporate violence against China's 200 million migrant workers, mostly poor farmers and the unemployed who seek work in the booming urban centres.
China's rapid economic growth has lifted overall living standards, but has caused a growing income gap between the 800 million peasants and more affluent city dwellers, leading to increasing social unrest.
The flood of impoverished rural migrants to China's rapidly expanding cities is one of the largest mass movements in history. More than 150 million people moved to China's cities in the six years between 1999 and 2005. In 1980, 80 per cent of the population lived in the country.
A UN report last month said that more than half of China's population — now 1.3 billion — will be living in urban areas within 10 years.
"From 1980 to 2030, the population of China will go from being 20 per cent urban to almost two-thirds urban," said William Ryan, the UN Population Fund's information adviser for Asia and the Pacific region.
China's rapid urbanisation has caused painful disruptions to the social fabric of rural communities. Migrant workers often leave their children in the care of relatives, and can only visit several times a year.
The problem of this new underclass was recognised in 2003, when outgoing premier Zhu Rongji warned that if migrant workers were not given a greater share of the new wealth, it could undermine social stability and economic growth.
The ground-floor emergency room where we find Mr Lei is filled with about 20 people including relatives, fellow workers and local media; police are also present, one conspicuously videotaping. At 10.30pm, several dozen police reinforcements arrive, clear the room and confiscate pictures taken by two photographers. Mr Lei is finally declared dead and his body moved.
When we return to the hospital the next day after visiting the hydro site on the Dongjiang River, a delegation of officials from Chongqing province, where most of the migrant workers are from, had descended on the injured, promising to investigate.
Four men, including Fuyuan's security chief and site manager, have been detained by police and Xinhua, the official Government news agency, reported that China's Minister for Construction, Wang Guangtao, has ordered an investigation.
At a news conference that same day, Wednesday, called by the Dongyuan County Government (which covers the hydro site), officials offered their condolences to the injured workers and promised to co-ordinate the investigation into the "incident", which they described as a "group fight" caused by a financial dispute. The local party secretary was photographed visiting the injured, telling them they would sort out the dispute.
But Mr Xiang is sceptical that the offenders will be punished.
"I don't believe the police will do anything more as they have already classified it as a group fight. But … they were armed. There were only 40 of them and 200 of us but only migrant workers were injured. If it was a fight we would have prepared our own weapons."
Robin Munro, research director for China Labour Bulletin, said the fact companies felt bold enough to unleash thugs against workers indicated collusion with local governments and police because no company would take such action unless they felt they could get away with it.
"If companies didn't think they had official protection they wouldn't do it. It's only when there's a death or complete chaos from the employers' actions that local authorities have to appear to be doing something.
"This is a case of company-sponsored mass thuggery and is the most recent in an escalating trend in China towards companies and even local authorities deploying these sorts of thugs against workers claiming their legitimate rights," Mr Munro said. "What we're seeing is the … most sinister side of, as the authorities call it, capitalism with Chinese characteristics."
Mr Xiang says most of the six seriously injured were, like him, singled out by the Fuyuan thugs because they were team leaders. His dead colleague, Mr Lei, was a safety monitor for Qiutian Construction, the subcontractor that brought in the workers.
Qiutian says it has been unable to pay workers because Fuyuan has refused to compensate it for losses suffered last summer when the site flooded. Qiutian says that legally the developer is responsible for losses caused by acts of nature.
Fuyuan Hydropower is part of the giant Fuyuan group owned by Miao Shouliang, who was last year listed as China's 68th richest person in the Hurun Report, an annual rich list. Mr Miao is also a delegate of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the key community advisory body to the Chinese leadership.
Mr Miao earlier this week denied delaying payment to Qiutian but refused to comment on the attack. A Fuyuan employee at its Shenzhen headquarters on Thursday said the company had paid 30 million yuan ($A4.6 million), including 10 million ahead of schedule, to Qiutian and the matter was a contractual dispute.
Another migrant worker, Mr Yi, who jumped into the river to escape, said the workers needed help to get justice.
"The big boss (of Fuyuan) is powerful and has been protected. It's not fair. President Hu (Jintao) said we must build a harmonious society and the rights of the migrant workers should be protected, but at the local level," he says, his voice trailing off in a shrug.
Qiutian's financial manager, Chu Xiaoshu, whose older brother owns the company, said the stand-off occurred because workers wanted a clear answer from Fuyuan about when the rest of the money would be paid.
"We weren't asking for immediate payment but we had noticed since the 26th (of June) Fuyuan's attitude toughening, so we felt that something could happen," Mr Chu, who was also injured, said.
China last week passed a labour reform law that from January 1 requires employers to provide written contracts, restricts the use of temporary labourers and allows collective bargaining by the state-controlled unions.
The law was passed just weeks after a scandal broke after hundreds of abducted children and adults were found working as slaves in brick kilns and mines in the central provinces of Shanxi and Henan.
Whether the new law helps will depend on enforcement. Abuses often go unchecked because of collusion between local authorities, police and companies, but the central Government is increasingly concerned because of the surge in violence.