In honor of China’s announcement that loads of map services have happily received licenses and China’s very own state-sponsored Map World is all shiny-new this week, let’s take a look at a map of the sort China is specifically trying to outlaw. Cornell PhD student Manfred Elfstrom (awesome name btw) has created a crowdsourced map tracking labor unrest across China. His mission, as stated by the website:
The purpose of China Strikes is to track strikes, protests and other collective actions by Chinese workers to defend their rights and interests. I hope that over time the site will serve as a resource to those wishing to better understand and support the labor movement in China.
There are 49 entries to date, each categorized by location and industry. Anybody can submit a report, but they will only be “verified” if coming from a reputed NGO or media outlet, or if at least two reports on the incident can be found.
Strikes in 2010 definitely peaked over the summer, with almost 20 incidents in June alone. The earliest report listed is in January 2009, so if any of you out there are experts on Chinese labor history, get on it!
We reported on a similar map in November (Bloody Map) which tracks violent evictions throughout China.
China announced new licensing laws for online mapping services last summer, demanding that all map providers attain a license and host their site on the mainland. These regulations were largely seen as an effort to shut down user-generated maps in China.
