 Chinese Coca-Cola workers strike over asset sale Beijing (AFP) Nov 24, 2016 - Coca-Cola workers in three Chinese cities have gone on strike after the US soft drinks giant announced it was selling its bottling interests in the country. Strikes and other labour protests have surged in recent years in China, where growth is slowing and parts of the economy are moribund. The beverage giant announced last week it was selling all its bottling assets in mainland China to Hong Kong conglomerate Swire Pacific and COFCO Corporation, one of China's state-owned food giants. The Swire transaction would cost 5.87 billion yuan ($850 million), the Hong Kong company said. COFCO did not disclose the size of its deal. Workers at three Coca-Cola plants called coordinated strikes on Monday, with pictures posted online appearing to show workers outside a factory in Chongqing with a banner that read: "We worked hard for over a decade but were sold in less than a second. Compensate! Compensate! Compensate!" Another proclaimed: "Give back my youth, compensate my time". Simultaneous strikes also took place in Chengdu, also in the southwest, and Jilin province in the northeast, other photos on social media showed. One worker told AFP that more than 600 staff went on strike in Chengdu. Separately, workers at a Sony factory in the southern city of Guangzhou have downed tools in protest at the sale of the Sony Electronics Huanan subsidiary, which managed the site, to a Chinese company, the Japanese electronics giant said Thursday. Production at the smartphone camera parts facility, which employs 4,000 people, has been halted for two weeks after Sony announced earlier this month it had been sold to Shenzhen O-Film Tech. Protesters fear working conditions and pay could suffer and are also concerned about possible job cuts. "I have been working for the Japanese group for ten years, with a good level of salary and allowances," Liu, an employee on strike, told AFP. - Labour protests erupt - But she added all that could now change under the ownership of the Chinese firm. "Everyone knows that in its factories, wages are mediocre, there are many layoffs many, and it imposes unpaid overtime," Liu said. Labour protests have erupted in China with economic growth slowing, and closing factories often leaving workers with unpaid wages and no redundancy pay. According to data from Hong Kong-based rights group China Labour Bulletin (CLB), there were 2,774 strikes and labour protests across the country in 2015 -- more than the previous four years put together -- with unpaid wages the most common grievance. Independent trade unions are banned in China, with only the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions legally recognised. But critics say it often fails to assist workers in disputes. Officials pay close attention to unrest that could upset social stability, which the ruling Communist party seeks to maintain. The Coca-Cola bottling plant workers fear that they will lose their jobs or pay under the state-owned employer, one striking employee told AFP. "We are demanding the company disclose details of the refranchising and plans during the transitional period," he said. "We request the company give workers economic compensation before they decide to sign the contract with COFCO." According to posts on social media, police clashed with strikers at the Chongqing factory, with video showing police pushing a cluster of workers in red uniforms and officers photographed subduing a struggling man. Police officials in Chongqing said they had no information on such incidents when contacted by AFP. Similar strikes broke out in 2011 when workers at five Pepsi bottling plants across China protested after the US beverage giant sold its plants in the country to a Japanese-Taiwanese venture.
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China will be handed the opportunity to reshape the rules for global trade and profit from a more isolated US if President-elect Donald Trump carries out his pledge to abandon the landmark TPP pact, observers say.
The likely demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been welcomed by state media in China, where the deal had been criticised as a naked attempt to boost US influence in the region and contain the Asian giant.
The TPP's goal, the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily said in a Thursday commentary, had been "to establish America's economic dominance by excluding and suppressing China with economic containment".
Trump's new course will "see China benefiting most from increased US protectionism", the often nationalist Global Times newspaper said, adding the world's second-largest economy could "pick up the slack" and "lead free trade".
The real estate mogul's insurgent presidential bid was built in part on a pledge to overturn trade deals that he says have drained American jobs and destroyed its industrial heartlands.
He duly promised this week to declare a withdrawal from the TPP -- a vast, arduously negotiated agreement between 12 countries that does not include China -- on his first day in office.
US allies, who spent years selling the TPP to some reluctant electorates in the hope of yoking America closer to several like-minded Pacific democracies, are clearly disappointed.
The pact is the economic plank of Barack Obama's strategic rebalance to Asia, and a US departure would render it "meaningless", said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
- Superpower tussle -
China and the US have jockeyed for influence on the global diplomatic stage in recent years, as Beijing seeks a diplomatic heft to match its growing economic might.
It regularly refers to its relationship with Washington as a "new model of major power relations", implicitly putting itself on an equal footing with the US.
"If the United States walks away from the TPP, it could open the door for China to develop its own Asian free-trade area," analysts with IHS Global Insight said in a note.
Several countries including Australia have already expressed interest in alternative trade deals such as the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
RCEP brings together the 10 members of the Southeast Asian grouping ASEAN plus China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, but notably excludes the US.
China's President Xi Jinping touted deepening trade links on his recent visit to South America.
In the Peruvian capital Lima he called on Asia-Pacific countries to build the larger Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) pushed by Beijing and "continue our involvement in economic globalisation".
- Trade as a weapon -
But China's putative position as a champion of free trade contrasts with domestic restrictions that prevent foreign companies from competing in a variety of sectors, often forcing them to partner with local competitors and share vital technology.
Authorities have also frequently shown their willingness to use trade as a cudgel to punish countries who run afoul of Beijing, de facto banning banana imports from the Philippines during a dispute over the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
The TPP is the product of years of tough negotiations, and the high environmental and labour standards it imposes on members -- unlike RCEP -- meant that many of the governments that signed up had to wage political battles to do so.
There is the clear potential for fallout if the deal fails because of a change of heart by its prime instigator.
Instead, Washington's Asian allies may seek to build a more stable and long-lasting partnership with China, whose governing party has not changed since 1949.
That could give Beijing more sway in both economic and strategic disputes, such as over the resource-rich South China Sea.
Beijing will "press ahead with the economic integration process" in the Asia-Pacific region, foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters Wednesday.
But he denied any ulterior motives. "We should prevent politicising of free trade arrangements, and we hope that all countries can stop reading too much into the free trade arrangements through a geopolitical perspective," he added.
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