Social decentralization: exploring the competitive solidarity of regional social protection in China

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article elaborates on the theoretical issues related to the decentralization of social provision within China’s reform contexts. The major contention is that, due to the specific Chinese style of central–local relations, social decentralization has set in motion a set of complex interactions between central and local governments, and among the regions with regard to economic competition and social integration. Three different but interrelated modes of territorial politics in social protection are discussed. These are (1) social dumping, in which regions compete to attract inward investments or subsidies from above at the expense of distributional objectives; (2) regional protectionism, in which well-off localities tend to erect administrative barriers to prevent “welfare migration” from other regions; and (3) intricate central coordination of local implementation that renders social policy development even more regionalized, with only the least common denominator (i.e. minimum benefit levels set in major social programmes) applicable across the country while supplementary benefits remain variegated across the regions. In all three cases, regional inequality and interregional redistribution have risen to significance in Chinese social politics as enormous regional variation in the provision of public goods and services persists. These developments of social decentralization have important implications for understanding the social governance and future direction of social policy in China.