China Since Tiananmen: The Labor Movement

[Excerpt] The twenty years since 1989 have brought two major developments in worker activism. First, whereas workers were part of the mass uprising in the Tiananmen movement, albeit as subordinate partners to the students, labor activism since then has been almost entirely confined to the working class. While the ranks of aggrieved workers have proliferated (expanding from workers in the state-owned sector to include migrant workers) and the forms and incidents of labor activism have multiplied, there is hardly any sign of mobilization that transcends class or regional lines. Second, we observe that a long-term decline in worker power at the point of production – power that was previously institutionalized in skill hierarchies, union representation, democratic management, permanent or long-term employment, and other conditions of service constitutive of the socialist social contract - is going on even as workers gain more power (at least on paper) outside the workplace. New labor laws have broadened workers\u27 rights and expanded administrative and judicial channels for resolving labor conflicts. These legal and bureaucratic procedures have atomized and depoliticized labor activism even as they have engendered and intensified mobilization outside official limits

Livelihood struggles and market reform: (un)making Chinese labour after state socialism

The surge of China as the workshop of the world has been founded on, among other things, a fundamental restructuring of the labour force. Massive unemployment in the state industrial sector is taking place simultaneously with momentous migration of peasants into global factories. Both the unmaking and the making of the Chinese working class are heavily shaped by the state. This paper traces the historical evolution of core changes in Chinese labour reform and worker entitlements: from the introduction of labour contracts to the promulgation of a national labour law, the demolition of work-unit socialism and its replacement with a national social security system. I also examine workers' livelihood struggles in response to this epochal transformation. The central problem for Chinese workers is not the new labour and welfare systems, but the wide discrepancies between the stipulation and the implementation of these new policies. The institutional source of these gaps, this paper argues, lies in two contradictions inherent in the strategy of Chinese reform. Firstly, the imperative to rely on local accumulation to fuel marketization clashes with the imperative to maintain legitimacy by providing a basic level of justice and welfare for the most disadvantaged. Local state agents are more interested in the former than the latter, especially when they can count on central government financial intervention to maintain social stability. The second contradiction in Chinese reform that is conducive to uneven protection of labour rights has to do with the illiberal nature of the Chinese legal system. The state uses the law as a means of controlling society, while allowing itself to remain mostly unrestrained by the law. When it is not in the interest of the local officials to enforce labour regulations, there is hardly enough countervailing authority-from the judiciary, for instance-to preserve the sanctity of the law. The result is that many workers, on seeing their legal rights and entitlements unjustly denied, and pressured by livelihood needs, become politically restive. Sharp increases of labour conflicts are accompanied by proliferation of labour activism, taking both conventional (that is, petition, labour arbitration and litigation) and unconventional (that is, protests, marches and road blockage) forms. The state has responded with measured mixes of concessions and repression. Economic and livelihood demands are recognized and, in many cases, at least partially answered by swift financial compensation doled out by the central or provincial governments. On the other hand, political demands such as those relating to the removal of officials and cross-factory actions are relentlessly suppressed and harshly punished. Protests notwithstanding, the Chinese Government has ardently pressed ahead with social security reform, targeting problem areas such as pension arrears, unpaid wages, unemployment benefits and medical insurance. Additional, earmarked funds are funneled from Beijing to provincial coffers to deal with social grievances that may erupt into social instability. There are also plans to systematically institutionalize the provision of legal aid to people who fall below a particular income level. Therefore, the Chinese state has responded to popular demands, if only slowly and selectively. Finally, both migrant workers and state workers are not totally dispossessed or proletarianized. Rural land rights for peasant migrants and private home ownership for state sector workers have functioned as safety valves to sooth the effects of massive unemployment and diabolical exploitation. Women in the two segments of the working-class examined here do face gender-specific difficulties. The disappearance of enterprise-based welfare means more demands put on the family unit to provide service and financial support. These domestic burdens are still borne predominantly by women. Also, women are among the first to be let go when enterprises restructure by down-sizing the workforce. Facing gendered disadvantages in the labour market, and under a welfare-entitlement regime based on employment rather than universal citizenship, female workers are likely to fall through the cracks of the new social safety net. The male bias in socialist allocation of housing in the past has inadvertently undermined women's opportunities to become homeowners when work units began privatizing welfare housing in the reform period. For young female migrants toiling in global factories, the lack of maternity benefits forces them to truncate their factory careers to give birth and take care of children and elderly kin. Recent legal changes in land use rights have the potential to encroach on women's equal access to land use, with grave long-term implications for female migrant workers' livelihood security. However, gender bias does not begin to capture the plight of millions of Chinese workers during the reform period. Middle-aged workers in the state sector, whether male or female, confront age discrimination, and migrant workers of both genders suffer from their caste-like status of being a rural resident. Unpaid wages and pensions will continue to plague the lives of both men and women in the working class, for as long as the legal system and the government fail to enforce the Labour Law

