Post-reform China Research Articles

Preserving spontaneous order: A normative reflection of community building in post-reform China

How and to what extent can community be imaged as a spontaneous order? Is the spontaneous social order dichotomous or oppositional to state power? Despite vigorous scholarship and policy debate, the theorization of the community has not attended adequately to the ways in which interactional order emerges in various sociopolitical contexts. Reflecting the experience of community building in post-reform urban China, I present an organic statist vision of community, in which community is found to be the concomitant outgrowth of both state intervention and the spontaneous process of place-based identity mobilization. An expanded conception of community as embedded spontaneous order as well as its implication is also discussed.

From Political Power to Personal Wealth: Privatization and Elite Opportunity in Post-Reform China

ABSTRACT The impact of market transition on economic returns to political power in post-socialist regimes has been the topic of heated debate in past decades. This article aims to provide new answers to this old question by examining how the economic opportunities available to former political elites have been shaped by the process of privatization. Based on firm-level data from a nationally representative survey on private enterprises and entrepreneurs, the authors show that former political elites have actively pursued new opportunities in the growing private sector either by acquiring privatized firms or by establishing their own ones. The extent to which they could convert their political power into personal wealth was contingent upon how the privatization process was structured and regulated in a local context.

Governing homeowner associations in China’s gated communities: the extension of state infrastructural power and its uneven reach

ABSTRACT Homeowner associations (HOAs), the emergent neighborhood-based organizations, spawn new modes of neighborhood governance in post-reform China, meanwhile are profoundly influenced by state power. Aiming to unpack the complexity and hybridity of neighborhood governance, this research presents a detailed examination of how the local state exerts institutionalized control over HOAs through three critical mechanisms of infrastructural power: (1) the establishment of regulatory institutions to formalize the state influence on HOAs; (2) the enforcement of registration projects to make HOAs legible and governable; (3) the cultivation of clientelist ties with participants of HOAs. The uneven state reach owing to fragmentally organized local authorities is purposively designed to facilitate political control on urban neighborhoods. This study enriches Mann’s conceptual framework of infrastructural power through the scrutiny of fragmented state apparatus, and renews our understanding of the dynamic state–society interactions at the conjuncture of economic liberation and political domination in post-reform China.

'You are not Young Anymore!': Gender, Age and the Politics of Reproduction in Post-reform China.

Based on in-depth interview data and popular culture texts, the current study has explored the politics of reproduction revolving around women's age in contemporary China. Conceptualizing reproduction as a site of contestation and politics between different, and often contradictory, sets of discourses and power structures, I pursue a feminist and social constructivist analysis of the politics of reproduction in the lives of a group of urban professional women who are yet to enter motherhood at their late 20s and 30s. I engage with Inhorn's (2009) concept of 'disrupted reproduction' to highlight the politically, morally and emotionally charged contestations in the 'problematized' reproductive lives of these women. I unveil how Chinese professional women beyond their 'reproductive prime' are discursively constructed as 'disrupters', who fail their femininity test tied to a motherhood identity within the family context, challenge the 'natural' biological law regulating their reproductive bodies, and face a doomed reproductive future fraught with medical, physical and emotional traumas which ART cannot alleviate. Such a discourse renders invisible the structural causes of problems and challenges professional women face in negotiating parenthood, social norms and selfhood, which systematically put them under pervasive social surveillance and discipline.

Is that Really a Kuznets Curve? Turning Points for Income Inequality in China

The path of income inequality in post-reform China has been widely interpreted as “China’s Kuznets curve.” We show that the Kuznets growth model of structural transformation in a dual economy, alongside population urbanization, has little explanatory power for our new series of inequality measures back to 1981. Our simulations tracking the partial “Kuznets derivative” of inequality with respect to urban population share yield virtually no Kuznets curve. More plausible explanations for the inequality turning points relate to determinants of the gap between urban and rural mean incomes, including multiple agrarian policy reforms. Our findings warn against any presumption that the Kuznets process will assure that China has passed its time of rising inequality. More generally, our findings cast doubt on past arguments that economic growth through structural transformation in poor countries is necessarily inequality increasing, or that a turning point will eventually be reached after which that growth will be inequality decreasing.

