In one widely-circulated news report, a Beijing cab driver with over ten years’ experience was quoted as saying that “more than ten thousand” cabs could be found parked around the city’s center during rush hour, their drivers refusing to carry passengers until traffic subsided. Even when taxis do stop for passengers during peak traffic times, they often refuse rides if they think that the road ahead will be congested.

“It takes half an hour to hail a cab during rush hour, and even then it depends on the driver’s mood,” complained one Beijing commuter. “If you can’t reach an agreement with the driver, they just leave.” It is not uncommon for cabbies to bargain for a higher fare than they would get on-meter.

But cab drivers in Beijing protest that the costs of running a taxi are too high to make a decent living under the best traffic conditions, let alone during rush hour. According to a chart compiled by China Youth Daily, if a cab driver in Beijing works every day of the week for 10 hours a day, the basic costs of running his cab — including rent paid to the cab company, car maintenance and gas — come to around 30 RMB (about $4.83) per hour. This causes many drivers to park their taxis during rush hour, when it can often take 40 minutes to travel a single kilometer and leave cabbies earning less than their basic expenses.

While many licensed cabbies choose to wait until trafic has subsided, those who are willing to drive through rush hour can create opportunities for others to profit. A blog post from Geoff Kristof, son of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, relays his experience paying for rules to be bent during rush hour.

When a commuter is unable to find a legal cab, they are often forced to turn to one of Beijing’s ubiquitous “black taxis” (黑车 – literally “black car”). Xinhua reports:

In Beijing, the number of licensed taxis has been limited to 66,600 over the past decade. In the meantime, the capital’s population has grown from about 13.8 million in 2003 to the current 20 million.

The scarcity of licensed taxis has spawned a booming market for “black cars.” Unlike registered cabbies, these drivers are often private car owners who pay no monthly fees and offer cheaper fares.

Their poaching of passengers, along with high franchise fees and cut-rate service fares, have resulted in cab driver protests and walkouts in several cities in recent years.

When Beijing’s licensed cabbies tap-out for rush hour to protect their botom line, this creates a niche in the transportation market and an opportunity for unlicensed drivers. China Daily has more on the “black taxi” scene, its dangers, legal battles against these unsanctioned autos, and what leads drivers into this illicit trade:

“Licensed cab drivers sometimes refuse to pick up passengers downtown if they’re going to rural areas, especially on rainy days,” one black-taxi driver told China Daily as he drove from Sanlitun to Wudaokou.

“I’m always willing to do business, although some passengers are too afraid to get in my car.”

The driver, who did not want to be named, said he is from Heilongjiang province and did not want to break the law. However, like many migrants, he is barred from applying for a taxi license under city regulations, which requires all drivers to have Beijing hukou, a permanent residency permit.

Meanwhile, a genuine cabbie who gave his name as Shen said many black-taxi drivers are former license holders looking to boost their incomes.

“I pay my company more than 6,000 yuan a month (in rent), so I can only earn a little,” he said. “That’s why some drivers give up their jobs and turn to illegal operation.”

Despite the argument made by many that black taxis fill a gap in the public transport system, legal experts largely agree they are bad for the capital.

For more on traffic, cabs, ”black taxis” or discontented cabbies, see prior CDT coverage.

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Since last month, in the name of security, Chinese authorities have turned to various baffling regulations that are snuffing much of the life out of Beijing, and police have increased their presence to keep the capital’s streets free of problems. As a result, many residents are finding the country’s political event of the decade to be nothing more than a colossal inconvenience.

Countless public events — cultural, sporting and business — have been canceled or postponed with no explanation and scant notice.

[…] The inconveniences are large and small: Yang Rui, a nationalist television host sometimes dubbed the Rush Limbaugh of China, complained on his blog about a recent experience in a supermarket.

“I looked everywhere for a fruit knife, but I failed. So I asked the clerk. He said, ‘All knives are off the shelf before the 18th party congress.’”

According to Global Times’ Liu Meng, Beijing tranport authorities have ordered that taxis’ rear windows be disabled until further notice.

A taxi driver from Xinyue Lianhe taxi company, surnamed Wang, confirmed to the Global Times Sunday that he was informed of the regulation at his company’s monthly meeting on October 13.

[…] “The company management said at the meeting that in the past, some passengers had thrown leaflets out of the taxi window, or inserted leaflets into ping-pong balls and threw them out, or would let go of a balloon which had leaflets tied to it,” he said.

[…] But many cab drivers do not seem to have heeded the instruction.