Hong Kong

CK Lee situates the post-1997 China–Hong Kong contestation in the broader context of 'global China.' While Beijing deploys numerous power mechanisms globally, this Chinese power project has triggered countermovements from Asia to Africa. Hong Kong, stunning and singular in its many peculiarities, offers lessons about China as a global force

From the specter of Mao to the spirit of the law: Labor insurgency in China

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43653/1/11186_2004_Article_392108.pd

Bespoke Nanoparticle Synthesis and Chemical Knowledge Discovery Via Autonomous Experimentations

The optimization of nanomaterial synthesis using numerous synthetic variables is considered to be extremely laborious task because the conventional combinatorial explorations are prohibitively expensive. In this work, we report an autonomous experimentation platform developed for the bespoke design of nanoparticles (NPs) with targeted optical properties. This platform operates in a closed-loop manner between a batch synthesis module of NPs and a UV- Vis spectroscopy module, based on the feedback of the AI optimization modeling. With silver (Ag) NPs as a representative example, we demonstrate that the Bayesian optimizer implemented with the early stopping criterion can efficiently produce Ag NPs precisely possessing the desired absorption spectra within only 200 iterations (when optimizing among five synthetic reagents). In addition to the outstanding material developmental efficiency, the analysis of synthetic variables further reveals a novel chemistry involving the effects of citrate in Ag NP synthesis. The amount of citrate is a key to controlling the competitions between spherical and plate-shaped NPs and, as a result, affects the shapes of the absorption spectra as well. Our study highlights both capabilities of the platform to enhance search efficiencies and to provide a novel chemical knowledge by analyzing datasets accumulated from the autonomous experimentations

Distribution of <i>salmonella</i> serovars in humans, foods, farm animals and environment, companion and wildlife animals in Singapore

We analyzed the epidemiological distribution of Salmonella serovars in humans, foods, animals and the environment as a One-Health step towards identifying risk factors for human salmonellosis. Throughout the 2012&ndash;2016 period, Salmonella ser. Enteritidis was consistently the predominating serovar attributing to &gt;20.0% of isolates in humans. Other most common serovars in humans include Salmonella ser. Stanley, Salmonella ser. Weltevreden, Salmonella ser. Typhimurium and Salmonella ser. 4,5,12:b:-(dT+). S. Enteritidis was also the most frequent serovar found among the isolates from chicken/chicken products (28.5%) and eggs/egg products (61.5%) during the same period. In contrast, S. Typhimurium (35.2%) and Salmonella ser. Derby (18.8%) were prevalent in pork/pork products. S. Weltevreden was more frequent in seafood (19.2%) than others (&le;3.0%). Most isolates (&gt;80.0%) from farms, companion and wildlife animals belonged to serovars other than S. Enteritidis or S. Typhimurium. Findings demonstrate the significance of a One-Health investigative approach to understand the epidemiology Salmonella for more effective and integrated surveillance systems

Power and endurance in Hong Kong professional football players

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate the power and endurance characteristics of Hong Kong professional football players. Training recommendations can be deduced based on the comparison between Hong Kong and international football players. Methods Eighty-eight Hong Kong professional football players (height, 177.2 ± 6.4 cm; weight, 70.6 ± 7.6 kg; age, 25.6 ± 5.0 years) in the first division league participated in a battery of tests, which included: (1) height, (2) weight, (3) countermovement jump, (4) 30-m sprinting, and (5) Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test Level 2. Results Compared with the test results of the first division players in other countries as reported in the literature (Norway, France, and Scandinavian countries), Hong Kong players were shorter in height (0.1–2.1%), lighter in weight (5.5–8.3%), fair in vertical jump height (−4.8 –17%), slower in acceleration (4.2–5.1%) and maximum speed (3–14.2%), and had poorer aerobic and anaerobic endurance (22.9%). Conclusion The present study suggests that Hong Kong football players (or players with similar physique and ability) need to improve their power and endurance

Harnessing Health Information Technology in Domestic Violence in the United States: A Scoping Review

ObjectivesThe following scoping review aims to identify and map the existing evidence for HIT interventions among women with DV experiences in the United States. And provide guidance for future research, and facilitate clinical and technical applications for healthcare professionals.MethodsFive databases, PubMed, EBSCOhost CINAHL, Ovid APA PsycINFO, Scopus and Google Scholar, were searched from date of inception to May 2023. Reviewers extracted classification of the intervention, descriptive details, and intervention outcomes, including physical safety, psychological, and technical outcomes, based on representations in the included studies.ResultsA total of 24 studies were included, identifying seven web-based interventions and four types of abuse. A total of five studies reported safety outcomes related to physical health. Three studies reported depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder as psychological health outcomes. The effectiveness of technology interventions was assessed in eight studies.ConclusionDomestic violence is a major public health issue, and research has demonstrated the tremendous potential of health information technology, the use of which can support individuals, families, and communities of domestic violence survivors