What is beyond the edges? Gated communities and their role in China\u2019s desire for harmonious cities

During the rapid process of urbanization in post-reform China, cities assumed the role of a catalyst for economic growth and quantitative construction. In this context, territorially bounded and well delimited urban cells, globally known as ‘gated communities’, xiaoqu, continued to define the very essence of Chinese cities becoming the most attractive urban form for city planners, real estate developers, and citizens alike. Considering the guidelines in China’s National New Urbanization Plan (2014–2020), focusing on the promotion of humanistic and harmonious cities, in addition to the directive of 2016 by China’s Central Urban Work Conference to open up the gates and ban the construction of new enclosed residential compounds, this paper raises the following questions: As the matrix of the Chinese urban fabric, what would be the role of the gated communities in China’s desire for a human-qualitative urbanism? And How to rethink the gated communities to meet the new urban challenges? Seeking alternative perspectives, this paper looks at the gated communities beyond the apparent limits they seem to represent, considering them not simply as the ‘cancer’ of Chinese cities, rather the container of the primary ingredients to reshape the urban fabric dominated by the gate.

Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

This article introduces the concept and practice of qujing as a Chinese state-organized form of policy mobility. The term qujing originates in the journey of a Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang who brought Buddhism’s sutras from India to China in the 7th century; qujing has been appropriated by modern Chinese leaders to promote learning from the experiences of other regions. In post-reform China, qujing has become routinized within the Chinese bureaucracy as an integral step in its distinctive experimentalist governance. By bringing insights from the literature of China’s policy experimentation to situate trans-local learning, I challenge the disproportionate attention the policy mobility literature has paid to local and transnational actors in mobilizing policies under neoliberalism. Instead, I locate the origins, agency, and knowledge mutation of Chinese qujing within the multi-scalar policy experimentation protocols of China’s authoritarian regime. This article contrasts qujing with generalized patterns of policy mobility in the existing literature, thereby decentering political mobility research from more familiar western political contexts and actors. Using multi-year interviews and official documents, I trace China’s introduction of ultralow-energy passive building from Germany as a case-study to show the relationships between foreign learning ( qujing), local experimentation, and policy making in greening China’s built environment.

Intimate Partner Violence Victimization and Depressive Symptoms in Sichuan, China: Are There Gender Variations?

An emerging body of research has linked intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization with negative mental health outcomes among women in postreform China. However, limited scholarly attention has been given to the independent effects of multiple types of IPV victimization on depressive symptoms among men and women. Little is known if these independent effects will vary by gender in China where research on the association between IPV victimization and mental health did not emerge until fairly recently. Given this research paucity, this study aims to (a) examine the independent effects of different types of lifetime IPV victimization among married men and women in Sichuan province on their self-reported past 30-day depressive symptoms and (b) explore possible gender variations in these effects. The data utilized in this study came from a subsample of married men (N = 1,083) and women (N = 1,185) from the Third Survey of Chinese Women's Social Status 2010, a representative sample of adults aged 18 to 64 in Sichuan province. Statistical analyses indicate that all types of lifetime IPV victimization are significantly and positively associated with past 30-day depressive symptoms for women, whereas for men lifetime experiences of general controlling behavior and sexual IPV were not statistically associated with depressive symptoms. Moreover, the effects of multiple types of IPV victimization on depressive symptoms do not significantly vary by gender. Bearing this gender-neutral pattern in mind, health professionals, governmental officials, and researchers are strongly encouraged to focus on both married men and women in their IPV and mental health intervention, prevention, and treatment endeavors in postreform China.

Class Status and Social Mobility on Tobacco Smoking in Post-Reform China Between 1991 and 2011.

