China’s economic transition has, on the face of it, presented the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and its affiliated “grassroots” branches with a crisis similar to that experienced by unions in many other countries in the same period. Not only did membership decline, but the...

There has been an explosion of labour contract disputes in China. The authors surveyed participant demographics, experience and opinions concerning the arbitration of these disputes under the local government Labour Dispute Arbitration Bureau (LAB) in the city of Dalian, Liaoning Province....

This paper is the first to use a large micro-level data set to investigate the activities and effectiveness of Chinese unions. We show that Chinese unions have a strong State-Party voice face and a collective voice face but lack a monopoly face. The empirical findings on the effectiveness of...

The concept of the Silk Road Economic Belt put forward by China in September 2013 has two major dimensions: ‘the Road' and ‘the Belt'. This article argues that building ‘the Road' may lead to: (a) the transformation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) from hitherto primarily...