In the cities, from 2004 to 2008, strike movements blended the distinct characteristics of the Rust Belt in the North (where the former large-scale danwei system saw workers fighting layoffs and the restructuring of state-owned enterprises) and the Solar Belt in the South (where migrant rural workers demanded an end to wage delays, the abolition of corporal punishment and military discipline in production, and improved working conditions in modern export-oriented industries). As Ching Kwan Lee explains, in these “rust and sun belts,” which encompass differentiated production systems, prolonged strikes, such as the two-month strike by 6,000 workers at the Tianwang textile factory in Xianyang, Shaanxi, were often accompanied by shorter strikes in the Pearl River Delta, the heart of China’s low-value-added industry, which were swiftly suppressed by the police, as noted by Ching Kwan Lee, in Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
This wave of strikes peaked in 2010 with the strike at Foshan Honda in Guangdong, where workers achieved wage increases and defeated the Japanese multinational. This victory influenced later strikes at other car manufacturers, such as Toyota and Mitsubishi, as well as at Foxconn, which garnered attention for the suicides of workers amid poor factory conditions. Since Xi’s inauguration in 2013, there has been a notable resurgence of state coercion and repression against strikes; as Manfred Elfstrom points out, the 2010 wave was followed by a gradual decline in labor unrest. The official discourse of “national unity for China’s rise as a power” took hold, coinciding with the end of the cycle of exponential growth in Chinese GDP amid the global economic crisis.
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Overall Labor Strike Trends (2022–2025)
The year 2023 marked the highest surge in labor actions since China’s massive “strike wave” ended in 2016. The total documented strikes in 2023 appear as such: CLB recorded 1,789 strikes and collective labor actions, a massive 216 percent jump compared to 2022 (830 cases). Over 90 percent of all recorded incidents are categorized as defensive strikes. Rather than demanding better benefits, workers took to the streets to demand wage arrears (unpaid back wages) or mandatory legal severance after sudden employer bankruptcies.
While thousands of actions happen on a small scale (usually involving dozens to a few hundred workers to avoid severe police crackdowns), several major incidents have disrupted global supply chains or set significant precedents. The Zhengzhou Foxconn iPhone Factory Riots were the most important feature in the class struggle since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic: tens of thousands of workers participated in the grinding clash against the company and the police. At the world’s largest iPhone assembly plant, rigorous “closed-loop” Covid quarantines sparked severe panic. When Foxconn delayed promised bonus payments to newly recruited workers to keep lines moving, mass protests erupted. Workers openly clashed with riot police. Foxconn eventually backed down, offering 10,000 RMB (~$1,400 USD) to any newly hired worker willing to leave peacefully, halting production and heavily disrupting Apple’s global holiday supply. Beijing was involved in trying to defuse the discontent.
China’s Upsurging Strike Trend
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