There is growing attention to social mobility's impact on tobacco use, but few studies have differentiated the two conceptually distinct mechanisms through which changes in social class can affect tobacco smoking: the class status effect and the mobility effect. I applied Diagonal Reference Modeling to smoking and heavy smoking among respondents of the 1991 China Health and Nutrition Survey who were revisited two decades later in 2011 (n = 3841, 49% male, baseline mean age was 38 years). I divided the sample into six social classes (non-employment, self-employed, owners, workers, farmers, and retirees) and measured social mobility by changes in income and occupational prestige. About 61.7% of men were smokers and those from the classes of workers, owners, and self-employees consumed more cigarettes compared to the unemployed, but women smokers (3.7%) tend to be from the lower classes (unemployed and farmers). Controlling for social class, each 1000 Yuan increase in annual income led to smoking 0.03 more cigarettes (p < .05) and 1% increase (p < .05) in the likelihood of heavy smoking among men, but the income effect is null for women. Upwardly mobile men (a 10-points surge in occupational prestige) smoked like their destination class (weight = 78%), whereas men with downward mobility were more similar to peers in the original class (weight = 60%). Contrary to the social gradient in smoking in other industrial countries, higher class status and upward mobility are each associated with more smoking among Chinese men, but not among women. Tobacco control policies should prioritize male smoking at workplaces and the instrumental purposes of using tobacco as gifts and social lubricant. Taxation may counter the surge in smoking brought by individuals' income increase after upward mobility. Caution should be paid to women joining the similar social gradient in smoking as they gain foothold in the labor market.

The only-child premium and moderation by social origin: Educational stratification in post-reform China

The One Child Policy initiated in the late 1970s created a birth cohort with an unusually high proportion of only children. This paper examines the relationship between being the only child in the family and educational attainment, as well as its potential variations by social origin. Drawing my sample from the China Family Panel Studies, I compare two birth cohorts born before and after the birth-control policy. Results show that in the younger cohort, being the only child in the family produces a premium in educational outcomes, including years of completed schooling and odds of progressing through critical grade transitions. In addition, I observe a pattern that the only-child premium tends to be larger for people with higher social origins in competitive grade transitions.

Parenting for Success: The Value of Children and Intensive Parenting in Post-Reform China

Existing parenting research in sociology is dominated by a class analysis approach, which assumes a strong relationship between family resources and parenting behaviours. This relationship, however, is found to be weak in contexts such as China. In this study, I propose a theoretical model that takes account of parental valuation of children and explore its implications for parenting practices. Using this theoretical model, I analyse data from the 2014 survey of the China Family Panel Study and report the following findings. First, Chinese parents predominantly value a child figure who is “emotionally priceless and educationally achieving”. Second, parents who report higher emotional value and achievement value of their children are also significantly more likely to adopt intensive parenting practices. Last, family socioeconomic resources and parents’ valuation of children are complementary in affecting different dimensions of parenting: whereas family SES is positively correlated with parents’ investment in children’s education, parents’ perceived values of children (particularly the emotional value) exert strong effects on parental involvement in various ways to boost children’s academic performance. I conclude the article by ruminating on the theoretical and policy implications of this study.

Are Elders from Ancestor-Worshipping Families Better Supported? An Exploratory Study of Post-reform China

Practices of intergenerational support are regulated by familial normative imperatives. Ancestor worship has been serving as such a normative force that sustains household eldercare in traditional China. Against the background of the concerted population ageing and reviving ancestor worship practices and beliefs in contemporary China, this study investigates whether or not the positive link between ancestor worship and household eldercare persists in the post-Reform Era. Drawing on data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies, this study finds that, on average, both practices and beliefs of ancestor worship at the household level have a significant and positive correlation with the likelihood of older family members to be financially supported by family members, but no significant association is detected for the reception of household chore assistance. Moreover, familial ancestor worship beliefs show a stronger association with the reception of monetary support among rural older adults than the urban counterpart. These results suggest that the intergenerational relation in contemporary China still relates to the norms of ancestor worship. As such, this study extends the scholarship on eldercare that mostly focuses on resource transaction and exchange by highlighting the normative aspect of caregiving.

