Chris King-Chi Chan
Biographic Data
| ID | 368687 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Chris King-Chi Chan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Chris King-Chi |
| FAMILY NAME | Chan |
| SIGNATURE | CHAN C K |
| AFFILIATIONS | City University of Hong Kong |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7739-2116 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 84 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Carry Burawoy’s legacy forward
This paper examines the impact of Michael Burawoy’s notion of public sociology on Chinese labour scholarship and highlights the value of the Gramscian concept of civil society for understanding changing state-labour relations in China. Starting with Burawoy’s 2005 visit to Hong Kong, it traces how his vision of public sociology resonated with a decade of “organic public sociology” practised by Chinese labour scholars between 2005 and 2015. It the…
SoftBank
The gig economy, platform work, and social policy
Previous literature suggests that the gig economy and platform work pose challenges to social policy, including the welfare entitlement issues caused by workers' ambiguous occupational status. Focusing on the government's regulatory role, this study investigates platform workers' occupational welfare (OW) by conducting in-depth interviews with forty-six food delivery workers in Hong Kong. The evidence reveals workers' occupational risks resulting…
Du « modèle d'organisation » au « modèle de service
La Fédération nationale des syndicats de Chine (FNSC) a subi de fortes pressions pour se réformer, en raison notamment de son double rôle de représentation du parti-État et de la classe ouvrière. Dans le cadre du projet de construction d'une « société harmonieuse » sous le régime de Hu-Wen, la FNSC avait notamment lancé des programmes pilotes pour mettre en place des élections syndicales directes, ainsi que des négociations salariales dirigées pa…
The practice of social movement unionism
In this Theory into Practice article we discuss the collective agency of Hong Kong medical workers in COVID-19 in the context of social movement unionism (SMU). In particular, the article utilises Dhatt’s framework defining factors influencing health social movements (2019). We focus on the way the pro-democracy movement underpinned and shaped the five-day strike by 7000 healthcare workers that forced the government to close the Hong Kong–China b…
Pension Systems and Labour Resistance in Post-socialist China and Vietnam
Situated within the literature on welfare regimes, this article investigates workers' contestation of pension arrangements in post-socialist, authoritarian China and Vietnam, and considers the effects of their actions. Scholars have highlighted economic, cultural, political regime type and political institutions as factors crucial to understanding the welfare regimes of China and Vietnam. However, the "labour factor" – that is, how worker resista…
Do workers benefit from economic upgrading in the Pearl River Delta, China
Economic upgrading (EU) is being undertaken in China to address numerous problems. However, its social consequences have not received considerable attention. This study selects the Pearl River Delta, where EU is prominent, to examine whether and how workers have benefited from EU process. The data used are from the 2012 and 2014 China Labor-force Dynamic Survey and self-conducted interviews, both of which cover measurable standards and enabling r…
Interview
INTERVIEW: How food delivery drivers and other
From production to reproduction
Workers in the global South are becoming increasingly sensitive to their pension rights. In recent years, rural migrant workers in China have staged a series of protests to fight for pension protection. Drawing from two in-depth case studies conducted in the Pearl River Delta, we explain why workers staged pension strikes, what these protests looked like, how the employers and the government responded, and how these protests differed from previou…
Economic restructuring and migrant workers’ coping strategies in China’s Pearl River Delta
To tackle internal and external challenges, the Chinese government has made great efforts to promote economic upgrading, but little scholarly attention has been paid to its social consequences. Previous studies have found that economic restructuring is often associated with economic shock and industry shift, noting that social upgrading does not automatically follow economic upgrading, and workers can become economic victims. Given China’s indivi…
Linking participation in occupying protest, civic engagement, and approval of government among college students in Hong Kong
While participation in occupying protest is publicly remarkable, its impact on participants’ approval of government, is empirically uncharted. Meanwhile, current research and theory have not been consistent about the impacts of protest participation specifically and civic engagement generally. As the impacts are particularly of concern to college education and democratization, the present study surveyed 527 college students in the Chinese metropo…
Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong
By analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a prac…
Space in a Social Movement
Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, th…
Conductive Activism
This study looks at trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and the transformation of cross-border activism between Hong Kong and mainland China. Examining two cases, it demonstrates the mechanism and processes of trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and networks involving non-governmental agencies, student groups and workers. The study suggests that anti-sweatshop activism has been conductive and transferrable from Hong Kong to China in a way t…
Bringing Class Struggles Back
This article finds both the ‘weakening-state’ hypothesis of neo-liberalism and the ‘state as autonomous actor’ approach adopted by many current China studies dissatisfying towards an understanding of the Chinese state. The authors have therefore conducted a Marxian investigation of the Chinese state. We argue that the state is socially embedded; it is the field and condensation of class struggle. The gulf separating global capital and internal mi…
Constrained Labour Agency and the Changing Regulatory Regime in China
Using the concept of 'constrained agency' introduced by Neil Coe and David Jordhus-Lier, this article attempts to evaluate the possibilities and constraints facing labour agency in the Pearl River Delta in China. By reviewing the social, economic and political background of the changing labour market and labour regulations in China, and through an intensive case study of a workers' strike and its consequences, the author argues that Chinese migra…
