The Role of Labor Regimes in Reconfiguring Global Production Networks in China and Vietnam

自2013年以来，中国在亚洲、欧洲和非洲开展了一系列基础设施项目和自由贸易协定，统称为“一带一路”倡议。能源、交通和工业基础设施被组织成多国走廊，有望将来自不同国家的劳动力人口汇集到精简的跨国网络中，允许来自中国和其他地方的公司根据单位劳动力成本最低的地方定制生产流程。虽然投资者、商业战略家和经济学家倾向于认为劳动力投入是给定的，但劳动力供应和工作条件是通过被称为“劳动力制度”的具体形式发展和再生产的。工人在社会上因种族、性别和移民身份而存在差异；劳资关系决定了生产过程；获得住房、食物和教育的现有手段限制了工资的价值；而且，争取民主权利的政治斗争影响了经济收益的可能性。这些因素构成了一种特定的劳动制度，并决定了不平衡发展的模式。本研究项目将考察两个相互关联的不断变化的劳动力制度：在珠江三角洲，服装和电子工厂正在重组并搬迁到国外；在越南，沿着中国-中南半岛经济走廊，规划的基础设施带和“一带一路”特别贸易区。2013年，中国共产党宣布了一项最终被称为“一带一路”倡议的项目。“一带一路”倡议由中亚至欧洲的六条陆路物流走廊和印度洋的一系列海港组成，承诺通过亚洲、欧洲和非洲的直接自由贸易协定，在经济上整合60多个国家（Olinga-Shannon 2019）。英国最引人注目的特点是计划的规模之大，这表明了一个凝聚独特的泛非洲-欧亚地区的过程，同时由传统的国家间协议和次国家-超国家的投资集团组成，这些投资集团主要组织成连锁走廊。在我的研究中，我将探讨与“一带一路”有关的两个相互关联的问题——空间规模和劳动力制度。关于“一带一路”的许多文献都围绕着规模及其模糊性的问题，包括对该项目的原因和假定后果的研究。尽管一些学者（参见Ye 2020）主要将“一带一路”的驱动因素理解为国家机构层面的战略地缘政治项目，但其他学者（如Akhter教授）则优先考虑迫使国家行动的世俗经济过程，即超国家规模的资本积累。继Harvey（1982）之后，Akhter（2018）将这种盈余的重新安置定义为“空间修复”，在这种情况下，当地过度积累的资本被重新部署到新的地区，创造新的生产和流通空间，通常以新的规模进行。Akhter将这一视角应用于“一带一路”，将其与资本过剩和工业产能过剩问题联系起来（cf. Hung 2008; Li 2016），并将其置于一个更长的过程中，在这个过程中，东部沿海地区的劳动密集型产业已在西部欠发达省份、西部大开发项目和国外的“走出去”运动中被重新安置。Zhu and Lan 2016；2014张)。

Since 2013, China has embarked on a set of infrastructureprojects and free trade deals throughout Asia, Europe andAfrica that are collectively referred to as the Belt and RoadInitiative. Energy, transport and industrial infrastructure isorganized into multi-national corridors that promise to bringtogether laboring populations from different countries intostreamlined transnational networks, allowing firms fromChina and elsewhere to tailor the production processaccording to where unit labor costs are cheapest. Whileinvestors, business strategists and economists tend toconsider labor inputs as a given, labor supply and theconditions of work are developed and reproduced throughconcrete formations called 'labor regimes.' Workers aresocially differentiated by race, gender and migration status;relations between labor and management determine theproduction process; the available means of attaininghousing, food and education constrain the value of wages;and, political struggles for democratic rights impact thepossibility of economic gains. These factors, among others,constitute a given labor regime and dictate the patterns ofuneven development. This research project will examinetwo connected labor regimes in flux: in the Pearl RiverDelta, where garment and electronics factories are beingreorganized and relocated abroad, and in Vietnam, alongthe China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor, aplanned belt of infrastructure and special trade zones in theBRI.In 2013, the Chinese Communist Party announced a projectthat would eventually be called the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI). Consisting of a cluster of six overland logisticalcorridors through Central Asia to Europe and a series ofseaports in the Indian Ocean, the BRI promises toeconomically integrate more than 60 countries via direct3 / 11free trade agreements across Asia, Europe and Africa(Olinga-Shannon 2019). The most striking feature of the BRIis the massive scale of the plans, suggesting a process ofcohering a distinct pan-Afro-Eurasian region, composedsimultaneously of traditional inter-state agreements andsubnational-supranational conglomerations of investmentorganized primarily into interlocking corridors.In my research, I will explore two interrelated problems-spatial scale and labor regimes-as they pertain to the BRI.The question of scale and its ambiguity haunts much of theliterature about the BRI, encompassing work on both theproject's causes and putative consequences. Though somescholars (cf. Ye 2020) primarily apprehend the drivers ofthe BRI on the level of state agency, as a strategicgeopolitical project, others, such as Professor Akhter, givepriority to secular economic processes compelling theactions of states, that is, at a supranational scale of capitalaccumulation. Akhter (2018), following Harvey (1982),frames this relocation of surpluses as a 'spatial fix,' inwhich locally over-accumulated capital is redeployed tonew areas, creating new spaces of production andcirculation, often at new scales. Akhter applies this lens tothe BRI, relating it to problems of surplus capital andindustrial overcapacity (cf. Hung 2008; Li 2016), andsituating it within a longer process in which labor-intensiveindustry in the east coastal regions has been relocated inthe underdeveloped western provinces, in the WesternDevelopment Project, and abroad, in the 'Go Out' campaign(cf. Zhu and Lan 2016; Zhang 2014).