Carworkers in southern Guangdong province warned the world last year it could not take cheap Chinese labour for granted any more by successfully agitating for higher wages in a series of industrial actions. Shanghai truckers reinforced that message with a strike of their own last week.

　　中国广东省的汽车制造工人去年通过一系列罢工行动，成功实现了加薪，由此向全世界发出警告，不能再认为中国劳动力廉价是理所当然的。上海的货车司机们上周通过罢工行动，再次强化了这一信号。

　　The Chinese government is always wary of workers who possess the wherewithal to organise independent industrial action outside the auspices of the country’s only sanctioned union, the All China Federation of Trade Unions. But Shanghai’s truckers undoubtedly frighten Beijing more.

　　中华全国总工会(All China Federation of Trade Unions)是中国唯一一家得到政府认可的工会组织，对于有能力在全国总工会之外发起独立罢工行动的工人，中国政府一直较为警惕。但上海的货车司机无疑让政府更为紧张。

　　The adage in western democracies that “all politics is local” has a parallel in authoritarian China, where almost all social unrest is local too. Dozens if not hundreds of small-scale protests, typically labour or land-related, flare every day.

　　西方民主国家的格言——“所有的政治都是地方的”——也适用于威权体制的中国。在中国，几乎所有的社会动荡也都是地方上的，每天都会发生数十起乃至数百起小规模示威，通常都与劳工或土地问题有关。

　　For all the attention they commanded, the Guangdong strikes were in keeping with this pattern. Each concerned pay and conditions on the factory floor and they were resolved on the factory floor. The ire was directed at management, most notably at factories run by Honda and other Japanese carmakers.

　　引起广泛关注的广东工人的罢工就属于这种模式：每起罢工涉及的都是工资和工作条件，也都在工厂内部得到了解决。工人的愤怒指向了管理层，特别是在本田(Honda)等日本汽车制造商经营的工厂里。

　　Shanghai’s truckers latched on to something larger that, from the Chinese government’s perspective, made their strike potentially more dangerous. They were more explicit about their impatience with inflation in the form of the rising port fees and fuel costs that are eroding their ability to make a living. As one trucker told the FT: “This truck is all I have to support my wife and kid.”

　　上海货车司机们的诉求更大，这使得他们的罢工在中国政府眼中可能也更危险。司机们明确表现出对通胀正在失去耐心，港口费用和燃料成本的不断上涨侵蚀了他们的谋生能力。一位卡车司机对英国《金融时报》说：“我全靠这辆卡车养活老婆孩子。”

　　Port fees can be blamed on port operators, even if they are state-owned, and at the weekend the Shanghai Transport and Port Authority announced a reduction or cancellation of various charges. In doing so the authority did not mention the strikes, saying only that the fee cuts were aimed at “easing rising inflation and cost pressures on transport companies”. It also lowered the monthly fee taxi drivers must pay for their vehicle, in a canny effort to prevent the port protests on the city’s outskirts from spreading into Shanghai proper.

　　政府可以将港口费用上涨归咎于港口运营商，即便他们是国有企业。周末，上海市交通港口局(Shanghai Transport and Port Authority)宣布降低或取消多个收费项目。官方在宣布减免收费时并没有提到罢工，只是说降低费用旨在“缓解物价和费用上涨对运输企业经营的压力”。有关政府部门还降低了出租车司机每月缴纳的份子钱。此举颇为聪明，是为了防止发生在港口的示威活动从市郊蔓延到整个上海。

　　If only Beijing could fix inflation as readily as it fixes fees. Interest rate increases and other measures aimed at reining in price rises have thus far failed to have their intended effect, with inflation hitting a 32-month high of 5.4 per cent last month. As Wen Jiabao, China’s premier, put it recently, the government is discovering that inflation is a tiger that “once set free is very difficult to put back in its cage”.

　　中国政府若是能像解决收费问题那样轻易解决通胀问题就好了。旨在遏制物价上涨的加息及其他措施，迄今都未达到预期效果，上个月通胀率达到5.4%的32个月高点。正如中国总理温家宝最近所说，政府发现，通胀就像老虎，“如果放出来就很难再关进去”。

　　The government will have gotten off lightly should this weekend’s fee reductions prove enough to send Shanghai’s truckers home, especially if they disperse before drivers in other cities cotton on to their example. As with last year’s Honda strikes, censors have imposed a strict media blackout to prevent exactly that.

　　如果周末减免费用的举措足以让上海的货车司机们重返岗位，尤其是能让他们在其他城市的司机们开始效仿之前就自行解散，那么政府就躲过了麻烦。与去年本田在华企业发生罢工时一样，审查机关严格封锁了媒体报道，就是为了避免罢工蔓延。

　　While the authorities can do little to prevent vertical explosions of local discontent – think of thousands of little volcanoes erupting all over the country – they are ruthless when it comes to eradicating any horizontal linkages that might give rise to larger co-ordinated movements. Hence the brutality they unleashed on the highly networked Falungong cult a decade ago, and more recently their over-reaction to the anonymous internet pleas for “jasmine” protests inspired by this year’s Arab spring.

　　尽管政府部门几乎无法阻止本地不满情绪的纵向爆发——可以想像数以千计的小火山正在全国各处喷发，但他们不遗余力地消除横向联系，以免出现更大规模的协同运动。十年前，政府强硬打压了组织严密的法轮功邪教。最近，面对“阿拉伯之春”启发下中国网络上匿名发起的“茉莉花”示威号召，政府也有些反应过度。

　　As for the truckers’ concern about the rising price of diesel, increasing China’s already generous fuel subsidy would be too costly and humiliating a concession for such a localised disturbance. Beijing sets fuel prices and has raised them twice already this year.

　　对于货车司机对柴油价格不断上涨的担忧，中国政府若提高本已相当慷慨的燃料补贴，成本未免太过高昂，而且对于这样一场地方性的骚乱作出让步，也会令政府难堪。中国的燃料价格由政府制定，而中国政府今年已两次上调油价。

　　Yet Chinese truckers still pay just $1.05 per litre of diesel fuel – 35.1 percent below the international market price – and the government fears the financial consequences of this year’s oil price surge. Minggao Shen, a China equity analyst at Citibank, has estimated that $150 a barrel oil would cost the government $66bn annually in subsidies.

　　不过，中国的货车司机每升柴油仍只需支付1.05美元的价格，比国际市场低35.1%，政府也在担心今年油价飙升可能带来的财政后果。花旗银行(Citibank)中国股市分析师沈明高估计，国际油价达到每桶150美元时，中国政府每年的补贴成本将达到660亿美元。

　　But even if Shanghai’s truckers fade away quietly this time, they have already proved that one of the government’s worst fears was not misplaced – inflation can and will continue to inspire protests and social unrest. Another long, hot summer is just beginning on the Chinese mainland.

　　即使这一次上海货车司机们悄然淡出人们的视野，但他们至少已经证明，政府最大的担忧并非多虑：通胀可能（也将会）继续引发抗议和社会动荡。中国内地又一个漫长炎热的夏季才刚刚开始。