The shifting boundary between work and welfare – a review of active labour market policies in Hong Kong
Work and self-reliance are the core values of neo-liberalist Hong Kong society. When the economy was booming, finding a job was not an issue. The real challenges began in the late 1990s due to successive economic crises which led to the adoption of active labour market policies. While social security protection has been provided for the unemployed, workfare and new programmes to encourage employment have been introduced, forming a link between pa…
Active labour market policies in China – towards improved labour protection
This article offers a critical evaluation of the development of labour market policies in China. It argues that although active labour market policies (ALMPs) in China have been extended in response to the changing labour market and emerging labour conflicts, they have not replaced passive labour market policies (PLMPs). While the laid-off state-owned enterprise (SOE) workers’ protests have compelled the government to introduce ALMPs targeting th…
Introduction to Special Series
China has been under new attention in the area of development studies. Having maintained high economic growth and relative social stability for more than 30 years, China has become another miracle
Promoting Freedom of Association in China? Putting Transnational Corporate Social Responsibility into a National Context
Using the findings of an intensive case study of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project in China, this paper argues against the view that CSR and the state's regulations are mutually exclusive. It contests that the theorization of the transnational social movement (TSM) should not ignore the development of the state regime, which in turn is shaped by the power relations in the workplace and the community, and is embedded in the national …
Contesting Class Organization
This article analyzes the process of working-class formation under the ongoing industrialization in China by studying how the trade union has been contested by migrant workers in their strikes in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) over the past three decades. The cases presented here are emblematic of workers' struggles that have aroused public attention in the specific period of analysis. The author suggests that the trade union as a class organization…
Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China
While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critical…
Class Struggle in China
China's ‘unlimited’ supply of low-cost and unorganised peasant workers (Lewis 1954) has helped it to become a global manufacturing centre. The potential of Chinese workers to change their working conditions has significant meaning for global labour politics. This article draws on ethnographic case studies to examine the extent of the rise of working-class power in South China in recent years. The author contests the dominant current in labour stu…
The Making of a New Working Class? A Study of Collective Actions of Migrant Workers in South China
In this study, we argue that the specific process of the proletarianization of Chinese migrant workers contributes to the recent rise of labour protests. Most of the collective actions involve workers' conflict with management at the point of production, while simultaneously entailing labour organizing in dormitories and communities. The type of living space, including workers' dormitories and migrant communities, facilitates collective actions o…
The Subsumption of Class Discourse in China
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are our own
Constrained Labour Agency and the Changing Regulatory Regime in China
Using the concept of 'constrained agency' introduced by Neil Coe and David Jordhus-Lier, this article attempts to evaluate the possibilities and constraints facing labour agency in the Pearl River Delta in China. By reviewing the social, economic and political background of the changing labour market and labour regulations in China, and through an intensive case study of a workers' strike and its consequences, the author argues that Chinese migra…
Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China
While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critical…
Space in a Social Movement
Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, th…
Contesting Class Organization
This article analyzes the process of working-class formation under the ongoing industrialization in China by studying how the trade union has been contested by migrant workers in their strikes in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) over the past three decades. The cases presented here are emblematic of workers' struggles that have aroused public attention in the specific period of analysis. The author suggests that the trade union as a class organization…
The Subsumption of Class Discourse in China
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are our own
Bringing Class Struggles Back
This article finds both the ‘weakening-state’ hypothesis of neo-liberalism and the ‘state as autonomous actor’ approach adopted by many current China studies dissatisfying towards an understanding of the Chinese state. The authors have therefore conducted a Marxian investigation of the Chinese state. We argue that the state is socially embedded; it is the field and condensation of class struggle. The gulf separating global capital and internal mi…
SoftBank
Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong
By analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a prac…
Economic restructuring and migrant workers’ coping strategies in China’s Pearl River Delta
To tackle internal and external challenges, the Chinese government has made great efforts to promote economic upgrading, but little scholarly attention has been paid to its social consequences. Previous studies have found that economic restructuring is often associated with economic shock and industry shift, noting that social upgrading does not automatically follow economic upgrading, and workers can become economic victims. Given China’s indivi…
Conductive Activism
This study looks at trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and the transformation of cross-border activism between Hong Kong and mainland China. Examining two cases, it demonstrates the mechanism and processes of trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and networks involving non-governmental agencies, student groups and workers. The study suggests that anti-sweatshop activism has been conductive and transferrable from Hong Kong to China in a way t…
