A precarious worker-student alliance in Xi's China

Abstract

How did workers and students defend trade union rights at Jasic Technology based in Shenzhen beginning from summer 2018? When worker leaders faced managerial retaliation and police brutality, a group of young Maoists and Marxists composed primarily of Chinese university students and recent graduates, formed the Jasic Workers Support Group. As it evolved, the widening crackdown on left-wing student associations, labor rights groups, and social service organizations exemplified deepening state repression through 2019. The worker-student alliance as illustrated by the case of Jasic, while precarious and short-lived, reignited a century-long Chinese revolutionary legacy. It also offers a rare glimpse of a contemporary transnational labor and student network.