ILRIC 4355 - [Work and Labor in China]

(crosslisted) ASIAN 4443 , CAPS 4355
(CU-ITL)

Fall or Spring. Not offered: 2023-2024. Next offered: 2024-2025. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

E. Friedman.

China’s transition to capitalism has resulted in more than a generation of rapid and nearly uninterrupted growth. It increasingly dominates the production of all sorts of goods, from the very low end and labor intensive, to the high value added and capital intensive. China is aiming to dominate future product cycles, and is making major inroads in digital technology, AI, and robotics. This spectacular re-emergence as a world power has also increasingly lead to political conflict, both domestically and internationally.

This course proceeds by assessing the interplay between marketization and economic transformation on the one hand, and social change and resistance as seen from the perspective of workers, on the other. While the course is specifically concerned with labor issues, we will see that the workplace is a prism that condenses and refracts much broader transformations occurring in Chinese society.