The law, which comes into force at the beginning of 2008, is the most significant change in Chinese labour rules in more than a decade. On the ground, where the apparatus of the party-state is in league with China’s budding capitalist class, the real issue is about implementation of laws.

Amidst the international uproar, Beijing approved last Friday a new law setting some minimal standards for China’s rapidly changing labour market at a time when Beijing’s investigations have revealed that

government labour monitors and police officials were

actively involved in a brick kiln slavery scandal.

Labour aristocracy

But guess who is coming to the rescue of the Chinese proletariat? The American labour aristocracy! As American multinational corporations protested Beijing’s efforts to tighten labour protection laws, the US trade unions have begun to rally behind the Chinese working class.

Last month, a big delegation of US trade union leaders traveled to Beijing to explore political cooperation with the All China Federation of Trade Unions to improve workers’ rights in the middle kingdom.

Some Americans opposed the visit on the ground that China does not allow independent trade unions and the ACFTU is part of the Chinese state structure. Its purpose is to prevent labour unrest rather than promote the rights of the working class, critics said.

After their trip, the US trade union bosses offered praise to ACFTU. James Hoffa, the leader of once powerful US Teamsters Union, defended the visit by saying “you can’t ignore a union with 170 million members even if it is sponsored by the Chinese government”.

Hoffa insisted that the ACFTU has begun to “help workers rather than simply control them. Recently, the ACFTU convinced McDonald’s to allow unions in their Chinese restaurants. Wal-Mart was also forced to allow unions into its stores in China — the first time the anti-union retailer did so anywhere in the world.”

The basic thesis of the Teamsters boss is simple: without Chinese allies like the ACFTU, there is no stopping American capital and Beijing’s Communists from shifting US jobs to China.

Hoffa summed up his visit by saying, “More than half of China’s exports are by foreign-based corporations or their subsidiaries. Organised labour (in America) needs to shine a spotlight on the role of US corporations in oppressing workers (in China).”

Even as he complained that the new law on workers’ rights was watered down to please the US MNCs, Hoffa is optimistic. “We left China with a commitment to continue our discussions with Chinese organisations on how to best promote the rights of workers here, there and everywhere in the world.”

Hoffa is simply rephrasing Marx’s Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world, unite behind AFL-CIO and the Teamsters.”

The Pope’s flock

It is not just American trade unions that have tied their future to China. So has the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI is looking for a deal with Beijing that would allow the Church to renew its missionary activity there.

“During the first Christian millennium the Cross was planted in Europe and during the second in the American continent and in Africa,” the Pope wrote, in a letter China’s Catholic community released last Saturday.”During the third millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in the vast and vibrant Asian continent,” the Pope added.

Beijing broke its ties to the Vatican decades ago after the Holy See chose to recognise Taiwan as China. There are an estimated 10-15 million Catholics in China, who owe their allegiance to the Pope but don’t get their religious rights. There is a small “patriotic church” that is fully controlled by Beijing, but not acceptable to the Vatican.

Vatican and Beijing have been negotiating for some time the terms under which diplomatic ties could be restored and Roman Catholics given more freedom to practice and preach.

There is one big sticking point though. The Vatican affirms its right to appoint bishops in China. Beijing says it will not allow the Pope’s interference in China’s internal affairs in the name of religion.

Finessing the tension between China’s notion of absolute national sovereignty and the Pope’s trans-national spiritual authority is not impossible. A deal would benefit both. The Vatican gets an entry, albeit controlled, into the world’s largest untapped “faith market”. For Beijing, it would be a diplomatic coup of sorts to have the Pope visit China before the 2008 Olympics.

The writer is professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore