On May 1, the first day of China's five-day Labor Day holiday, the first floor of a large shopping mall in Wangfujing, central Beijing, was packed with crowds. Following a particularly dense throng to one store, I saw a panda robot and a robot dog performing tricks among people holding their phones high. The stage had been set up at Unitree's first flagship store, which had opened its doors just the day before to capitalize on the holiday rush. For a reporter, the sight was nothing new, but the eyes of the children gathered in small groups with their parents sparkled with curiosity and awe.
These days in China, there is a robot boom wherever you go. Robots take the main booth at every exhibition, and there are even events dedicated solely to robots, such as robot marathons and robot Olympics. During this holiday period alone, the world's first robot police team was deployed in Hangzhou, drawing attention.
But watching robots take center stage even on Labor Day, a holiday for humans, I was reminded of what a Chinese reporter I had met on a recent business trip had said. Coming from Shenzhen, the hub of China's technology rise, he abruptly said "I hate robots" when I mentioned that I would soon be covering a robot marathon. His point was that with job shortages already causing an uproar, what were young people supposed to do as robots spread this widely? He spoke in a hushed voice given the many ears around, but his tone was resolute.
Although China has long claimed to be a nation of the proletariat, workers' rights lag behind those in Korea in many ways. A prime example is the hukou (household registration) system, introduced in 1958 to prevent population movement and still functioning today as a "modern-day caste system." Rural-born workers employed in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities are excluded from social insurance, pensions, medical care and housing guarantees, and their children face restrictions on local high school admission and eligibility to take the gaokao (college entrance exam). For this reason, it is common for young children to be sent back alone to their family's registered hometown around the time they finish middle school.
Working conditions are also poor. Beyond the long-hours practice commonly known as "996" (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week), office workers must face an unwelcome guest every public holiday: "makeup work." It is a system requiring them to work weekends to compensate for weekdays lost to holidays. Since employees often work on Saturdays before and after public holidays, six-day workweeks frequently occur.
On the other hand, it is all too easy for the rich to grow even richer. There are no inheritance or gift taxes, and with the exception of some regions, there is virtually no property tax either. The nation's main tax source is the value-added tax, which burdens ordinary people more than the wealthy. Labor costs are so cheap that many shops do not charge delivery fees even for a 20-yuan (about 4,400 won) snack, yet a cup of latte at a typical Beijing cafe easily tops 8,000 won in Korean currency.
A more serious problem is labor alienation. Amid the severe job crunch, many young people want to take even precarious jobs, but there are no places to work. "Fake offices," where one can pretend to be employed, remain popular this year as they were last year. The advance and spread of robots is accelerating this problem.
In Korea recently, debate has been heated over the Samsung Electronics union's general strike. While I sympathize with public opinion that the demands are excessive, being in China makes one newly appreciate the value of freedom of expression, whatever its form. In China, where collective action is viewed as deeply subversive, not only general strikes but even individual social media accounts are easily blocked if they contain content that displeases the authorities. Late last year, the videos of "Xiao A," who had chronicled a daily life of scraping by on part-time jobs and drifting between PC rooms, were abruptly all deleted. The Ministry of State Security, China's intelligence agency, recently posted a video claiming that foreign forces are trying to corrupt the minds of Chinese youth by encouraging "tang ping" (lying flat and doing nothing).
There are many times when I envy China's dazzling progress, including its robot rise. It is the result of the drive unique to a one-party system. But when you write stories about China's scientific rise while clinging to a VPN (virtual private network) that throws errors several times a day just to get around the "Great Firewall," you cannot help but feel cognitive dissonance. A country that builds the future faster than anyone else in the world, yet does not allow the freedom to discuss that future — this is China today.
