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An Unholy Trinity? Civil Society, Economic Liberalization and Democratization in post‐Mao China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Jude Howell
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Government and Opposition , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 56 - 80
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1998

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References

1 ‘Civil society as such only develops with the bourgeoisie’ in Marx, K. and Engels, E, The German Ideology, ed. Arthur, C. J., London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1970, p. 57.Google Scholar

2 It is beyond the scope of this paper to go into the temporal unevenness of the reforms. For further details about the periodization of the Open Door Policy, see J. Howell, China Opens its Doors: The Politics of Economic Transition, Boulder, Colo., Lynne Rienner, and Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993, chs 1–3.

3 Smith, R., ‘The Chinese Road to Capitalism’, New Left Review, 199 (05–06 1993), pp. 55–99 Google Scholar, argues cogently that the reformers have been unable to reform the state sector and that a dynamic, expanding capitalist sector has emerged outside of the state.

4 See ‘State Statistical Communique on 1996 Development’ in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2886 S1/8, 07.04.1997.

5 According to Yan, S., ‘Export‐Oriented Rural Enterprises’, JETRO, China Newsletter, 118 (09–10 1995), p. 10 Google Scholar, and Summay of World Broadcasts, W/0393 WG1, 19.07.1995, in 1994 130,000 of these enterprises were export‐orientated, accounting for one‐third of exports, and employing ten million staff and workers. 35,000 involved some foreign equity investment and had actually utilized US$ 15.6 billion. TVEs in Eastern China accounted for 90 per cent of all exports from such enterprises.

6 See ‘Statistical Communique on 1996 Development’ in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2886 S1/8, 07.04.1996.

7 Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/2806 S1/1, 01.01.1997.

8 See 1994 Statistical Yearbook of China, China Statistical Publishing House, p. 507.

9 For further details on this see Howell, J., ‘The Chinese Economic Miracle and Urban Workers’, in European Journal of Development Studies, 9: 2 (12 1997), pp. 148–75.Google Scholar

10 By ‘unofficial unemployed’ is meant those workers in loss‐making state‐owned enterprises, who receive only a basic wage but are not actively engaged in production and who are not included in official statistics on unemployment.

11 In urban areas of China employees usually live in the compound of their work‐place. The work‐unit is thus a site of both production and reproduction and provides the focal point of social activity. During the 1989 democracy movement, for example, work‐units often formed the organizational basis for participation in street protests.

12 For further details of this process see chapter 5 in White, G., Howell, J. and Shang, X. Y., In Search of Civil Society: Market Reform and Social Change in Contemporary China, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 For a discussion of the Women's Federation's attempts at reform, see Howell, J., ‘The Struggle for Survival: Prospects for the Women's Federation in Post‐Mao China’, World Development, 24: 1 (1996), pp. 129–43.Google Scholar

14 It should be pointed out that there were up to this point no clear guidelines about the registration of social organizations. As a result a range of government departments at all levels had social organizations registered with them. For details on all previously existing regulations governing social organizations see White, Howell and Shang, op. cit., pp. 98–127.

15 For a detailed exposition of corporatism, see Schmitter, P., ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’, Review of Politics, 36 (1974), pp. 85–131 Google Scholar, and Schmitter, P. and Lehmbruch, G. (eds), Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, London, Sage, 1979 Google Scholar; for a discussion of a corporatist analysis of new social organizations in China, White, Howell and Shang, op. cit., pp. 98–127; and for a more general discussion of corporatism in China, see Chan, A., ‘Revolution or Corporatism? Workers and Trade Unions in Post‐Mao China’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 29 (01 1993), pp. 31–61 Google Scholar, and Yang, M. M., ‘Between State and Society: the Construction of Corporateness in a Chinese Socialist Factory’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 22 (07 1989), pp. 31–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 A few organizations have been consulted on policy relevant to the interest groups they represent, such as the Chinese Enterprise Management Association in relation to the bankruptcy law. Some organizations have been requested to provide advice on particular policies such as the Xiaoshan Association of Science and Technology with regard to land reclamation.

17 Interview, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Beijing, October 1993, and China Daily, 7 May 1993, p. 3. Before 1989 there was no system of monitoring the growth of social organizations. As the departments for the registration of social organizations have only recently been set up and are not well staffed, it will take some time before accurate data on the spread of these entities is available throughout China. In the meantime we can expect data to remain uneven and incomplete.

18 In reality, however, it is well known that slaves, women and ‘foreigners’ were excluded from citizenship and participation in the political arena.

