Zhao Dongmin (赵东民), lawyer, labor activist and Maoist, remains in jail more than a year after his arrest for trying to setup a workers’ watchdog group to combat corrupt and illegal SOE restructuring in Shaanxi Province.

Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” It might then come as some surprise that since 2003 Liu has viewed US wars against Iraq, Vietnam and Korea as justified, since they are prosecuted against dictatorial or totalitarian regimes. Liu’s passionate and utter hatred of the CPC has pushed him to the diametric opposite of any position China’s government takes. This appears to have led Liu to believe that the US is the world’s foremost force for democracy in the world, and further that democracy has often been the result of wars launched by the US, followed by US occupation. Hence Liu’s support for the the US occupation of Japan and Germany, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the second Iraq war and subsequent occupation.

An interesting debate about Liu Xiaobo (the imprisoned liberal dissident who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) is taking place on the Zhongguo list. You can view the posts here. It started with an op-ed in the SCMP by Hairong Yan and Barry Sautman. I’m reposting that below, followed by some of the responses.

Issue #3 of China Study Group’s bi-lingual web-journal China Left Review is focused on new essays, by Chinese and overseas writers, revisiting several English-language books about rural China during the collective/ “people’s commune” era (ca. 1957-1982). The issue also includes an article on China’s ongoing land-tenure debate, and one on Sino-Korean relations. With the exception of the latter article, every text is presented in both Chinese and English versions - a first for this journal which we hope to continue. (If you’d like to help out with translating, revising or writing for future issues, please contact [email protected].) Also note the new design of the CLR website, including the painting “Iron Bones Giving Birth to Spring” (铁骨生春).

One big debate in the international trade union movement in the past two decades has been whether to engage with the All-China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU). As a union under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, one camp has argued for no engagement. The engagement camp that supports argued that in this enormous organization there must be some trade unionists who stood with labor, and they were the ones who might one day initiate change within the ACFTU. There has been hostility between the two camps. With time, more and more unions and labor activists around the world are seeking engagement with the ACFTU, in one fashion or another.

This issue of CLNT carries an article by Century Economic Report covering a second visit by the Guangzhou Municipal Federation of Trade Unions (GZFTU) delegation to the United States. The China Daily also covered the story. While in San Francisco Chen Weiguang was reported to have openly criticized Apple and said that Apple should bear responsibility for the spate of recent workers’ suicides in IT manufacturer Foxconn. He was critical of the way international buyers maximize their profits by squeezing Chinese manufacturers, and said that multinational corporations should negotiate with Chinese capital and labor to distribute wealth more equitably along the global supply chain. He talked about exchanging ideas with American trade unions, though not to the extent of forming an alliance.

The Real News Network interviews Li Minqi about Chinese workers’ strikes and the changing political economy of China.