Over the course of two hours, a Global Times reporter found that only two of about 20 taxis seen at Beijing Railway Station, Dongdan and Xidan, all in central Beijing, had disabled the handle.

On the bright side, Caixin passed on the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s reassurance that the Internet will not be switched off during the congress: in fact, it will “undergo maintenance to ensure it runs smoothly.”

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Beijing’s base fare of 10 yuan ($1.60) has not changed in a decade. Charges for travelling farther than the minimum fare were adjusted in 2006, from 1.6 to 2 yuan per kilometre. Since 2009 drivers have added a small fuel surcharge for longer rides. But whereas cabbies’ revenues have barely changed, average wages in the city have risen sharply, making the Beijing taxi a rare bargain. An analysis by Macquarie, an investment bank, found that a typical passenger has seen taxi costs fall by half since 2003, relative to average incomes.

[...]Petrol prices are set by the government and have risen twice since early February, most recently by 6% on March 20th, to 8.3 yuan per litre ($5 per gallon). The government has accepted that some fare adjustments may be needed but has given no timetable. For the moment, it is offering to give drivers a monthly subsidy of 300 yuan. Mr Zhang says he will gladly take it, but he calculates that petrol increases will cost him three times that amount. Macquarie calculates that it will take a fare increase of 20-30% to sort things out.

The sooner the better. In February disgruntled drivers were mumbling about a possible strike. Cabbies have gone on strike in other Chinese cities and indeed, in 2008, early in his tenure as party chief of Chongqing, Bo Xilai (recently sacked from that post) burnished his populist-socialist credentials by mediating with striking cabbies on live television.

The increasing affordability of taxis encourages Beijing residents to opt out of crowded public transportation, contributing to an overall shortage of cabs during rush hour and bad weather. While potential patrons are annoyed with a lack of vacancy, taxi drivers frustrated by low fares may maximize their profits by loading up with separate parties heading in the same direction, charging each the metered fare. Traffic authorities in the capital are suggesting that sharing rides could be a solution for a shortage of cabs, but the share should be negotiated by the customers, not the driver. From China Daily:

Beijing traffic authorities are encouraging residents to share taxis to overcome the shortage of cabs during rush hours.

“Regulations permit co-hiring a taxi when all passengers get in the car at the same place and head in the same direction,” Yao Kuo, director of the Beijing transportation law enforcement team, said.

“We hope taxi enterprises will try to offer such a service,” he said.

Yao warned that taxi drivers who refused to accept shared hiring would be penalized.

Zhang Changqing, a traffic law professor at Beijing Jiaotong University, welcomed taxi sharing as it would not only help relieve the city’s traffic congestion but also reduce exhaust emissions.

But he said authorities should regulate to differentiate between multiple hire arranged by the passengers and that arranged by taxi drivers intent on making a profit.

“Co-hiring a taxi should be encouraged with the passengers’ full willingness and knowledge of an arrangement. But some drivers randomly pick up passengers when there are already customers in the taxi and they finally charge all passengers the same fare in order to make more money, which is not legally permitted,” he said.

But residents and taxi drivers do not seem to share enthusiasm for co-hiring.[...]

Another recent China Daily article mentions a nationwide government subsidy intended to insulate taxi drivers from fuel price increases, and the response of drivers to the allowance:

Taxi drivers nationwide will receive a subsidy of around 300 yuan ($47.50) a month to offset the second hike in fuel prices this year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

The government on Tuesday raised gasoline and diesel prices by 600 yuan a ton. As a result, the retail price of mid-grade gasoline will increase by 6 percent and benchmark diesel by 7 percent.

On Feb 8, the NDRC increased gasoline and diesel prices by 300 yuan a ton.

[...]But many taxi drivers in the capital have called for an urgent adjustment to fares, saying the subsidy hardly makes up for the increased costs they will incur.

Jiang Mingsheng, a Beijing taxi driver, said the increase would cost him an extra 1,000 yuan a month.

“Although there would be a 300-yuan subsidy, it means that I would earn 700 yuan less than before,” he said. “If I want to make up that loss, I have to work more hours.”

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“This morning, taxi drivers went on strike. They complained about traffic jams and low incomes. They earn about RMB 500 (USD $80) in one working day, but have to pay RMB 220 to the taxi license holding company and RMB 200 for the fuel. Their net income ends up at around RMB 70-80 (US$12). Once you subtract rent and food, there is nothing left. Most of the media reports talked about expensive fuel prices, traffic jams and low subsidies. What about the money given to the license holding companies? Why are ordinary people always the victims?” …

Employees of the railway company also held a strike at the Changsha railway station in Hunan province in south-central China on August 2, 2011. The incident is highly sensitive, because the Chinese Communist Party marks a series of railway workers’ strikes in 1922 as an early success of the political movement ….

