Editor’s Note:
We launched the Season Two of the Continent of Resistance Podcast at the beginning of 2025. We were sparked by a curiosity as to why a number of countries in Asia experienced simultaneous strike waves in the late 2000s and early 2010s. We wanted to understand what triggered these strike waves, and what lessons can be drawn for future labour organising. As well as listening to the podcast, we have now produced an edited and shortened text version of episodes in six parts. This Introduction sets the scene for our subsequent discussions — Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn & Kevin Lin.
*For the podcast series, we would like to thank Bayley Boecker for editing the series and voicing the episode introductions; and, Dennis Arnold and Abu Mufakir for sharing their insights about Cambodia and Indonesia respectively.
Kevin Lin (“Kevin”): It’s useful to start with why we want to focus on Asia’s “striking decade”. What motivates us? Why are we covering Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Cambodia? And why are we looking at this particular period? One of the motivating questions began with curiosity about why there were seemingly so many strikes across many different countries in Asia between the late 2000s and early 2010s. Within a four or five-year period, we see strike waves across several countries.
I became curious after talking to people from different countries in Asia. They discuss the strikes that occurred a decade ago and what happened afterwards. There’s a sense of trying to come to terms with what happened to situate ourselves better in this moment. It’s a low point in the labour movement in Asia in terms of worker militancy. But it seems that there was a high point of working militancy around a decade ago. I was asking around, and I think I asked you and several other people who have been writing about East and Southeast Asia why that was the case. If there’s no coordination across borders, what factors contribute to this phenomenon? I did not get a satisfactory answer, so I thought: why don’t we spend some time figuring this out ourselves?
Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn (“Kiang”): Part of my intention is also to try to deconstruct the idea of strike. People talk so much about strikes these days, but how people talk about strikes is broad. They often refer to strikes as the ultimate weapons. I wanted to go back in time and examine what had happened. How did it happen, and what would be the impacts of the strike, especially on the internal strength of the movements? I think that it’s productive for us to think about it to realise that there are other tactics and strategies involved, and maybe even though we’re not in the position to strike, there are other things that maybe we could do. And, what would be the consideration that we have to take into account in terms of preparing for it?
Kevin: I think I have always been mesmerised by strikes because that’s often taken as a demonstration of worker power. If they can organise a strike, it means that there’s a particular level of organisation and a certain degree of class consciousness. But I think part of the reflection that we are doing in this series is that you could have a lot of strikes, but you don’t always get the outcomes that you may expect. I think that the question for me is also why, despite all the strikes, workers are not winning politically or gaining more power. I do not want to overlook the real victories. However, the outcomes certainly fall short of many people’s expectations. But we should explain why we chose Vietnam, China, Indonesia and Cambodia.
Kiang: One of the most obvious reasons that I chose Indonesia and Cambodia is that we saw these general strikes in Indonesia and Cambodia in the early 2010s: Cambodia in 2013 and Indonesia in 2012. These general strikes are well documented by activists and organisers in their own countries. We have the necessary materials, and we know who to contact regarding these countries. I was considering Myanmar as well.
Kevin: For me, the reason I focused on Vietnam and China is that I’m more familiar with those two countries because of my background in Chinese labour. There has been a lot of comparison between China and Vietnam in terms of their political institutions and labour movements. In both Vietnam and China, they did not democratise. They still have one political party in power. They still have only one government-controlled trade union federation and no independent trade union movement. So, under those kinds of conditions, what are the possibilities for workers’ struggles? We see quite a lot of wildcat strikes in both countries, so I thought that these offer interesting cases to look at.
Kiang: I think each of these countries could offer an ideal type or a prototype of the differences of countries in different situations. In Cambodia, the relationship between political parties and the labour movement differs from that in Indonesia, particularly in terms of the democratisation process. I think we saw many similarities, as well as differences, between these countries in terms of their structures and institutions. It would help us think about why workers in this context decided to or were able to do what they did at the time.
Read Part 2:
Asia’s Striking Decade: Integration into Global Capitalism and Making of Working Class (1990s-2000s)
