BOOK REVIEWS

Gender and the South China Miracle—Two Worlds of Factory Women, by Lee Ching Kwan

For several decades, the question of labour was largely abandoned by sinologists in their research. By the same token, China’s joining the ranks of industrialised, socialist states, meant that it lost any unique features it might have had. The setting up of the system of work units (danwei) put the country back with the constants of socialist labour which had already been tried out elsewhere.

Over the past few years, however, several events have again made labour a central issue for Chinese society. First, there was the emergence of rural industry which has made a significant contribution to creating a new stratum of workers who are neither peasants nor “workers and employees” in the time-honoured phrase. Next, foreign investment, mainly from Hong Kong, introduced the logic of transnational capitalist labour. Finally, and more recently, reentrenchments in the public sector have completed this capitalist “setting to work” of the Chinese (1).

In this very recent general context of renewal in research on labour (2), Lee Ching Kwan’s book makes a key contribution. Not only has the author acquired an outstanding knowledge of the field, but she also shows remarkable intellectual flexibility. Her research is not based on any a priori thesis but rather emerged from a deadlock. After studying two factories of the same firm (Liton), one in Hong Kong, the other in Xiaxiang—a township in Shenzhen province but one which lies outside the Special Economic Zone—the writer conveys her perplexity. The goods manufactured are the same, the production techniques and management are identical, and in both cases the workforce is essentially female. Yet the working conditions and “labor control systems”, as well as the identities asserted by the female workers, are diametrically opposed. In one case (Hong Kong), the writer talks about “hegemonic power”, in the Gramscian sense of the term as “a totalizing lived experience of power relations founded on the dominant class’s ability to articulate subordinate classes’ interests with its own, and to saturate the common-sensical world with dominant meanings” (p. 138), giving way to a certain “humanisation” of labour. The other “despotic” system is conversely founded on the total dependence of the workers on the wage system and extremely rigid forms of control. Why such a difference?

The interest of Lee’s answers lies in their perceptiveness. She is not about explaining in extenso “the mystery”, but tries both to bring out the multiple processes which have led to such a situation, highlighting the weaknesses of single-cause explanations. The writer manages at the same time not to reject “theories” en bloc, but to make use of whatever will help conceptualise the question at hand. Thus, while criticising the Marxist tradition (in actual fact, one of the Marxist traditions, so much did Marx’s thinking evolve on this point) which sees the objective conditions of production as totally determining the level and forms of exploitation, she nonetheless considers the necessary “reproduction of workers” as a fundamental factor of labour control systems. Finally, it is worth pointing out that her critique of all-embracing theoretical systems does not result in a rejection of theory as such and she does not lapse into the staunch relativism of postmodernism.

Chapter 1 (“The Worlds of Labor in South China”) and Chapter 2 (“Engendering Production Politics in Global Capitalism”) are in fact devoted to this very task of deconstruction. In them she gives a critique of the various theories purporting to explain labour control strategies which give prime importance to a number of different factors, such as technology, class relations, gender, the state. She comes to see such strategies as appearing as the outcome of process and not as determinations:

The colonial state in Hong Kong and the clientalist state in Shenzhen pursue noninterventionist policies to guarantee a high degree of enterprise autonomy. In this situation, when the social organization of the two labor markets from which the enterprise draws its labor force differs, the conditions of workers’ dependence differ accordingly. This difference determines management’s strategies of incorporating labor, workers’ collective practices, and their mutual construction of workers’ gender, resulting in two gendered regimes of production. (p.12)

Lee criticises in particular feminist theories which define gender once and for all. She proposes instead a conception of “engendering” of behaviour as the product of a whole set of institutions.

Chapter 3 (“Economic Restructuring and the Remaking of the Hong Kong-Guangdong Nexus”) sets out to assess the developments undergone by the region over the past few years: the proletarianisation of migrants, de-industrialisation of Hong Kong and investments in Guangdong. The writer stresses in particular the appearance of a clientelist state in Shenzhen structuring installations: “Liton’s choice of location and investment type for its Xixiang plant in Shenzhen was dictated by its relationship with an official in Xixiang” (p. 55) and “[…] With this groundwork of good external relations, state regulations became negotiable guidelines and management’s internal autonomy could be maximized” (p. 57).

