Workers' unrest In May 2018, Yu Juncong, a 25-year-old worker born in
Jiangxi province, was dismissed. Several workers at the Jasic Technology factory in Shenzhen – citing the dismissal of Yu, poor working conditions, illegal mandatory overtime work, and excessive fines – attempted to form a
labour union for the factory. When the workers issued their petition to the
All-China Federation of Trade Unions and got swiftly rejected, the workers began to form a union anyway. However, the company took a common anti-union position, and in June the managers of the Jasic company called for an Assembly of Employee Representatives to replace the workers' self-organized union. Leading workers of the union soon became the target of management's slander and defamation, accompanied by threats, insults and job redistribution. On 27 July, more than 30 workers and supporters involved in the labour dispute were detained again for "
picking quarrels and provoking troubles" while attempting to return to work, including significant members of the labour organization.
Formation and engagement of solidarity groups University students began to take notice on 27 July, when police violently arrested nearly 30 workers and sympathizers. One day later, Wu Jingtang, who had been a leader during the
Tonghua Iron and Steel Group riot ten years ago, called for joining the struggle: "For an awakening of the working class, for Chairman Mao!" Chinese Maoists and
New Leftists, notably editors of
Maoflag and
Utopia, began to show support for the Jasic workers. According to a post related to the call and a report from
Voice of America, about 1,100 people joined solidarity groups formed by the Utopia. On 29 July,
Peking University Foreign Language Institute student
Yue Xin and other activists published
The Peking University Students on the "7-27 Worker Arrest in Shenzhen": the Letter of Solidarity, roughly thirty students and alumni of
Tsinghua University signed
The Letter of Solidarity: To Release the Detained Workers and the Masses Immediately, and other solidarity letters appeared on the Internet. They asked the Shenzhen police to release the arrested workers immediately and to explain and apologize for the relevant arrests. The letter of solidarity was deleted in less than three hours, by which time it already had tens of thousands of readings. In addition, the open letter issued by some activists received two thousand likes in support, mainly from mainland universities. In late July, former workers at the company allegedly took
direct action against the Shenzhen plant, breaking into the factory and attempting to disrupt production by sabotage. On Monday, 6 August 2018, a reported 80 supporters took part in a demonstration in front of the Yanziling police station. Among them were forty registered members of the
Chinese Communist Party and retirees. The rally was largely organized through the popular leftist and Maoist online forum website Utopia. The protesters carried banners that read "Old Jiangxi old workers and old cadres support the workers and their supporters." Zhang Qinde, a retiree from the CCP's
Central Policy Research Office and a Maoist intellectual, gave an unrehearsed speech, saying that "We must stand with the working classes and advance and retreat with the Jasic workers. We must see this struggle through till the end!" On 11 August, Shen Mengyu, a graduate student from
Sun Yat-sen University, was bundled into a car by three unidentified men and had since been missing. Students around Shen reported the abduction to the police, who doubted their story and told them that the video cameras in the area where the incident occurred were broken. On 19 August,
Peking University Yue Xin published an open letter to
paramount leader and
General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping reading, On behalf of all members of the Solidarity Regiment, I said to the Party Central Committee and General Secretary Xi Jinping that all members of the Solidarity and I will strengthen political consciousness, strengthen the beliefs of Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and firmly stand on the position of the great working class. We will resolutely safeguard China's socialist and people's democratic dictatorship. We will continue to fight until all the arrested workers are acquitted before the local evil forces are not investigated, and before the basic rights and legal status of the workers are guaranteed! Neither Xi Jinping or any representative replied or acknowledged the letter.
Mass arrest On the morning of 24 August 2018, police raided an apartment that served as a location for workers and students to organize, detaining about 50 people, who were singing ''
L'Internationale at the time of being arrested. In the days that followed, the police went on raids throughout the country, arresting a number of students and workers. The New York Times'' reports that twelve student activists were missing according to family and relatives. According to relatives, the activists were abducted from
Beijing,
Guangzhou,
Shanghai, Shenzhen and
Wuhan. According to some witnesses the activists were beaten. On 9 September 2018, ten workers and students went to
Shaoshan and paid homage to
Mao Zedong. They pulled up a banner at the bronze statue square and laid flowers for the bronze statue of Mao Zedong, singing ''
L'Internationale'' before being arrested by local police. Throughout November, a dozen activists were detained, including two officials from the
All-China Federation of Trade Unions who, according to workers, had helped them form a union. On 26 December,
Qiu Zhanxuan was taken away by police before he went to attend the 125th anniversary of Mao's birth in Beijing. The following day, the
Peking University Marxist Society was forcibly "restructured", and Qiu, as president, said that none of the new staffs from the restructured Society were previous members of the group. Similar to the case of Peking University,
Beijing Language and Culture University,
Nanjing University and
Renmin University of China also began to reorganize or close down their left-wing students associations. Students launched months-long demonstrations, which came to be known as the "Defensive War" for the student associations. Several organizers and student activists remained missing, including
Yue Xin and Zhang Shengye. == Reactions ==