Statement on Foxconn and the Protests Against COVID Zero in China
Dove and Crane Collective (DCC) stands in solidarity with the workers of Foxconn, and students and residents rising up in protest all over China. DCC demands the immediate release of all students, workers, and protestors arrested in Ürümqi, Shanghai, Chengdu, Beijing, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Guangzhou among other locations across China. We urge the Chinese state to abide by its constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. Further, we demand the Chinese state to end the draconian and haphazard policies adopted under the guise of COVID Zero, to end the “closed-loop production” model implemented at various enterprises in China under the direction of the Chinese State Council, and to consider alternative means of pandemic control that are led by democratic input from everyday Chinese people and the advice of public health experts.
On November 24, a fire broke out at a residential compound in Ürümqi, the provincial capital of “the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region”, or the lands of Dzungarstan and Altishahr. Due to lockdown measures implemented under COVID Zero, the compound entrances were blocked by barricades put in place by the authorities. The region has experienced one of the harshest lockdowns in the country throughout the pandemic. Residents were unable to escape from the blaze, and fire services were unable to enter the compound in a timely manner to engage in critical rescue operations. The identified fatalities were all Uyghurs, some of whom were children as young as three years old. This is part of an ongoing pattern of mass detention, genocide, and displacement of Uyghurs, as well as various indigenous ethnic groups in the region that is carried out by the Chinese state.
Subsequently, the provincial government openly assigned blame to the residents, calling them “lacking in self preservation abilities” and denied the fact that the compound was under lockdown. Various propaganda outlets attributed the tragedy to the resident-owned parked cars blocking the entry of fire service, thus blaming the victims without noting the responsibility of the broader effects of the state lockdown that had caused logistical chaos in the city. The fire in Ürümqi triggered a wave of protests not only within the city itself, but all over China with residents in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Wuhan, Guangzhou and other cities openly protesting against COVID Zero and tearing down lockdown barricades. In addition, university students across the country are holding vigils and openly protesting against COVID Zero, holding blank protest signs in defiance of the authorities.
We must also note that the tragedy at Ürümqi and the ensuing protests are not isolated incidents—the lockdown policies in China have specifically caused suffering among workers, non-Han Chinese ethnic groups and Han-Chinese alike and stimulated discontent throughout the pandemic. The last few years have seen the expansion of precarious sectors in China to maintain the profitability of corporations at the expense of the workers. Much of these profits, enabled by an alliance between the Chinese state and corporate industries, directly benefit the Chinese elites and those of us in the global North.
In this sense, we can understand the labor abuses and resistance at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory as an important prelude and part of this new wave of social upheaval. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Foxconn was notorious for its horrendous working conditions and egregious labor practices. Foxconn routinely employed large numbers of dispatch workers (seasonal workers with poorly enforced temporary contracts) in its factories in flagrant violation of Chinese labor laws, hired so called “interns” from vocational schools to work on its production lines with little to no compensation, and was grossly negligent in providing its workers with basic health and safety trainings.
Under China’s COVID Zero policy, Foxconn implemented “closed-loop production” at its Zhengzhou factory as directed by the Chinese State Council, which prevented workers from leaving its production complex. As the world’s largest production site for Apple’s iPhones and Amazon devices, this production schedule fulfills Apple’s and Amazon’s attempt to increase profits for consumers around the world at the expense of workers’ lives. This shows the real nature of US-China cooperation at the expense of the working class – American union busting mega-corporations contracting Foxconn, a Taiwanese corporation, to take advantage of the authoritarian labor conditions in China for enormous profits. It comes as no surprise that the implementation of “closed-looped production” did not curtail the spread of COVID-19 within Foxconn, and workers continued to work on the production lines despite being present with fever and other symptoms. Foxconn not only did not provide adequate quarantine measures to protect its workforce, but also failed to provide adequate medical care to its sick workers living in the factory dormitories. In addition, Foxconn closed its cafeterias under the closed-loop system, and only provided basic, insufficient meals for its workers, with many of them living in squalor as cleaning and trash pickup services were halted for worker dormitories.
Days before the Ürümqi fire, on November 22 protests erupted at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory over the horrendous conditions faced by its workers under “closed-loop production” and unilateral changes implemented by Foxconn which decreased the sign-on bonuses due to be received by dispatch workers. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the only sanctioned labor union in China, did not intervene within Foxconn at all and remained completely silent. DCC stands in solidarity with the workers of Foxconn, with overseas Chinese activists and other allies in the US raising awareness for their rights, and with workers everywhere fighting for dignity and survival.
We urge US based organizations, activists and organizers to amplify the voices of mainland Chinese and Uyghur protestors, to spread awareness of this historical wave of protests in China, to show solidarity by attending vigils and other relevant events, and to oppose US militarism and anti-China nationalism. These interlinked struggles provide a rare opportunity for people in the US, especially the Chinese diaspora and other Asian Americans, progressive organizations and activists, to show solidarity with the most marginalized in China. Only through grassroots international solidarity between US and Chinese civil societies can we find collective solutions against neoliberal globalization. And so, we also oppose efforts by those in the US establishment who would co-opt the struggles in China for their own political gains, like the expansion of the US military complex alongside other blanket ‘anti-China’ foreign policy that harms both US and Chinese workers. The growth in US-China tensions has played into the hands of Chinese elites by making it easier for them to use nationalism to deflect domestic criticism of their policies of repression and exploitation.