THE SPECTRE of worker solidarity has never appeared in China. For all the predictions of exiled trade union leaders like Han Dongfang, no anti-government labour movement has ever emerged nor is one likely to.
There is no knowing when China's volcano of social unrest will erupt but this week's worker protests in Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces will probably not spark a destabilising explosion.
Worker unrest in the industrial northeast follows the usual pattern of factory sit-ins and gatherings outside local party headquarters. The party responds by issuing dark threats in private, soothing words in public and arresting the ring leaders, or the 'small minority of trouble-makers'.
Eventually, the provincial or central governments find some extra money to buy off the workers at least temporarily while the organisers disappear for long prison sentences. What has never happened is that the protesting workers transform themselves into an unofficial but organised trade union that covers an industry or geographical area.
The protests are always organised by relatively small groups of workers based around one - often bankrupt - factory. These workers are usually fighting to persuade the officials to give them a better pay-off. Such protests are tolerated and sometimes even have the support of the factory bosses.
The real anti-government agitation in the dismal rust belt cities of the northeast comes more from the Falun Gong movement. In Changchun they recently dared to take over state broadcasts to put across their message.