Promoting Freedom of Association in China? Putting Transnational Corporate Social Responsibility into a National Context
Using the findings of an intensive case study of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project in China, this paper argues against the view that CSR and the state's regulations are mutually exclusive. It contests that the theorization of the transnational social movement (TSM) should not ignore the development of the state regime, which in turn is shaped by the power relations in the workplace and the community, and is embedded in the national …
The gig economy, platform work, and social policy
Previous literature suggests that the gig economy and platform work pose challenges to social policy, including the welfare entitlement issues caused by workers' ambiguous occupational status. Focusing on the government's regulatory role, this study investigates platform workers' occupational welfare (OW) by conducting in-depth interviews with forty-six food delivery workers in Hong Kong. The evidence reveals workers' occupational risks resulting…
Pension Systems and Labour Resistance in Post-socialist China and Vietnam
Situated within the literature on welfare regimes, this article investigates workers' contestation of pension arrangements in post-socialist, authoritarian China and Vietnam, and considers the effects of their actions. Scholars have highlighted economic, cultural, political regime type and political institutions as factors crucial to understanding the welfare regimes of China and Vietnam. However, the "labour factor" – that is, how worker resista…
Active labour market policies in China – towards improved labour protection
This article offers a critical evaluation of the development of labour market policies in China. It argues that although active labour market policies (ALMPs) in China have been extended in response to the changing labour market and emerging labour conflicts, they have not replaced passive labour market policies (PLMPs). While the laid-off state-owned enterprise (SOE) workers’ protests have compelled the government to introduce ALMPs targeting th…
The Subsumption of Class Discourse in China
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are our own
The Making of a New Working Class? A Study of Collective Actions of Migrant Workers in South China
In this study, we argue that the specific process of the proletarianization of Chinese migrant workers contributes to the recent rise of labour protests. Most of the collective actions involve workers' conflict with management at the point of production, while simultaneously entailing labour organizing in dormitories and communities. The type of living space, including workers' dormitories and migrant communities, facilitates collective actions o…
Class Struggle in China
China's ‘unlimited’ supply of low-cost and unorganised peasant workers (Lewis 1954) has helped it to become a global manufacturing centre. The potential of Chinese workers to change their working conditions has significant meaning for global labour politics. This article draws on ethnographic case studies to examine the extent of the rise of working-class power in South China in recent years. The author contests the dominant current in labour stu…
Class or Citizenship? Debating Workplace Conflict in China
While a new working class is in the process of remaking itself in China, the latest trend in labour studies has rejected the Marxist tradition which sees the social relations of production as the point of departure for analysing workplace conflict. According to the new current, influenced by post-structuralism, class is only one of the identities articulated by workers, and it can be understood only with reference to their discourses. By critical…
The shifting boundary between work and welfare – a review of active labour market policies in Hong Kong
Work and self-reliance are the core values of neo-liberalist Hong Kong society. When the economy was booming, finding a job was not an issue. The real challenges began in the late 1990s due to successive economic crises which led to the adoption of active labour market policies. While social security protection has been provided for the unemployed, workfare and new programmes to encourage employment have been introduced, forming a link between pa…
Active labour market policies in China – towards improved labour protection
This article offers a critical evaluation of the development of labour market policies in China. It argues that although active labour market policies (ALMPs) in China have been extended in response to the changing labour market and emerging labour conflicts, they have not replaced passive labour market policies (PLMPs). While the laid-off state-owned enterprise (SOE) workers’ protests have compelled the government to introduce ALMPs targeting th…
Introduction to Special Series
China has been under new attention in the area of development studies. Having maintained high economic growth and relative social stability for more than 30 years, China has become another miracle
Promoting Freedom of Association in China? Putting Transnational Corporate Social Responsibility into a National Context
Using the findings of an intensive case study of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project in China, this paper argues against the view that CSR and the state's regulations are mutually exclusive. It contests that the theorization of the transnational social movement (TSM) should not ignore the development of the state regime, which in turn is shaped by the power relations in the workplace and the community, and is embedded in the national …
Contesting Class Organization
This article analyzes the process of working-class formation under the ongoing industrialization in China by studying how the trade union has been contested by migrant workers in their strikes in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) over the past three decades. The cases presented here are emblematic of workers' struggles that have aroused public attention in the specific period of analysis. The author suggests that the trade union as a class organization…
Constrained Labour Agency and the Changing Regulatory Regime in China
Using the concept of 'constrained agency' introduced by Neil Coe and David Jordhus-Lier, this article attempts to evaluate the possibilities and constraints facing labour agency in the Pearl River Delta in China. By reviewing the social, economic and political background of the changing labour market and labour regulations in China, and through an intensive case study of a workers' strike and its consequences, the author argues that Chinese migra…
