China’s Supreme Court announced Thursday that the number of labour disputes handled by the country’s courts increased by a further 10.8 percent last year, after nearly doubling in 2008. In total, there were 317,000 labour dispute cases in 2009, Supreme People’s Court President, Wang Shengjun, stated in his work report to the National People’s Congress, compared with just 126,000 such cases in 2006.

Western media coverage of China tends to be dominated by two competing narratives. The first is all about economics. China, it contends, is an epochal success story. The economy is booming and national wealth is on the rise. The Chinese themselves are overwhelmingly satisfied with their lot. There's nowhere to go but up. The second focuses on politics. China is in the grip of communist party dictatorship. People have no democratic rights. Everywhere you turn, there is social turmoil -- seething popular anger over corruption, environmental degradation, illegal land grabs, and summary arrests. Something's got to give. To be sure, both of these interpretations contain grains of truth. But it turns out that there's another way of comprehending the reality of modern-day China -- one that captures the contradictions of the place and allows them to co-exist.

More than a month after 2,000 workers staged a violent demonstration at a Taiwanese electronics plant in Suzhou, China’s pre-eminent television station, CCTV1, investigated the background to the dispute and confirmed workers’ claims that 47 employees had been poisoned by the toxic chemical, hexane, used in the factory to clean touch screen panels for mobile phones.

In a nation known for social stability – with pliant workers willing to labour long hours for little pay – the scene was stunning. Some 2,000 workers milled about the grounds of a local high-tech factory, overturned a vehicle, smashed computers, hurled objects at police trying to restore order, and succeeded in shutting down one of the largest producers of mobile phone panels in the world. By Chinese standards, it was chaotic.

China’s official media has responded to Friday’s violent demonstration at a Taiwan-funded enterprise in Suzhou with calls for local governments and trade unions to better protect workers’ rights, and establish effective channels for dialogue between labour and management.

Han Dongfang talks to a building sub-contractor who knew his contractor had used cheap cement but rather than report the hazard to the authorities, he used the evidence to blackmail the contractor into paying the wages his workers were owed.

As the Chinese economy recovers, an influential magazine calls on the government and trade unions to take concerted measures to alleviate the growing conflict between workers and management. Photo. Onekel

Nearly a quarter of the workforce at a state-owned tobacco plant in Henan have had their wages slashed and their employment contracts “spun off” to an employment agency as part of the enterprise’s restructuring program.

This week, the managing editor of Time Magazine unveiled the final nominees for the famed 'Person of the Year' edition. The list included a number of the usual suspects, including Barack Obama and Ben Bernanke, but the most surprising addition to the list was also the most deserving – 'The Chinese Worker'.