The emergence of middle classes in today’s urban China: will they contribute to democratization in China?

Abstract

A lot of academic as well as journalistic discussions refer to the possibility that urban middle classes, which are the by-products of rapid economic growth, will change Chinese society. These discussions, however, have not produced common understanding of Chinese middle classes. On the contrary, a lot of confusion has been taking place on the definition and the characterization of urban middle classes in China. This paper will illustrate whether or how urban middle classes will bring out political change, or democratization, in Chinese society by using two different datasets, that is, AsiaBarometer 2006 which contains a lot of relevant questions on political orientations and attitudes and Four-city Survey in 1998 and 2006 which tells us chronological changes of urban middle classes during these eight years. These empirical data suggest that urban middle classes in China are very ambivalent in terms of their political orientations and behaviours. They are more interested in securing space for their free speech or economic activities, but their political attitudes are very conservative in the sense that they 1) support technocracy, 2) trust central government, and 3) allow depression of freedom of speech for the sake of maintenance of social stability. Such ambivalence can be fully explained by the fact that urban middle classes are “winners” of market economy. Two scenarios, one optimistic and the other pessimistic, for the future politics in China will be discussed.