Sang subculture in post-reform China

This article examines Sang (丧) subculture within the context of positive energy (正能量) in post-reform China, and how as an emergent subculture it is characterised by feelings of defeatism and loss. Chinese youths share Sang memes via social media as a form of affective identification to communicate their sense of disenchantment with the ‘main melody’ of official discourse in post-reform China, and in this sense it is similar to other Internet cultures such as e’gao and diaosi. However, unlike subcultures in the West, Sang subculture does not constitute a form of political resistance, but expresses instead an inchoate feeling of loss among Chinese youths. This article asks two research questions: how does Sang subculture parody normative subject positions of youth constructed by official state discourse, and what does it reveal about the subjectivity of its participants? This article employs Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘structures of feeling’ within a semiotic framework to analyse three sets of Sang memes to understand the processes of subjectivity formation and the affective significance to its participants. Through semiotic analysis of Sang memes and semi-structured interviews with 20 participants aged between 18 and 26, we find that Sang subculture is a current of thought-feeling due to a perceived incapacity by Chinese youths to live up to the ideological re-positioning within official consciousness.

Spatializing the project of state rescaling in post-reform China: Emerging geography of National New Areas

Existing theory of state rescaling makes inadequate clarification of the nature of the state in the context of Western liberal democracy vis-à-vis an authoritarian Leninist political economy such as China. Emphasis is placed upon rescaling per se and its social construction with its spatial manifestations being treated simply as a by-product or taken for granted. This paper engages with current theoretical advancements through a research that focuses on the spatiality of state rescaling in a socialist planned economy, identifies the emerging geography of the Chinese National New Areas (NNAs), and critically assesses the uneven impacts of the NNAs upon local economic growth. The establishment of the NNAs is found to be a spatial manifestation of the rescaling of power relations within an authoritarian Leninist Party-state both vertically (hierarchically) and horizontally (cross-jurisdictional administrative changes). Establishing an NNA is found to have increased the spatial inequality of the municipality where it is located. A multi-variate statistical analysis has identified an inverse relationship between the economic effects of the NNAs and the level of the regional economy, degree of openness, and complexity of administration of the NNAs. Findings of this research call for better theoretical attention toward the variegated nature and internal dynamics of the state engaged in rescaling, the diverse spatial outcomes of state rescaling, and its uneven socio-economic effects contingent upon regional conditions.

The changing pattern of wage returns to education in post-reform China

This paper examines the labor market returns to schooling in China during 2010–2015 by using two rounds of the China General Social Survey data. While our OLS estimates based on Mincerian earnings function confirm the importance of human capital in China's post-reform economy, they highlight a number of important changes in the labor market performance of educated workers. The average returns to schooling have declined during the study period, albeit modestly. The fall in returns is much larger in urban locations, coastal regions and among women (from 10.4%, 9.9% and 7.8% in 2010 to 8.3%, 7.8% and 6.3% in 2015 respectively). Workers with university diplomas and good English language skills continue to enjoy a high wage return. These findings are unchanged regardless of model specifications and corrections for endogeneity bias using conventional as well as Lewbel instrumental variable approaches. We discuss the potential explanations for the observed changes and their policy implications.

Life amidst Rubble: Migrant Mental Health and the Management of Subjectivity in Urban China

While previous studies have documented the trials of rural-to-urban migration in postreform China, little is known of the consequences of urban demolition and attendant uncertainty on migrant mental health. Exploring the affective and subjective dimensions of life lived amidst rubble in a migrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Shanghai, this essay describes and analyzes smallscale practices of endurance through dynamics of time, place, and sociality. These modes of dwelling in a ruined environment are key to what the authors refer to as the management of subjectivity, producing moments of being that potentially enable to feel and act otherwise. Considering the management of subjectivity in its own right rather than as mere echoes of postsocialist governmentalities, the authors sustain a dialogue with recent writing on the production of happy and self-reliant marginalized subjects through the Chinese authorities’ turn to “therapeutic governance.”

