Integration into Global Capitalism and Making of Working Class (1990s-2000s)

Against the interdependence and dialectics of liberalization and integration into global capitalism, new working classes emerged in Asia as key actors in the 1990s and 2000s. This set the stage for the Asian strike waves of the 2010s. Looking at the divergent histories and parallel developments in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and China, we consider how economic and political shifts spurred institutional transformations. As workers in varying contexts mobilized in response to both enabling and constraining industrial relations frameworks, labor activism in these countries evolved into diverse yet strikingly similar movements.