… A local newspaper, ‘Daily Economic News’ followed the story and said that the strike was triggered by a minor labour dispute over the replacement of several passenger carriage directors at the Zhuzhou Service Division from Guangzhou Railway Corporation. Nevertheless, netizens still noticed the political implications of railway workers in the history of the People’s Republic of China.

See also earlier reports on the Hangzhou taxi drivers’ strike, via CDT

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More than 1,000 taxi drivers in the Chinese tourist city of Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province went on strike on Monday to protest about rising gasoline prices and congested roads, state media reported.

The strike marked the latest protest in China’s transportation industry. Truck drivers at a container port in the financial hub of Shanghai staged a strike in May to highlight accelerating inflation.

In early April, China increased retail diesel and gasoline prices by 5 to 5.5 percent to new record highs.

Local police and traffic regulators in Hangzhou were talking with drivers about their complaints, the official Xinhua news agency said, without elaborating.

Many of the Chinese taxi drivers complain that with little pay and high gas prices, they make barely enough money to survive on. From Financial Times:

In Hangzhou, a large proportion of drivers are migrant workers whose high accommodation charges leave them little to live on. “We are just living on pocket money now,” said one. “We can’t earn anything.”

Drivers complain that the price they pay for petrol has not fallen, despite a drop in the global oil price. They also want to be paid more when stuck in the city’s notoriously congested traffic.

Several dozen police arrived to restore order and, according to state media, speak to the drivers about their grievances. But striking drivers continued to stop all passing taxis. The strike appeared to be spontaneous and disorganised, with no clear leaders.

The Hangzhou government late on Monday offered a RMB 1 per trip temporary compensation fee in a bid to defuse tensions, reflecting the government’s tendency to act quickly to contain unrest.

But most strikers last night reacted with disdain to news of the fare increase, saying it was too small to make a difference. Beijing will watch closely to see whether taxi drivers in other Chinese cities will be emboldened to demand higher fares.

Reports say that taxi drivers in Shanghai are also striking and some estimate that there are as much as 4000 taxi drivers are striking. From the West Australian:

In Hangzhou, drivers parked their cars at several locations in the city, a major tourist centre, while others simply stayed on the road and refused to take passengers, state media and taxi company officials said.

Some media estimates put the number of strikers as high as 4,000 drivers. Police declined to comment.

“We know the strike is going on. We told our drivers not to participate,” an official from the Hangzhou Jingwei Taxi Company, who declined to be named, told AFP.

Hangzhou, known for the scenic West Lake, deployed extra police and closed some roads because of the strike, whose start coincided with the morning rush hour.

Calls circulated anonymously on the Internet for the Hangzhou strike to continue for a total of three days.

In Shanghai, drivers from one of the city’s smaller taxi companies, Fuxin, parked along a major road in a western suburb with signs posted in their windows protesting what they claimed was a lack of retirement benefits, local media reported. The company said it was negotiating with the drivers.

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From the far western industrial county of Yongdeng to the southern resort city of Sanya and the commercial center of Guangzhou, members of China’s upwardly mobile working class — taxi drivers, teachers, factory workers and even auxiliary police officers — have mounted protests since the Chongqing strike, refusing to work until their demands were met.

China’s government has long feared the rise of labor movements, banning unauthorized unions and arresting those who speak out for workers’ rights. The strikes, driven in part by China’s economic downturn, have caught officials off guard.

Rural protests, often led by impoverished farmers angry over land seizures that leave them unable to feed their families, have occurred sporadically over the past decade. But richer, more educated Chinese are behind the recent strikes, which have disrupted life in China’s cities. The success achieved by the drivers in Chongqing has inspired work stoppages elsewhere.

In the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Gilley discusses the prospects for the Communist Party amid the economic downturn and rising social unrest:

What was once double-digit growth is expected by Goldman Sachs to slow to 6% in 2009, while Moody’s Investors Service warns it could fall as low as 5%. The World Bank says Beijing’s planned fiscal and monetary splurges will be insufficient to restart growth unless accompanied by broader social welfare spending. Consumer spending is in freefall and layoffs in the coastal factory belt are surging. Protests are on the rise. In an unusual act reported by the Hong Kong Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, 500 workers of the struggling Sichuan Zigong Textile Factory blocked a highway on December 8 to press the national government to ameliorate their plight. China’s protestors usually take aim at local governments and officials.

