Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
extended throughout the country, and now the Chinese Labour Law
does not bind Chinese private enterprises either.
It is frequently argued that China’s embrace of transnational
companies is a necessary step towards upgrading its industrial and
technological sophistication; the growth of China’s production and
export of electronic and information technology goods is cited as an
example (Lange 2005). But as Branstetter and Lardy (2006), cited in
Hart-Landsberg and Burkett (2007), argue, these electronic products –
produced in huge volumes at low unit costs – are not really high-tech
and China does not really produce them. Rather China assembles them
from imported parts and components which make up 85 per cent of the
value of the exported products. Moreover these products are largely
assembled in foreign-invested firms. In 2003, for example, foreigninvested
firms accounted for approximately 75 per cent of China’s
exports of electronic and telecommunication goods and 90 per cent of
its exports of computer-related goods.
Return and rise of the comprador
The way foreign firms are allowed to operate without labour or environmental
conditions reminds one of pre-1949 Treaty System through which
foreign companies and Chinese compradors enriched themselves. The
term ‘comprador’ is sometimes used to describe the way in which China
is now part of global capitalism. William Hinton (1993), in a response to
Tang Zongli’s rhetorical question ‘Is China Returning to Semi-Colonial
Status?’, uses the term maiban (comprador or purveyor) to denote what
has been happening in post-Mao China. This reference to the term
‘comprador’ as a means of explaining the nature of Chinese development
provides two insights. One is that Chinese compradors in East
Asia, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, are coming back to mainland
China (Heartfield 2004). The second insight is that China’s political, business
and intellectual elites are acting on behalf of transnational interests
and to benefit themselves in the process.
In the most comprehensive study of the Chinese comprador before
the 1940s, Yen-p’ing Hao defines a comprador as the ‘Chinese manager
of a foreign firm in China, serving as a middleman in the company’s
dealings with the Chinese’ (Hao 1970: 1). The rise of a comprador class,
he continues, was a product of the Treaty System, ‘which provided
places and opportunities for Chinese and foreign merchants to pursue
their calling’ (Hao 1970: 9). The concessions offered to transnational
companies in the special economic zones are in many ways similar to
the pre-1949 treaty ports where special privileges were offered to
foreign firms.
Chinese compradors, who fled to Hong Kong and Taiwan after the
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