Social Work Today E-Zine

While the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing has elicited a rallying cry for human rights among high-profile activists and organizations outside China, ordinary Chinese citizens are mobilizing to fight for their rights inside the rapidly changing country, according to sociologist Ching Kwan Lee, PhD, a sociologist at the University of California-Los Angeles who studies rights activism in China and Chinese investments in Africa, in a recent issue of Contexts.

“Ordinary Chinese workers, homeowners, and farmers have emerged as unlikely activists in a quiet revolution that is filling the gaps between central government law-making and the rights violations and corruption of local governments,” says Lee. In contrast to traditional activism appealing to universal notions of human rights, this grassroots movement among everyday people in China invokes “the protection of lawful rights,” or weiquan. This activism focuses on specific rights prescribed by Chinese law, such as labor, property, and rural land rights.

According to Lee, growing unrest over social injustice, as well as wealth and power gaps in Chinese society—due to the country’s rapid economic development—has led to three decades of market reform and legal proliferation by the central government in Beijing.

“Today’s rights activism in China provides a look at the forces driving the near-total transformation of the most populace nation in the world,” Lee says. “Attention may shift away from China after the 2008 Olympic Games conclude, yet the struggles between economic growth and social stability; between authoritarian rule and a more responsive state and involved citizenry; and between local and central governments will continue to shape and define China for the long-term future.”

— Source: American Sociological Association