In the absence of an interventionist state, the social organisation of the labour market is the essential place for establishing systems of control and exploitation. The case of Shenzhen, in Chapter 4, presents two distinct features, the first of which is the preponderance of non financial reasons for the choice of migration. Admittedly, the young female workers from Liton mostly come from disadvantaged regions, but their migration is not the product of a family strategy for maximising income:

[…] as my fieldwork continued […] and after more trusting relationships were established, women workers began to reveal motivations that they initially considered too ‘embarrassing’ (bu hao yisi) to tell a stranger. (p. 73)

Moreover, the considerable variations among workers in the amount and frequency of sending remittances should warn against an economistic reductionist reading of their motivation. (p. 75)

This phenomeneon may be surprising, given the extent to which migration/poverty/monetary transfers seem to be linked in our mind, but the assessment is based on a knowledge of the field and of those involved. Emigrating often means escaping the family (and particularly an arranged marriage) and more generally living conditions which are not attractive for young girls.

The second characteristic is related to the importance of “local networks” in migration.

“For those women who came without their parents’ permission, village locals lent them money, informed them of job opportunities, traveled with them to Shenzhen, and lent them documents that employers required during recruitment” (p. 84).

In Hong Kong, the picture is very different, where it is the decline of industrial labour and the importance of the family which structure the labour market:

“[…] Familial demands for women’s domestic labor and the availability of kin assistance in this regard, rather than localistic networks, were the most important variables determining women workers’ behaviour in the labor market” (p. 94).

“First, […] after they married and had children their families constrained them to stay with particular employers, resulting in an extremely low rate of interfirm mobility. […] Second, women workers not only made an economic contribution to the family’s sustenance by working in and outside of the household throughout their lives, they also had access to familial resources generated by other family members.” (p. 95)

The two situations may thus be contrasted term by term:

In Shenzhen, a massive supply of young, inexperienced, migrant women is dependent on localistic networks for reproduction of labor power in a competitive labor market. In Hong Kong, experienced and middle-aged married women are dependent on familial and kin networks for reproduction of labor power in a diminished and ‘sunset’ labor market. (p. 107)

Finally, in Chapters 6 and 7, the writer provides a synthesis and a more in-depth account by contrasting the two concepts of “localistic despotism” and “familial hegemony”. In localistic despotism, the management of the factory controls the behaviour and activities of workers in an extremely rigid way (prohibiting breaks, imposing fines for the slightest peccadillo, providing abysmal housing and canteen facilities). Here exploitation reaches its height, with extremely long days, searches on leaving, etc. The localistic networks are themselves used for reasons of control, with new employees being hired by recommendation, their qualifications being directly transferred from one “country” to another without any additional training costs, etc.

As far as the workers are concerned:

“[…] On numerous occasions, workers manipulated localistic ties to achieve concrete goals, while at other times they just found it a natural course of action needing no instrumental or moral justification” (p. 116).

Within the factory, the positions of power at the lower echelons as well as the division of labour are determined in relation to the geographical background of those concerned. In short, “workers’ identities were crafted by their simultaneous locations in the three interlocked hierarchies of gender, localism and class” (p. 135). These young girls identify with this notion of “maiden workers”, both exploited and benefiting from a relative independence (emotional, sexual and financial) from their family. Nonetheless, the writer states (again with her concern to “listen to reality”) that: “localism is transformed, and friendships can be formed between ‘non locals’ in so far as the girls work together and help each other to survive”.

Familial hegemony is constituted around a reciprocity of interests of employees and employers. The “matron workers” have responsibility for family life, their behaviour being guided by “familialism” defined as “the moral premium placed on a family’s collective interest and the practice of pooling all kinds of resources to sustain it as a lifeworld” (p. 158). In this regard, once they have managed to obtain a certain number of arrangements aimed at reconciling family and professional life, they cannot easily afford the luxury of “going and looking elsewhere” for better salaries. As for employers, they are only too happy to profit from a labour force which is relatively well qualified, faithful and with few salary demands. In return, the “matron workers” benefit from some small indulgences, such as not having lateness counted, the possibility of a few hours’ leave from time to time, consumption of food in the workplace, etc.

Finally, the last chapter, “Towards a Feminist Theory of Production Politics”, revisits the idea of “femininity” as production arising both from the interplay of institutions and female workers’ interests: “different modes of control over women workers are used by mobile capital, creating different lifeworlds of production” (p. 160).