Bringing Class Struggles Back
This article finds both the ‘weakening-state’ hypothesis of neo-liberalism and the ‘state as autonomous actor’ approach adopted by many current China studies dissatisfying towards an understanding of the Chinese state. The authors have therefore conducted a Marxian investigation of the Chinese state. We argue that the state is socially embedded; it is the field and condensation of class struggle. The gulf separating global capital and internal mi…
Space in a Social Movement
Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, th…
Conductive Activism
This study looks at trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and the transformation of cross-border activism between Hong Kong and mainland China. Examining two cases, it demonstrates the mechanism and processes of trans-border, anti-sweatshop campaigns and networks involving non-governmental agencies, student groups and workers. The study suggests that anti-sweatshop activism has been conductive and transferrable from Hong Kong to China in a way t…
Linking participation in occupying protest, civic engagement, and approval of government among college students in Hong Kong
While participation in occupying protest is publicly remarkable, its impact on participants’ approval of government, is empirically uncharted. Meanwhile, current research and theory have not been consistent about the impacts of protest participation specifically and civic engagement generally. As the impacts are particularly of concern to college education and democratization, the present study surveyed 527 college students in the Chinese metropo…
Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong
By analysing the 2013 Hong Kong dockworkers’ strike, this article explores how workers, precariously situated in the world’s freest economy, fight for decent wages with the support of civil society. It is argued that the trade union movement in Hong Kong, a Special Administration Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a typical example of social movement unionism. It suggests that the rise of social movement unionism in Hong Kong was a prac…
Economic restructuring and migrant workers’ coping strategies in China’s Pearl River Delta
To tackle internal and external challenges, the Chinese government has made great efforts to promote economic upgrading, but little scholarly attention has been paid to its social consequences. Previous studies have found that economic restructuring is often associated with economic shock and industry shift, noting that social upgrading does not automatically follow economic upgrading, and workers can become economic victims. Given China’s indivi…
Do workers benefit from economic upgrading in the Pearl River Delta, China
Economic upgrading (EU) is being undertaken in China to address numerous problems. However, its social consequences have not received considerable attention. This study selects the Pearl River Delta, where EU is prominent, to examine whether and how workers have benefited from EU process. The data used are from the 2012 and 2014 China Labor-force Dynamic Survey and self-conducted interviews, both of which cover measurable standards and enabling r…
Interview
INTERVIEW: How food delivery drivers and other
From production to reproduction
Workers in the global South are becoming increasingly sensitive to their pension rights. In recent years, rural migrant workers in China have staged a series of protests to fight for pension protection. Drawing from two in-depth case studies conducted in the Pearl River Delta, we explain why workers staged pension strikes, what these protests looked like, how the employers and the government responded, and how these protests differed from previou…
The practice of social movement unionism
In this Theory into Practice article we discuss the collective agency of Hong Kong medical workers in COVID-19 in the context of social movement unionism (SMU). In particular, the article utilises Dhatt’s framework defining factors influencing health social movements (2019). We focus on the way the pro-democracy movement underpinned and shaped the five-day strike by 7000 healthcare workers that forced the government to close the Hong Kong–China b…
Pension Systems and Labour Resistance in Post-socialist China and Vietnam
Situated within the literature on welfare regimes, this article investigates workers' contestation of pension arrangements in post-socialist, authoritarian China and Vietnam, and considers the effects of their actions. Scholars have highlighted economic, cultural, political regime type and political institutions as factors crucial to understanding the welfare regimes of China and Vietnam. However, the "labour factor" – that is, how worker resista…
Du « modèle d'organisation » au « modèle de service
La Fédération nationale des syndicats de Chine (FNSC) a subi de fortes pressions pour se réformer, en raison notamment de son double rôle de représentation du parti-État et de la classe ouvrière. Dans le cadre du projet de construction d'une « société harmonieuse » sous le régime de Hu-Wen, la FNSC avait notamment lancé des programmes pilotes pour mettre en place des élections syndicales directes, ainsi que des négociations salariales dirigées pa…
SoftBank
The gig economy, platform work, and social policy
Previous literature suggests that the gig economy and platform work pose challenges to social policy, including the welfare entitlement issues caused by workers' ambiguous occupational status. Focusing on the government's regulatory role, this study investigates platform workers' occupational welfare (OW) by conducting in-depth interviews with forty-six food delivery workers in Hong Kong. The evidence reveals workers' occupational risks resulting…
Carry Burawoy’s legacy forward
This paper examines the impact of Michael Burawoy’s notion of public sociology on Chinese labour scholarship and highlights the value of the Gramscian concept of civil society for understanding changing state-labour relations in China. Starting with Burawoy’s 2005 visit to Hong Kong, it traces how his vision of public sociology resonated with a decade of “organic public sociology” practised by Chinese labour scholars between 2005 and 2015. It the…
Political science (21 works) · China (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Labor Movements and Unions (11 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Law (9 works)