the other, such accusations are often used as a public relations pretext for smashing up existing networks and giving authorities carte blanche to conduct wide-ranging campaigns against networks that the state considers threatening or troublesome.

Last year, police leveled accusations of intervention by “foreign forces” at a completely homegrown networks of Maoists connected to the Jasic affair. State media agency Xinhua targeted the Hong Kong-based organization Worker Empowerment for funding a mainland NGO that allegedly supported the workers, a claim that Worker Empowerment denied. This charge, however, quickly faded into the background as more than a hundred workers, students and other leftists were arrested on other charges throughout the year since summer 2018, with over fifty still in custody and at least ten more arrested as late as Julygroup of workers suffering from silicosis arrived in Shenzhen from three counties in Hunan – Sangzhi, Leiyang, and Miluo. After having seen various government departments repeatedly shift responsibility, the arrests of several petitioners by riot police, and long meetings convened by various officials, the Shenzhen city government has still failed to respond to the petitioners’ appeals. All of these workers were drillers in Shenzhen in the past, and contracted silicosis, an eventually fatal occupational disease, as a result of this work.

Early in 2018, the suffering workers came to Shenzhen to fight for their rights. However, before the ink from the 170 workers’ thumbprints on the official petition had dried, the leadership of the local complaints office arrived to urge the workers to return to their homes. As the