This slowdown will reveal whether it is economic growth that has kept the Party in power since Deng’s 1992 “southern tour,” and if so how this has been achieved. On one view, individual incomes have risen and employment prospects for everyone have brightened, so most people have rewarded the Party with supportive attitudes and obedience to the state. But another view says that the booming economy has allowed the Party to buy off only a narrow group of potential opponents with lavish jobs, safe government contracts and pork-barrel projects, while also rebuilding its ability to silence others through better policing and more effective party discipline. This argument sees economic growth as mainly a tool of narrow Party coalition-building rather than broad popular support.

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor also takes a long-term perspective to look at what the CCP faces as it celebrates 30 years of reform:

Millions, possibly tens of millions, of workers are expected to lose their jobs in the coming months. Incidents of social unrest, while still sporadic, are on the rise. Some observers wonder whether the threat to stability might not frighten the government into abandoning the reformist principles that have guided Beijing for three decades.

“This is a country united and driven by economics, not by ideology,” says Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst. “If the economy fails, so do the reasons for reform.”

The ruling Communist Party, rarely shy to trumpet its achievements, was curiously muted in the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the meeting that gave birth to “reform and opening” in December 1978. The only article published by the party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, focused more closely on the policy’s shortcomings – the corruption, weak social services, and widening inequality it has engendered – than on its triumphs.

As part of the Christian Science Monitor coverage, Peter Ford profiled six individuals whose lives have been shaped by 30 years of reform. The articles can be found below:

- Pastor’s private worship puts him under public scrutiny
- Earnings wither in the Chinese countryside
- A Chinese peasant goes to town on capitalism
- A Westerner grows up in China
- Free expression grows in China (just don’t talk politics)
- An entrepreneur agrees: ‘To get rich is glorious’

The CSM also includes a video report.

More on 30 Years of Reform:

- The Guardian has posted a slideshow alternating images of China in 1978 and China now.
- China Media Project translates two articles in the Chinese media about the reforms, one from the liberal journal Yanhuang Chunqiu and a rebuttal to it from the socialist website Utopia.
- “30-year journey from Mao to the market” from the Guardian
- “30 years transform China, but not its politics” from the AP.

Update:
Reuters reports on a “battle” heating up between Party leaders and signatories of Charter 08 to define the country’s future:

Chinese President Hu Jintao told officials on Thursday that Communist Party rule must not waver. But “Charter 08,” a petition campaign launched last week, wants dramatic democratic changes to end decades of uncontested Party control.

There is no doubting the defiant ambition of the fast-growing campaign, said Wang Yi, a law lecturer and rights campaigner who signed its list of 18 demands.

“This marks a shift from the past,” Wang said by phone from his home in Chengdu, in the country’s southwest. “We’re offering not only criticism but also our own quite comprehensive proposal for China’s future … and this includes a whole sweep of people, from former Party officials to dissidents.”

The following video is from Al Jazeera:

Read also: Highlights of President Hu’s Speech At Reform Eulogy Meeting on the People’s Daily.

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The strike started in Chongqing municipality in early November, and taxi drivers in cities including Sanya in Hainan province, Yongdeng in Guizhou province and Shantou and Guangzhou in Guangdong soon followed, protesting high rentals and unfair competition from unlicensed taxis.

It’s not the first time Chinese cabbies have launched a strike. Yet in the past, such cases were sporadic and isolated, going unnoticed by outsiders as the state-controlled media refrained from reporting on protests while the government covered them up.

But this time the authorities have not only allowed the state-run media to freely cover the strikes; they have also acted promptly to hold dialogue with the cabbies, a sign the government might be growing more tolerant of workers’ protests amid growing labor conflicts in an economic downturn.

After a series of riots this year, the government may have learned that crackdowns on protests do not reduce social conflicts. The issue now is how far the government is willing to go along this line.

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About 300 taxi drivers went on strike in a southern Chinese city, smashing cars and demanding a crackdown on unlicensed taxis in the latest protest against illegal taxi competition in China.

Hundreds of cab drivers gathered Saturday in front of government buildings in Chaozhou, a city in Guangdong province, said an official Sunday from the Chaozhou city government who would only give his surname, Chen.

More than 200 taxis were parked in front of the gate of a government office as drivers sought greater enforcement against unlicensed taxis, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chen said police detained seven people suspected of smashing cars belonging to drivers who had refused to participate in the strike.

