The Accidental Capitalist

Behzad Yaghmaian

Description

In the last three decades China has experienced the largest population movement in human history. Millions have left behind homes to find work and new opportunities in the emerging mega-cities.



Through months of sustained interpersonal contact with migrant workers and factory owners, Behzad Yaghmaian paints a unique portrait of a country experiencing the turmoil of rapid development. His close listening has produced an intimate look at the hopes, hardships, triumphs and tragedies of those behind the Chinese 'economic dragon'.



The Accidental Capitalist reveals the human reality behind China's rise to global-superpower status.
History Timeline

Maps

Introduction: The Greatest Migration

BOOK I:

Tenants of Li Family, The Beautiful Rose Garden, The Li Family Village, The Portrait of Mao, Grandpa, The Communists Buried their Soldiers, The Great Famine, The Decorator’s Fortune, The Scent of Fresh Grass

BOOK II:

Migrant Girls’ Long March, Toy Factory Girls, I Want to See the World, The Great Flood, Bean Curds, I Will Be My Own Boss, Red Lanterns on the Mountain, A White Color Worker

BOOK III:

The Accidental Capitalist, Zhao Gang: The Declining Export-Processing Industries, Child Labor, Ancestor’s Tomb, Lujiang

Leaving for Shenzhen, Arise, You Prisoners of Starvation

BOOK IV:

A Man for All Seasons, Yue Haitao: Saving the World in the New China, Leaving Qingdao, Running to Die, Taking Side, Own a Piece of America, The Bastille Day

Conclusions

Index

Sujets

• Political Science
• Development studies
• General officer
• Development
• General
• China

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 08 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849646536
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Accidental Capitalist

First published 2012 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Behzad Yaghmaian 2012
The right of Behzad Yaghmaian to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3231 4 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3230 7 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4653 6 ePub ISBN 978 1 8496 4654 3 Kindle
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
I dedicate this book to all those who trusted me with their life stories.
Contents

Photographs
Timeline
Map
Introduction: The Greatest Migration
Book I: The Tenants of the Li Family
The Beautiful Rose Garden
The Li Family Village
The Portrait of Mao
Grandpa
The Communists Buried their Soldiers
The Great Famine
The Decorator’s Fortune
The Scent of Fresh Grass
Book II: The Migrant Girls’ Long March
The Toy Factory Girls
I Want to See the World
The Great Flood
Bean Curds
I Will Be My Own Boss
Red Lanterns on the Mountain
A White-collar Worker
Book III: The Accidental Capitalist
Zhao Gang: The Declining Export-Processing Industries
Child Labor
The Ancestor’s Tomb
Lujiang
Leaving for Shenzhen
Arise, You Prisoners of Starvation
Book IV: A Man for All Seasons
Yue Haitao: Saving the World in the New China
Leaving Qingdao
Running to Die
Taking Sides
Own a Piece of America
Bastille Day
Conclusion
Photographs

1 A moment of solitude
2 Migrants waiting for the train
3 A tale of two Chinas
4 Caged in: migrant homes in Longgang
5 Homeless
6 Taxi in a migrant quarter
7 The Li family village
8 Hufang’s husband
9 Hufang and her husband
10 Grandpa
11 Construction workers in Longgang
12 Migrant workers and globalization
13 Li Lan and Miao Ging
14 Wan Chun Ling
15 At the train station in Beijing: returning to the village
16 Zhao Gang at Anhui University
17 Old farmer in Anhui Province
18 Repairing Zhao Gang’s ancestor’s tomb
19 Zheng Qin
20 With an old farmer
21 Yue Haitao
Timeline


