Speaker: Selda Altan, Assistant Professor of History, Randolph College

This talk explores labor conflicts during the construction of the French railway between China and Vietnam (1898–1910) as an episode in the emergence of Chinese workers as a global working class. Drawing on Chinese, French, and English sources, the discussion reveals how inter-colonial competition for cheap labor and the global circulation of anti-Chinese discourses shaped labor market dynamics in China. These developments set the stage for labor to emerge as a radical force in Chinese politics.