Chan explored the nature of labour relations changing in China by examing a Taiwanese-owned factory in rural China. He concludes that the rapid expansion of capitalism has raised marketplace and workplace power of workers, but that associational power is impeded by the state’s socialist legacy. Because of the rapid integration and growth that China is experiencing, workers are developing more agency as they become more valuable to production. Chan examines how locality, like common workers’ dorms provide space for organization and looks at how local networks of gangsters shifted from ‘dividing and pacifiying’ workers, those informal networks actually emboldened workers during the strike examined in this work.