China Sees Wage-Seeking Protests Erupt Nationwide; State-Owned and Foreign-Invested Companies Forcing Employees to Resign

On October 30–31, a mass wage-seeking protest involving hundreds of workers broke out in Zhanjiang, Guangdong. (Video screenshot)

[People News] According to a recent report from Renminbao, data released by China’s General Administration of Customs shows that October exports fell 1.1 percent year-over-year—an abrupt contrast to the strong 8.3 percent growth recorded in September and far below market expectations of 3 percent growth. China’s three main drivers of economic growth—consumption, investment, and exports—have all sharply declined in recent years, leading to a continuous economic downturn. An increasing number of companies have gone bankrupt or halted production. Even among firms that manage to barely stay afloat, many have resorted to pay cuts, wage arrears, and layoffs due to unprofitable operations. Affected workers have been forced to take direct action to demand the wages owed to them. Even state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and public institutions established by government agencies have begun pressuring employees to resign. China’s economic troubles have again become a focus of international attention.

According to Newtalk News, an X user named “Yesterday” recently posted that on October 30–31 local time, a sudden mass strike erupted involving over a hundred workers at the “BASF Zhanjiang Integrated Base,” which is being constructed by China National Chemical Engineering No. 11 Construction Co. (CNCEC 11) in Zhanjiang, Guangdong. The workers demanded that CNCEC 11 pay long-overdue wages. Some striking workers also clashed with CNCEC 11 managers.

A worker participating in the strike said that CNCEC 11 had failed to issue salaries for five consecutive months. “Some workers who had already resigned even specially traveled from Jiangsu to Zhanjiang to join the wage-seeking protest.” “Yesterday” added that the Zhanjiang integrated base is a mega-sized chemical production complex being built locally by German chemical giant BASF. The project was announced in July 2018 and officially broke ground in November 2019, making it BASF’s third-largest production base worldwide.

Because this construction project involves a foreign corporation, many netizens expressed heightened interest in the wage-seeking incident. Some pointed out that a foreign company like BASF would not default on payments owed to Chinese construction contractors: “If they paid the construction funds, then where did the workers’ wages go?” Others noted that currently, Chinese government investment projects are typically contracted out to SOEs under “China-branded” names, which then subcontract multiple layers down to private companies. “Even if they receive the funds, the SOE headquarters spends it first, and by the time it reaches actual project construction, there’s barely any money left,” they wrote. Many believe the wage-arrears problem is linked to SOEs misappropriating funds.

X user “Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher” also shared multiple wage-arrears incidents across China. On the 10th local time, a wage dispute erupted at Chaozhou Ceramics Factory in Chaozhou, Guangdong, prompting a large number of workers to go to the city government to demand back pay. Subsequently, on the 11th, wage protests also broke out in Shenzhen, Dongguan (Guangdong Province), and Bengbu (Anhui Province. Employees of tech companies blocked the entrances of office buildings to demand unpaid wages. Some factory workers, after being owed ten months of wages, decided to sell factory equipment to raise money. Others even threatened suicide by jumping in order to obtain their owed pay.

Meanwhile, wage-arrears scandals have also emerged at public institutions in Suihua and Hailun, Heilongjiang Province. On November 11, a netizen revealed that public-welfare posts within these public institutions had gone seven months without paying employees, but were now forcing staff to voluntarily resign while refusing to issue unemployment certificates. The arrangement appears designed to make employees give up claims to back wages while simultaneously preventing them from receiving unemployment benefits.

After the news broke, many Chinese netizens expressed strong outrage. One commented that he originally believed only private companies would use such malicious tactics—forcing resignations and refusing to issue unemployment certificates—“but I never thought even public institutions would use these methods to force out employees.” Another netizen, who works as a “grid administrator,” said he had been owed more than 20 months of wages: “I’ve basically been working for free for nearly two years.” Many others reported being owed over 10 months of pay. Even hospital medical staff have now been dragged into the wage-arrears turmoil. △

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