In spite of its exceptional quality and its “openness”, Lee’s research nevertheless gives rise to a few criticisms and questions. The first concerns the role of the state. For the writer, in Hong Kong just as in Shenzhen, the state is leaving the field free for capitalism. But, in both cases, this view seems rather extreme. As regards Hong Kong, traditional statements about state non-interventionism must be qualified by the results of some work showing that in a whole range of areas the state is present (3). In the field of labour, the existence of trade unions and the relations they have with the state must contribute to reintroducing the institution of the state into the process of production of workers’ identities. Moreover, such state influence may be felt informally or discreetly, in particular through lobbying. On the other side of the border, the situation is even clearer. The writer explicitly recognises, moreover, the importance of the state when she speaks of a “clientalist state” for Shenzhen. One cannot do business without having self-interested relations with local bureaucrats. But the Chinese administration is not satisfied with this role as cash register, as is shown by the example given by Lee and which “illustrates how management took into account, among other considerations, the preference of local officials” (p. 60). This concerned the intervention of the Labour Bureau, which demanded a salary increase for the Liton workers and an abandonment of the policy of wage deduction for absences. Admittedly, these changes are “partially caused by competitive pressures from new factories in the neighbourhood and partially by bureaucratic pressure from the Labor Bureau” (p. 61). And the writer is perfectly correct in refusing to regard the local state as a social state (4), assuming responsibility for economic regulation and social welfare. But instead of excluding the state from the field, should we not rather take the clientelist state argument through to its logical conclusion and see the workers themselves as clients and therefore as individuals likely to exert pressure on the state? Not only do a substantial minority of workers come from the province and so are natural clients of the local state, but the others, as potential elements of unrest, come under the jurisdiction of an administration worried about social peace.

A second criticism pertains to the way in which the societies of Hong Kong and Guangdong province are analysed. One has the impression that the writer exaggerates the similarities at one time and, conversely, the dissmilarities at another. In the first case, the reason for the exaggeration is linked to the dismissal of the political field of analysis. If the labour control systems are different, it is doubtless also due to differences in the socio-political status of the individuals. In Hong Kong, we are dealing with local people whose needs are thus judged to be legitimate from the outset. They are among their own kind. In Shenzhen, the female workers are foreign on two counts—both to the (Hong Kong) management as well as to the executive officers (very largely from Guangdong), whence no doubt the weaker political and psychological pressures (it is more difficult to exploit one’s compatriots) to “humanise” in Shenzhen than in Hong Kong. According to this theory, the preponderance of localism is not put into question. It merely incorporates a certain political dimension. At the other extreme, the writer may be exaggerating the dissimilarities when she opposes familialism to localism. Is not familialism a modernised form of localism in the context of a society (Hong Kong) dominated, as it were, by the model of the proto-nuclear family? In this connection, little is said about the familial model of the ex-colony. How far, for instance, do the familial networks extend? We could thus see a continuum between the sometimes very extensive localism of Shenzhen (“southerners against northerners”) and the narrower localism of Hong Kong.

A further qualification could be applied to the status of “lack of discipline” in the two firms. From reading the book, one has the impression that these “subterranean forms of indiscipline” are in fact very limited. Of course, in Shenzhen, the localistic networks are instrumentalist, but we have seen that such instrumentalism was one of the weapons used by the control system over workers. Similarly, in Hong Kong, it is more a matter of “tolerance” than of real acts of unruliness. In the case of Guangdong, this situation is at odds with the significant number of protest movements which have broken out over the past few years. The management of Liton seems to be handling its workforce much better than its competitors.

In conclusion, the writer observes that in the age of global capitalism: “there exists no linear passage from despotism to hegemonic despotism”. She then goes on to stress the need to promote the local over the national in any analysis of labour control strategies. Is the break-up of strategies really a product of “global capitalism” or rather an invariable of capitalism? One might wonder about this, in recalling the same break-up in France and Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. In both cases, the development of major industry and the social state—hegemonic control—occurred at the same time as the expansion of a despotic sector bringing together migrant workers (North African in one case, Turkish in the other), on occasions within the same firm.

The final factor that I would like to highlight is less a criticism than a suggestion for future developments. One of the numerous insights of this book concerns the restrictions put on pure exploitation through the system of labour control. In Shenzhen, the fact that the distribution of labour and access to executive levels have less to do with the ability of workers than with their “connections” shows that capitalism, even in its crudest form, has, to say the least, a very complex relation to exploitation. Likewise, in Hong Kong, humanising (or rather the “familialisation” of exploitation) leads to the retention of female workers who are clearly not very productive. Indeed, let us remember here that orthodox Marxist economic analysis, just like mainstream economic analysis, considers the differentiation of the labour force in terms of non-economic factors to be a sign of the archaic nature of capitalism. Clearly, we could regard the capitalism of the Pearl River Delta region as being archaic, but then where is real capitalism to be found, in its purely exploitative from? In the large Japanese or Korean firms—the very ones characterised by “hegemonism”? This question is obviously of the utmost interest in present circumstances where the liquidation of the state sector is leading the Chinese authorities and researchers to a broad-based consideration of the nature of employment, the source of wealth and the creation of a real labour market.

Such criticisms do not of course cast doubt on the excellence of Lee’s book which, let us repeat, appears henceforth as an indispensable tool for thinking about labour in China. Put quite simply, like any piece of quality research, this book will serve as an impetus to further discussion and future developments.

Translated from French original by Peter Brown