19 For a historical overview of some of the meanings given to civil society, see Tester, K., Civil Society, London, Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar

20 See de Tocqueville, A., Democracy in America, London, Fontana, 1968.Google Scholar

21 See Paine, T., The Rights of Man, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985.Google Scholar

22 For a discussion of Rousseau's imagination of civil society, see Tester, op. cit., pp. 63–75.

23 For a discussion of Gramsci's notion of civil society and its role in hegemony, see Sirnon, R, Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1991, pp. 68–77.Google Scholar

24 For further details of social organizations in Xiaoshan, see Howell, J., ‘The Poverty of Civil Society: Insights from China’, Discussion Paper 240, 05 1993, pp. 1–40 Google Scholar, and White, G., ‘Prospects for Civil Society in China: A Case‐Study of Xiaoshan City’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 29 (01 1993), pp. 63–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 For further details of these functions, see Howell, J., ‘Striking a New Balance: New Social Organizations in Post‐Mao China’, Capital and Class, 54 (Autumn 1994), pp. 89–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 For further details of the impact of this conference on women's groups, see Howell, J., ‘Post‐Beijing Reflections: Creating Ripples, but not Waves in China’, Women's Studies International Forum, 20: 2 (03–04 1997), pp. 235–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 See Baogang, He, ‘Dual Roles of Semi‐Civil Society in Chinese Democratization’, Australian Journal of Political Science, 29 (1994). pp. 154–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for adiscussion of the reasons for Deng's rejection of totalitarian control and tolerance of a limited civil society. These include, first, the expectation that greater autonomy will lead to greater productivity; secondly, that autonomy will lead to shared responsibility; and thirdly, that a limited civil society will create a new form of intermediary linkage between state and society.

28 After Gramsci's exploration of the term civil society in the Prison Notebooks, the term fell out of academic discourse until its revival in the 1980s by Eastern European academics such as Arato.

29 Arato, A., ‘Civil Society against the State: Poland 1980–81’, Telos, 47 (1981), pp. 23–48 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Havel, V. et al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens against the State in Central‐Eastern Europe, London, Hutchinson, 1985.Google Scholar

30 See Wood, E. M., ‘The Uses and Abuses of “Civil Society”’, Socialist Register (1990), pp. 60–84 Google Scholar, for an excellent discussion of the multiple usages and indeed ‘abuse’ of the term.

31 See e.g. Gold, T., ‘The Resurgence of Civil Society in China’, Journal of Democracy (Winter 1990), pp. 18–31 Google Scholar; Strand, D., ‘Protest in Beijing: Civil Society and Public Sphere in China’, Problems of Communism, 39 (1990), pp. 1–19 Google Scholar; and Walder, A., ‘The Political Sociology of the Beijing Upheaval of 1989’, Problems of Communism (09/10 1989), pp. 30–40.Google Scholar

32 See Habermas, J., The Structural Tranformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1989.Google Scholar

33 For a discussion of Gramsci's perspective on civil society, see Sassoon, A. S., Gramsci's Politics, London, Croom Helm, 1987 Google Scholar and Simon, R., Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1991.Google Scholar

34 Whilst strictly speaking the term ‘bourgeoisie’ refers to the owners of capital, it has long been noted that the relationship between ownership and control is complex and that top‐level managers align themselves politically to capital rather than labour. Hence, they are subsumed here under bourgeoisie.

35 Walder, A., ‘Popular Protest in the Chinese Democracy Movement of 1989’, UCLA‐CSA Working Paper 6, 06 1991, pp. 1–33 Google Scholar, for example, refers to the ‘Flying Tiger Brigade’, an informal association of several hundred owners of motorcycles, which spread leaflets during the Tiananmen protests. Strand, op. cit., p. 14, discusses in detail the activities of the Stone Group in the pro‐democracy movement.

36 See He Baogang, op. cit. (n. 27), pp. 161–3, for a discussion of the ambiguous response of entrepreneurs to democracy and its contingency upon historical circumstances and assessment of current benefits.

37 Interview with private factory owner, Xiamen, 1994.

38 In Shanghai, for example, 111 labour disputes were handled in foreign‐invested enterprises in 1992; see Jiushi Niandai, 4 (1 April 1994), pp. 53–5, translated in Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1966 G4, 08.04.1995. In Xiamen Special Economic Zone over 155 labour disputes were recorded between 1982 and 1992 and 14 strikes and slowdowns between 1988 and 1992; see Lin, Z. G. and Chen, Y. L., ‘Nature of and Policies Regarding Slowdowns and Strikes in Foreign‐Invested Enterprises’, Xiamen Tegu Diaoyan, 3: 57 (1993), pp. 36–9 (in Chinese).Google Scholar

39 See Lee, L. T., Trade Unions in China, 1949 to fhe Present, Singapore, National University of Singapore, 1986 Google Scholar, and Harper, P., ‘The Party and the Unions in Communist China’, China Quarterly, 37 (01–03 1969), pp. 84–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 For further details of these organizations, see China Labour Bulletin, November 1995, pp. 5–8.

41 Ibid., p. 6.

42 Walder, op. cit. (n. 35), pp. 23–4.

43 For details about Chai Ling, see Minzhu, Han (ed.), Cries for Democracy, Princeton, Princeton Paperbacks, 1989.Google Scholar

44 Quote from an article by Yuan Ming, published in Paris‐based Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic China), cited in Harris, L. C., ‘Xinjiang, Central Asia and the Implications for China's Policy in the Islamic World’, China Quarterly, 133 (03 1993), pp. 111–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 For a discussion of historical and cultural embeddedness of the term ‘civil society’, see Howell, ‘The Poverty of Civil Society’ (n. 24). p. 210.

46 Gray, J., ‘From Post‐Communism to Civil Society: The Reemergence of History and the Decline of the Western Model’, Socid Philosophy and Policy, 10:2 (1993), pp. 26–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar