Writing Chinese Labour History: Changes and Continuities in Labour Historiography

IN THE 1980s, THE AUTHORS of most historical studies in China began to move in new directions owing to a combination of internal changes and outside influences. Conversely, studies of pre-1949 labour movements in China continue to reflect a perspective that is largely monolithic. While Chinese social historians tend to be, in many ways, innovative and forward-thinking, historians whose primary focus is labour often persist in defending, and even advocating, Maoist jargon. North American New Labour History, together with Women's Studies and Slavery Studies, continue to be shaped by the climate of thought peculiar to the West in the 1960s. Chinese labour historians have been reticent to adopt much from such developments, thus distinguishing themselves both from Western historians generally and Chinese historians focused on other subject matters. This paper offers a tentative explanation for this historiographical anomaly by focusing on three issues. First, I summarize Western interpretations of pre-1949 Chinese labour and identify broad differences separating Western interpretations of Chinese labour movement trends from those conceived by Chinese scholars. Next, I present a discussion of major debates in labour historiography to shed some light on the different perspectives adopted by Chinese labour scholars relative to other social historians. Finally, I examine a number of factors that contribute to Chinese labour historians' reticence to embrace and adapt newer models, and conclude by noting that beneath the apparent consistency of message characterizing pre-1949 Chinese labour studies in general, political and social changes are having a subtle impact on the ways in which Chinese labour historians depict the working-class.