Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Marketization, Class Structure, and Democracy in China: Contrasting Regional Experiences

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13510340701303279

1743-890X

Jianjun Zhang,

Chinese history and philosophy

Abstract After two and half decades of market reforms in China, the question of whether reforms have created favourable social conditions for democracy and whether the country's emerging entrepreneurial class will serve as the democratic social base have become hotly debated issues in both academic and policy circles. Based upon an analysis of two regions – Sunan and Wenzhou, the two prototypical local development patterns in China – the article argues that different patterns of economic development have produced distinct local level social and political configurations, only one of which is likely to foster the growth of democratic practices. It suggests that China's political future is largely dependent upon the emerging class structure and class relations that reform and development have produced. If the market reforms and economic development only enrich a few (like the Sunan case), then the possibility of democratic transition will likely be very bleak. Nonetheless, the possibility of a brighter alternative exists, as demonstrated by the Wenzhou case. These arguments thus link China's political transition to critical social conditions, echoing Barrington Moore's influential work on the social origins of democracy and dictatorship. Keywords: marketizationclass structureelite relationsdemocracy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article is a summary of the author's PhD dissertation, Marketization and Democracy in China, Two Regional Experiences, completed in the Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, USA. Research for this project was supported by Institute of East Asian Studies, Institute of International Studies, UCB. Unless otherwise noted, the information presented in this paper was from author's fieldwork in the two regions in 2001 and 2002. Notes 1. For example, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No. 1 (2003), published a series of articles on the topic. 2. For an optimistic view, see Andrew Nathan, ‘Authoritarian Resilience’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No.1 (2003), pp.6–17; Dali Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004). For a pessimistic view, see An Chen, ‘The New Inequality’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 14, No.1 (2003), pp.51–9; Bruce Dickson, Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); David Wank, Commodifying Communism: Business, Trust, and Politics in a Chinese City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 3. Victor Nee, ‘A Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 54, No. 5 (1989), pp.663–81 and his ‘The Emergence of a Market Society’, American Journal Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 4 (1996), pp.908–49. 4. Dickson (note 2). 5. Margaret Pearson, China's New Business Elites: The Political Consequences of Economic Reform (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997); Wank, (note 2). 6. Barrington Moore. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lords and Peasants in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1966). 7. There is another famous development pattern, namely, the Pearl River Delta pattern, characterized by foreign investment. Unlike the Pearl River Delta pattern, the two patterns studied here are not based on foreign investment and the resultant class relations are therefore more locally based. 8. See Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975). 9. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1942). 10. Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne H. Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge and Chicago, IL: Polity Press and University of Chicago Press, 1992). 11. Seymour M. Lipset, ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (1959), pp.69–105. 12. Rueschemeyer et al. (note 10). 13. Wuxi Statistics Yearbook, 2002; Wenzhou Statistics Yearbook, 2002 (Beijing: China Statistics Publishing House, 2002). Dollar equivalents based on official exchange rate US$1 = CNY8.3 (yuan) and not given on a purchasing power parity adjusted basis. 14. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). 15. The former party leader Jiang Zemin made the ‘three represents’ the new doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party (CPP). One of the ‘three represents’ is the direction of advanced productive forces. It is this change that opened institutional space for private entrepreneurs to join the CCP and influence politics more systemically. 16. It is true that Hu Jintao and his new leadership team made a policy shift from a pro-business stance to placing more emphasis on helping the poor and vulnerable. However, such a policy shift can hardly change political practice at the local level, given the inertia of cumbersome bureaucracy and the natural affinity between power and wealth. 17. Rueschemeyer et al. (note 10) also point out that class interest and class behaviour are not universal across countries and over time. 18. C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959): pp. 6–7. 19. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965). 20. Jean Oi, ‘Fiscal Reform and the Economic Foundations of Local state Corporatism in China’, World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 1 (1992): pp.99–126. 