Thanks for posting this. So many people on Chapo continue to insist that any story that showcases the neoliberal aspects of Chinese political economy is just CIA bait, mostly because (I would guess) they do not speak Chinese and are not particularly familiar with how the CCP’s has routinely treated striking workers and rural migrants. Instead, they just see a red flag, a ‘vanguard’ party, and state-owned enterprises, and assume that all contradictions between capital and labor have disappeared.

China struggle sessions continue even on socialist websites, much in the same way that class struggle continues even in socialist countries. Solidarity with the Riders’ League, workers are supposed to represented by the CPC’s union in China and things like this reveal the cracks in that system.

It appears that the Rider’s League was basically acting like an independent union and independent unions have historically been opposed by Marxist-Leninist governments (Solidarity in the Polish People’s Republic being one of the rare examples of an independent union within a ML state and its unfortunate outcome likely hasn’t helped improve the reputation of independent union activity in the minds of many ML government officials. Cuba also discourages independent labor union activity). The ACFTU is the official party-affiliated union in China and is still undergoing a process of reform. It can still be pretty inefficient with only recently beginning to recruit large numbers of delivery workers and has secured only fairly minor gains so far for delivery workers, hence the presence of some independent labor organizing. Hopefully, this can get resolved effectively.

Umm ackshually… China Digital Times gets money from the National Endowment for Democracy.

https://www.ned.org/china-digital-times-provides-crucial-insight-and-information-about-china-and-the-covid-19/ https://www.ned.org/region/asia/mainland-china-2018/ There’s also more detailed documents from the NED showing where their money goes each year you can probably find online that I remember gave money to China Digital Times but I can’t be bothered to look it up if you want more sources.