In 2018, workers at Jasic Technology’s plant in Shenzhen, China, cited low pay and poor working conditions while attempting to establish a union independent of the state-controlled labor system. The effort drew support from students and Marxist activists, including Peking University graduate Yue Xin, who joined the Jasic Workers Solidarity Group on 8 August 2018. The dispute exposed the limits of China’s economic liberalization when workers challenge official labor structures and politically connected authorities.
On 23 August 2018, Chinese police arrested Yue and roughly 50 members and supporters of the group. The organization said in January 2019 that Guangdong police had forced Yue and four others to record videos confessing to “illegal acts” and claiming they had been “brainwashed by radical organizations”; China’s National Security Department reportedly showed the videos to other activists. Yue was not publicly seen afterward, although Photon Media reported in August 2023 that she had been released and was working while volunteering with a library-related NGO. The detentions and alleged coerced confessions became an international example of Chinese authorities suppressing labor organizing and left-wing student activism.
