Abstract

This paper examines the reasons why peasant migrants in Chinese cities, a long exploited but silent working class, recently started to voice out claims for better protection of their legal rights. As legal consciousness develops among migrant workers, who slowly learn how to mobilize the law in an effort to resist an oppressive system, so does the awareness of the regime's failings and of the need for alternative forms of representation. However, the migrants' attempts to achieve more autonomy have so far been hijacked by the Party_state and hardly give rise to society empowerment. mobilization of the grassroots, how to guide the new civil rights movement towards a nonviolent and legal form of expression; how to limit the negative developments caused by the reform through political reform, protect society’s rights and constrain officials’ rights in order to establish a political system that respects human rights—these are the challenges confronting the Chinese Communist regime if it wants to appease the wrath of the people.