1840–
1911
Decline and humiliation: the final years of the Qing Dynasty, defeat by foreigners, concessions, and unequal treaties.
1842
Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing): the end of the first Opium War between China and Great Britain. Hong Kong is ceded to Great Britain.
1850–
64
Taiping Rebellion: Christian-inspired rebellion against the Qing Dynasty.
1860
Treaty of Peking (Beijing): Signed after British and French troops enter the Forbidden City in Beijing. Great Britain takes control of Kowloon. Russia seizes all lands north of Amur and east of Ussuri rivers.
1884–
85
China is defeated in the war with France.
1887
The creation of French Indochina.
1894–
95
Treaty of Shimonoseki: China is defeated by Japan in the first Sino-Japanese War. China recognizes Korea as an independent state and cedes control of Taiwan to Japan.
1900–
01
Boxer Rebellion: nationalist uprising against foreign domination and unequal treaties. The Eight-Nation Alliance (Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) attack China, defeat the Imperial Army, and invade Beijing.
1911
Republican Revolution and the end of the Qing Dynasty
1912–49
Transition from dynasty to socialist revolution: warlordism, second Sino-Japanese War, civil war, communist revolution.
1912
The establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) headed by Sun Yat-Sen.
1912
The founding of Chinese National People’s Party or Kuomintang (KMT).
1916–
27
Warlord era.
1921
Mao Zedong and a small group of revolutionaries found the Communist Party of China.
1922
First CPC–Kuomintang alliance.
1927
Shanghai Massacre: the mass killing of the communists, radical students, and workers in Shanghai by the Kuomintang.
1927
Open confrontation between the communists and the nationalist forces. The communists are defeated and retreat to the countryside.
1927
Kuomintang unifies part of China with Nanjing as its capital.
1931
Japan invades Manchuria.
1935–
36
The Long March.
1937
Beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War: the Japanese invade North China.
1937
Second Communist–Kuomintang Alliance to fight the Japanese.
1945–
49
Civil War: final and decisive war between the Communist Party’s army (People’s Liberation Army) and the Kuomintang forces.
1949
The communists defeat the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters retreat to Taiwan.
1949–
76
Experimentation with socialism: land redistribution, passage of progressive laws, political infighting, violence.
1949
The founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949.
1947–
52
Land Reform: distribution of land between the landless and land-poor peasants.
1950
First Marriage Law: abolishing arranged marriage, promoting free choice in marriage, giving women the right to divorce.
1954–
56
Collectivization of agriculture.
1956
Nationalization of industry.
1958
The Great Leap Forward and the creation of People’s Communes.
1959–
61
Years of famine, the deaths of 13–30 million by starvation.
1966–
69
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
1966–
76
The decade of the Cultural Revolution.
1969–
78
Sending the youth to the countryside to learn from the peasantry.
1976
Mao Zedong dies on September 9, 1976.
1978
The official announcement of economic reform.
1978–
present
Period of capitalist reform.
1979–
82
The end of collectivized agriculture.
The introduction of household responsibility system in agriculture.
1980
The creation of Special Economic Zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou (in the province of Guangdong), Xiamen (in the Province of Fujian), and the entire province of Hainan.
The first Special Economic Zones established in Shenzhen in August.
China begins experimenting with low-wage export-processing capitalism.
1984
Fourteen coastal cities are made open to foreign investment.
1985
Central government abolishes free higher education.
1986
Deng Xiaoping promotes foreign investment in China.
1989
Tiananmen Square Protests: clampdown by the PLA on June 4.
Late 1990s
China in practice (not officially) lifts restriction on migration of peasants to cities.
1990–
2004
Increase in the privatization of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs).
1992
Deng Xiaoping calls for the creation of a "socialist market economy."
1996
Deng Xiaoping dies in February.
2001
China joins the World Trade Organization.
2003
Hu Jintao is elected president.
2006
Hu Jintao calls for the building of a "harmonious society" and the concept of "scientific development."

Introduction The Greatest Migration

It was dusk. The air was heavy. Thick smog and dust from the nearby factories and construction sites made breathing difficult. Their infants sleeping in the baskets welded to the bicycle handles, and plastic bags full of vegetables hanging from the saddles, men and women rushed home on their old bicycles. They rode fearlessly on the bumpy and crowded streets, negotiated the traffic, and searched for a fast way out of the impenetrable throng of private cars, taxis, rickshaws, and buses. Low visibility did not seem to be an obstacle. Taxis honked, buses charged ahead, and motorbikes zigzagged between them.
I turned the corner onto a wide and empty street sparsely lit by the flickering light from tall streetlamps. The maddening chaos of cars and buses was behind me, and a comforting serenity had filled the air, when a sudden shattering sound broke the momentary stillness. All I could see was the tail end of a bus, speeding away, then disappearing.
I ran after the bus and stopped a few feet away from the turning wheels of an overturned tricycle wagon. A pair of mud-covered and worn-out slippers lay in the middle of the street. Two bare feet stuck out from under the wagon’s wooden flatbed. A young man, perhaps in his twenties, lay motionless on the ground. His legs were trapped under the wagon, and blood was oozing from his left ear. His torn black trousers were tied around his waist with a rope, and his unbuttoned and discolored white shirt was soaking wet from heavy sweating. A veil of dust covered his thick black hair. Patches of blood carved through the dirt on his arms and his dark face. His lifeless eyes gazed at the starless sky. With the help of a friend, I lifted the wagon, and pushed it to the side. The young man’s legs jerked. He was once again motionless.
"Where do you hurt?" He did not respond. The blood on the ground was slowly drying, darkening.
"Can you hear me? Can you talk?"
The young man’s eyes closed.
"Don’t sleep. Please don’t sleep."
We called the emergency hotline. The phone rang, but there was no answer. A second and third try failed. By now, a small crowd had assembled around us, some on their bicycles, others on tricycle wagons, others on foot. We tried the hotline again, this time with success.
No one would be coming, said an operator on the other end. They were busy, he said. The crowd grew larger. Some left. Others arrived. A few conversed among themselves. Others called friends on their cell phones.
We tried the hotl