On the Guangzhou-based Southern Daily, a related report was entitled: “Guangzhou taxi drivers collectively having dim sum, causing city residents difficulties for getting cabs” (广州出租车司机集体喝茶致市民打车难)

(In 2008, Xiamen residents successfully organized demonstrations against a chemical plant project and Chinese media also invented a term for their demonstration: “collectively taking walks.”)

Here is a Guangzhou blogger’s photo account of this event:

[Gallery=5]

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Taxi drivers from around the country have been in strike for a month. The first protest appeared in Chongqin in November 3, then it spread to Hainan, Gansu, Yunnan, Shandong, Qingdao, Jinan, Fujian, Shantou, Wubei, Shaanxi and etc.

Tomorrow (1 of December), it is likely that Guangzhou will have another Taxi driver strike, and a campaign letter has been circulating around. Beifeng scanned the letter and put it up on his blog; chong posted a backup copy at inmediahk.net:

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With a worsening global economy and manufacturing jobs hit hard in China, increasing social unrest is becoming a real concern of Chinese officials. From Reuters:

China has urged local officials to provide citizens with proper outlets to air public grievances to avoid violent unrest as the country faces the prospect of higher unemployment amid a global economic slowdown.

China has been hit by taxi driver strikes, protests by laid-off workers and rioting involving thousands of people in one northwestern city in recent weeks, as export-driven growth slows and companies shed staff.

The incidents have remained isolated and targeted local governments and companies but have prompted security officials to issue warnings to officials to take a light hand when dealing with social issues.

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In Sanya, local police detained 21 people who allegedly became violent during the Monday strike. They reportedly attacked taxi drivers who would not join them in the strike and smashed 15 cabs, a police spokesman told the Xinhua News Agency.

More than 100 cabbies gathered for a second day in front of the city government building, repeating their demands for intervention in issues such as high monthly rental fees and unlicensed cabs, Xinhua said.

[...] In Yongdeng of Gansu province, about 160 taxi drivers agreed to end their strike Tuesday after the county government promised to present a plan within a week to get rid of unlicensed cabs.

The drivers’ representative said there are about 700 illegal cabs, compared with 280 licensed taxis, in the county.

Read also a report in the Economist:

Both in Chongqing and in Sanya, taxi-drivers attacked cars that refused to join the strike. The official press said drivers in Chongqing damaged at least 20 vehicles, including three police cars. In Sanya it reported that 15 cars were attacked, resulting in the arrests of more than 20 people. Since the strike began in Sanya taxi-drivers have been gathering outside the city-government headquarters. By November 11th their numbers had swollen to about 300, according to the state-owned news agency Xinhua. “The government is completely corrupt,” says one of the protesters.

For more on the official media coverage of the taxi strikes and the government’s efforts to use the media to set the agenda of public opinion, see this post from China Media Project.

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When the taxi strike occurred in Chongqing last week, news coverage unfolded as a virtual textbook case in Hu Jintao’s new, more active approach to “guidance of public opinion,” what one top Chinese editor aptly called on a recent visit to Hong Kong, “Control 2.0.”

As we wrote in our analysis of Hu Jintao’s June 2008 media policy speech, the March unrest in Tibet and the May 12 Sichuan earthquake offered party leaders very different lessons about information control.

In the case of Tibet, China sealed off the region, creating a vacuum in which international media took the lead in the agenda setting process. Many leaders felt that these actions had meant that China completely lost control of the agenda.

By contrast, coverage of the Sichuan quake was relatively open, particularly during the early stages, and this enabled China to set the agenda and project a favorable international image.

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Authorities in one of China’s biggest cities vowed on Tuesday to crack down on violence that has marked a rare strike by taxi drivers, and called for an immediate return to work.

Several thousand taxi drivers extended a strike in the urban areas of the southwest Chinese city of Chongqing, home to over five million people, after cabbies smashed taxis Monday that had continued operating.

“If these incidents occur again, the public security organs will adopt a firm attitude and take firm measures,” the website of the official Chongqing Daily quoted an unnamed city official as saying Tuesday.

“We will crack down hard on any illegal activities that impair the normal operations of taxis and we will safeguard the legal rights of operators.”

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Cab drivers in main urban zones of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality stopped work to protest a number of issues in China’s fourth biggest city on Monday.

Members of the public could find no cabs in service during the rush hour, and sources with the city transport authority said the cab drivers were suspected of being on strike.

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Sixteen-year veteran taxi driver, Bai Jiwen is featured in Wang’s film. Get in the backseat of Jiwen’s taxi in this report by Reuter’s reporter, Tara Joseph-Hui:

Also see Reuter’s print report on the documentary.

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