Editorial – Precarity, Platforms, and Agency: The Multiplication of Chinese Labour

“I want my blood and sweat money back” (Wo yao wode xuehan qian 我要我的血汗錢): these are the words of Liu Jin 劉進, a 47-year-old delivery rider who worked for Ele.me, Alibaba’s food-delivery platform, when he set himself on fire in early January 2021. This tragic event, which sparked heated discussions on the Chinese social media, was preceded by the death of a 22-year-old employee at Pinduoduo, another e-commerce company claiming more than 700 million users in China. As the company announced it wo...