21. There is an extensive literature about Wenzhou. For works in English see Peter Nolan and Dong Furen (eds), Market Forces in China: Competition and Small Business–the Wenzhou Debate (London: Zed Books, 1990); Keith Forster, ‘The Wenzhou Model for Economic Development: Impressions’, China Information, Vol.5, No.3 (Winter 1990–1991), pp. 53–64; Ya-Ling Liu, ‘Reform from Below: The Private Economy and Local Politics in the Rural Industrialization of Wenzhou’, The China Quarterly, No. 130 (1992), pp. 293–316; Alan Liu, ‘The “Wenzhou Model” of Development and China's Modernization’, Asian Survey, Vol. 32, No. 8 (1992), pp. 696–711; Kristen Parris, ‘Local Initiative and National Reform: The Wenzhou Model of Development’, The China Quarterly, No. 134 (June 1993), pp. 242–63; Susan Whiting, Power and Wealth in Rural China: the Political Economy of Institutional Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For literature in Chinese see Yuan Enzhen (ed), Wenzhou Moshi Yu Fuyu Zhi Lu (Shanghai: Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1987); Zhang Renshou and Li Hong, Wenzhou Moshi Yanjiu [A Study of Wenzhou Pattern] (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Publishing House, 1990); Shi Jinchuan et al. (eds), Zhidu Bianqian Yu Jingji Fazhan: Wenzhou Moshi Yanjiu [Institutional Change and Economic Development: A Study of the Wenzhou Model] (Beijung: Zhejiang University Press, 2002). 22. Whiting (note 21). 23. Whiting; Yuan Enzhen; Zhang Renshou and Li Hong (all note 21). 24. Sunan was famous even during the socialist period for its commune-brigade enterprises. These enterprises were predecessors of township-village enterprises. See Whiting (note 21) for details. 25. Government involvement in this region has political reasons as well. See Jianjun Zhang, Marketization and Democracy in China: Two Regional Experiences, PhD dissertation, the Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, USA (December 2003). 26. There is a great deal of literature on the TVE ‘miracle’: for a review of explanations see Andrew Walder, ‘Local Government as Industrial Firm: an Organizational Analysis of China's transitional economy’, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 2 (1995), pp. 263–301. 27. By local governments, the author means mainly township and village government – sometimes also called community government. 28. William Byrd and Lin Qingsong (eds), China's Rural Industry: Structure, Development and Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Hongyi Chen, The Institutional Transition of China's Township and Village Enterprises (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000). 29. Hongyi Chen (note 28). 30. For the reasons for privatization, see Hongbin Li and Scott Rozelle, ‘Privatizing Rural China: Insider Privatization, Innovative Contracts and the Performance of Township Enterprises’, The China Quarterly, No. 176 (2003), pp. 981–1005; Samuel Ho, Paul Bowles, and Xiaoyuan Dong, ‘Letting Go of the Small: An Analysis of the Privatization of Rural Enterprises in Shandong and Jiangsu’, UBC Institute of Asian Research, Center for Chinese Research, Working Paper 00-02, Vancouver, BC; Albert Park & Minggao Shen, ‘Liability Lending and the Rise and fall of China's Township and Village Enterprises’, Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 71, No. 2 (2003), pp.497–531; Jianjun Zhang ‘State Power, Elite Relations and Privatization of Chinese Rural Industry’, Sociological Research, No. 5 (2005), pp.92–124. 31. Zhang (note 30). 32. Wuxi Statistics Yearbook, 2000; Wenzhou Statistics Yearbook, 2001 (Beijing: Zhongguo Tongji Chubanshe, 2001). 33. Alan Liu, ‘The ‘Wenzhou Model’ of Development and China's Modernization', Asian Survey, Vol. 32, No. 8 (1992), pp 696–711. 34. Kate Xiao Zhou, How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996). 35. Wenzhou Statistics Yearbook, 2001. 36. Xin Wang, ‘What kind of new Sunan should we expect?’, http://www.china-review.com/fwsq/homepages.asp? 37. Workers in Wenzhou are mainly migrants from interior areas. While there are about 1.6 million Wenzhou people going all over the country to do business, almost the same number of people come to Wenzhou as workers. 38. Jianjun Zhang, ‘Development Patterns and Economic Equality’, American Sociological Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 2003. 39. Hu Hongwei and Wu Xiaobo, Wenzhou Xuannian [Wenzhou Puzzle] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang People's Press, 2002). 40. Ibid. 41. Interview with the secretary of the association in 2001. 42. Interview in Wenzhou in 2001. 43. Olson (note 19). 44. Wank (note 2). 45. The population in China's interior are mostly farmers. A combination of low income and high taxation often sparks intense conflict between farmers and local government. See Kevin O'Brien and Lianjiang Li, ‘Collective Action in the Chinese Countryside’, China Journal, No. 48 (July 2002), pp. 139–54. 46. For a more detailed study of business associations in the two regions, see Jianjun Zhang, ‘Business Associations in China: Two Regional Experiences’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, forthcoming. 47. For definitions of semi-official and nongovernmental organizations, see Gordon White, ‘The Prospects for Civil Society in China: A Case Study of Xiaoshan City’, The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 29 (January 1993), pp.63–7. 48. Chen Shengyong, Wang Jinjun, Ma Bin, Zuzhihua, Zhizhu Zhili yu Minzhu [Organizing, Self-governance and Democracy] (Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press, 2004). 49. Ibid., p.142. 50. Ibid., p.150. 51. The main reason for this is that China does not have the rule of law and village elections are still not mature 52. David Goodman has emphasized the idea in several books on centre–local relations, such as his Centre and Province in the People's Republic of China: Sichuan and Guizhou, 1955-1965 (Cambridge University Press, 1986). 53. Thomas Rawski, ‘Implications of China's Reform Experience,’ China Quarterly, No. 144 (December 1995), p.1152. 54. Kevin O'Brien, ‘Implementing Political Reform in China's Villages,’ Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, No. 32 (July 1994): pp. 33–59. O'Brien points out that the original intention of top leaders to introduce village elections in the countryside was to deal with the problems created by decollectivization: after decollectivization, village administration had become weak and even paralyzed in some places.