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

Social stratification
THE BATTLE FOR CHINA’ S PAST
Regarding social stratification in the urban sector in the Mao era, it is
true that there was no business and economic elite class. But there was
a political and professional elite class who had all kinds of entitlements
(Yang Jiang 2003) despite Mao’s political movements aimed at them.
Since the post-Mao reforms, however, the privilege and entitlements of
the political and professional elite class have been restored and encouraged
to grow. Furthermore, Deng’s policy of ‘let some get rich first’ has
resulted in the creation of a business elite class.
Deterioration of working conditions encouraged by the state
Even today, no state-owned enterprises in China would allow the kind
of penal labour disciplines and harmful working conditions that
prevail in privately owned firms (Chan 2001, Weil 2006). Western
companies’ hypocrisy and Chinese authorities’ complicity can be illustrated
by an open letter to President Jiang Zemin, jointly written by the
CEOs of Phillips-Van-Heusen, Reebok, and Levi Strauss in 1999, which
requested a meeting to discuss the possibility of ‘working together’ to
improve labour rights in China (Emerson 2000). The sincerity of this
request is open to question precisely because the letter was ‘open’. It is
meant to serve the purpose of presenting an image of the companies as
‘caring’ to their Western customers. The intention of spinning is
confirmed by the fact that McDonald’s in China tried to prevent
workers in its franchises from forming trade unions, the fact that ‘fastfood
giants McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) and Pizza Hut
have been caught underpaying their young workforce in China by as
much as 40 per cent below the already abysmal legal minimum wage’
(Kolo 2007) and the fact that the multinationals lobbied in 2007 to
delete or reduce the force of terms in favour of workers when the
Chinese government attempted to introduce a labour law so that
workers are in some way protected by contact (Shafer 2007). 4
In any case, the Chinese government showed no interest in talking
to the three CEOs (Emerson 2000). In fact, the plight of the migrant
workers is not what concerns the Chinese authorities. The Chinese
ruling elite at every level has been competing to lure outside capital by
giving preferential treatments to capital and would side with capital
whenever and wherever there is a labour dispute. Although Chinese
labour law stipulates that the maximum working week should not
exceed 44 hours, one case study shows that workers in factories that
produce shoes for Clarks and Skechers may work as long as 81 hours
a week (Zhong Dajun 2005). This, of course, is not an isolated case.
Many studies have demonstrated the horrifying working conditions
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