Diversification and Local Embeddedness: The Rescaling of National New Area Governance in Post-Reform China

In the rapidly growing literature on exploring urban restructuring in reference to the state rescaling, many authors have neglected the relatively fixed and immobile forms of territorial organization. The development of China’s National New Areas (NNAs) provides an opportunity to explore the hybrid and multiscalar processes of state rescaling. From the perspective of rescaling, an analytical framework was established to examine the practice of NNAs and their governance rescaling in China. Every National New Area (NNA) is the result of China’s “state spatial selectivity”, and the central government has guided policies to a specific spatial scale to cope with the development crisis. The rescaling of NNA governance is the process of the functioning of all-level administrative subjects in the functional orientation, spatial zoning, administrative system, and power allocation through rigid or flexible means. In practice, there are significant governance scale differences in territorial spatial organization, administrative systems, and power distribution among the various NNAs, which has led to diverse governance modes. The degree of coupling between the scale of new and existing administrative divisions is the key to the rescaling of NNA governance. Most NNAs are still facing the challenge of unifying their territorial development logic. Discussions of state rescaling in western countries have focused on the super-local level. The case of China clearly shows the role of local embeddedness and diversification in rescaling.

City profile: Wenzhou - A model city of transitional China

As the birthplace of China's private economy, Wenzhou is known as one of the three model cities of post-reform China, along with Suzhou and Dongguan. Wenzhou has experienced rapid development and is often taken as a paradigmatic case for the privatization and entrepreneurialization of urban China against the context of market-oriented reform and open-door experiments. Wenzhou has undergone a major social, economic, and spatial restructuring over the past four decades. In the last several years, however, Wenzhou has faced a number of challenges associated with slowing economic growth, difficulty in industrial upgrading, and decreasing attractiveness to highly-qualified employees and high-tech enterprises. This paper profiles the historical development of Wenzhou, particularly with regard to the aspects of economic and spatial restructuring, to interrogate the modality of its recent development and to seek answers to current dilemma. From a historical and cultural perspective, we argue that the key drivers underlying Wenzhou's development have been the bottom-up local initiatives and family-run enterprises, rather than top-down state promotion. In this vein, this study offers further understandings of urbanization against various contexts, in particular the state-oriented urbanization in China.

Financial Strain and Intimate Partner Violence Against Married Women in Postreform China: Evidence From Chengdu.

The primary goal of this study is to link both subjective and objective indicators of financial strain to two distinct dimensions of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women-the husband's violent behavior and gendered control-in postreform China. The data for this study were drawn from a community survey conducted in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in 2017 (N = 340). By utilizing the family stress model and quantitative methods, the following results emerged from a series of multivariate statistical analyses: (a) among married women, self-perceived financial strain is significantly and positively associated with the risk of experiencing the husband's perpetration of violent behavior and financial control; (b) low family income significantly elevates the likelihood of the husband's exertion of personal and financial control over the wife, albeit the effect is weaker for financial control; and (c) unemployment of the husband significantly increases the likelihood of the husband's exertion of financial controlling behavior against his wife. These results underscore the importance of gender and income inequalities in research on IPV against women in postreform China. These findings also cross-culturally substantiate the family stress model that has been utilized previously to examine the multifaceted associations between economic hardship and IPV in the U.S. Policy makers, academic researchers, and health practitioners are urged to recognize both subjective and objective financial strains as social and psychological determinants of IPV against women in postreform China.

The assemblage and making of suburbs in post-reform China: the case of Guangzhou

ABSTRACT This study examines the modality of recent suburbanization in post-reform China. Most of the existing literature focuses on individual cases or quantitative measurements; there is ashortage of panoramic views to identify the actors and processes related to suburbanization in post-reform China. We fill this gap by applying assemblage thinking to decipher the modality of suburbanization in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities. We identify the making of three types of suburban spaces– new enclaves, new towns, and suburban villages based on the fieldwork over the last decade. With assemblage thinking, we focus on the process of spatial production and articulate the interactions of various actors such as market, state and society. Differing from the classic Anglo-American model of homogeneous middle-class suburbia, suburbanization in post-reform China is marked by the production of variegated social spaces as well as the ongoing interactions of state, market and societal forces. Abbreviation: Pearl River Delta, (PRD)