Abstract
This research addresses a challenging issue, employment protection in China, including unemployment insurance, work accident insurance and the concept of co-determination. Although the ideology of Sino-communism seems to share some elective affinity with the comprehensive arrangements of labor protection in modern welfare capitalism, in reality, the mainstream economic elites of post-Mao China enthusiastically embraced neoliberal ideology in the 1980s and 1990s, maintaining a critical attitude towards employment protection policies through the lens of economic efficiency and productivity. However, since the millennium, the ruling elites of China have started to promote a certain version of an inclusive and social market economy, and Western ideas and discourses on employment protection have become prevalent. This paper outlines the institutional reforms, dynamics, mechanisms and constraints in the development of employment protection arrangements in China since the millennium. Further, emphasis is placed on the ideational level, with a special focus on domestic discussions, debates, discourses and interpretations of “co-determination” from several major Western nations including Germany, the Nordic countries, the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan. Through the academic “barometer,” the future development of employment protection in China is discussed.
Highlights
Since the reform and opening up period, China has continued to integrate market mechanisms into its economic system, eventually incorporating the concept of a “socialist market economy” into the reform target in the 14th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1992 [1]
Liu and ten Brink [18] have elaborated how disparate welfare ideas from different social assistance programs in the Western world have been transferred to and perceived by Chinese scholars and officials; these “alien” ideas have been creatively combined and synthesized by Chinese recipients [18]. These studies have shown that domestic perceptions of Western ideas and concepts in the domain of social and labor protection have played a significant role in the socio-economic modernization of China
This research has reconstructed the autonomous sphere of employment protection characterized by limited progressive developments
Summary
Since the reform and opening up period, China has continued to integrate market mechanisms into its economic system, eventually incorporating the concept of a “socialist market economy” into the reform target in the 14th national congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1992 [1]. Liu and ten Brink [18] have elaborated how disparate welfare ideas from different social assistance programs in the Western world have been transferred to and perceived by Chinese scholars and officials; these “alien” ideas have been creatively combined and synthesized by Chinese recipients [18] These studies have shown that domestic perceptions of Western ideas and concepts in the domain of social and labor protection have played a significant role in the socio-economic modernization of China. Beyond the uneven and sometimes contradictory developments in the field of employment protection and labor rights, ideas, models and values on “co-determination,” “collective negotiation” and “social partnership” from Western welfare states have been broadly circulated, reflected and perceived by Chinese elites and experts in this field. The wide diffusion of social semantics may have a latent and hidden effect on the internal change of societal structures over the long term
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