Flexible sovereignty and contested legality: The overseas employment and legal struggles of Chinese workers

Abstract

The surge in Chinese overseas investments has increased the transnational movement of Chinese workers. While much literature explores the interactions between Chinese managers and local workers in host countries, the dynamics between Chinese employers and Chinese workers abroad remain under-examined. This paper employs the conceptual frameworks of flexible sovereignty and contested legality to examine the distinctive norms and practices in labor recruitment, management, and dispute resolution emerged through overseas employment. Through a critical review of lawsuits between returned Chinese workers and their Chinese employers in Chinese courts – originating from the top five African countries receiving Chinese labor (Algeria, Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Equatorial Guinea) – the analysis reveals new spatialities and temporalities of sovereign control exerted by globalized Chinese companies over overseas workplaces and migrant workers. Overseas employment marks a complex process of coupling and decoupling among various forms of Chinese capital and labor. Three mechanisms of corporate sovereign control are identified: the delineation of workplaces and workers' bodies as spaces of exception, the flexibilization of working hours and job tenure, and the politics of delays in wage disbursement and dispute resolution. These mechanisms provoke contentious debates during court proceedings and result in uneven judicial outcomes for Chinese workers.