Wealth, politics, guanxi, and anxiety in China
Maureen Fan, a Washington Post correspondent in Beijing, did a great job of summarizing recent Chinese political trends in the article excerpted below. Her description of guanxi deserves a bit more explanation, but her accounts of life styles of the rich and hopefully not famous in China might help keep students' interest in the topic.Cashing In on Communism: In the land of Mao, getting rich is finally glorious. It's also complicated.
"After the 1949 Communist revolution, private wealth became a huge social liability...
"China's 'opening and reform' period began in 1978, thanks to Deng Xiaoping...
"The earliest Communist-era entrepreneurs... were mostly people on the margins of society... who knew little about the market but had nothing to lose by risking denunciation or the scorn of their neighbors...
"Any early belief that increasingly free enterprise would lead to political liberalization was crushed in the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators...
"Much, but not all, business came to a standstill, until 1992 when Deng took a now-famous tour of the south, a trip that generated hundreds of newspaper articles and at least 20 books... He thought fair competition would stimulate business and allow some people to get rich, which would slowly spur others to follow suit... [H]is push for economic reform became enshrined in the constitution and in Communist Party literature...
"Since then... about 175 million, or 13.5 percent, of consumers have become what many Chinese scholars consider to be middle class... Another 320,000 to 500,000 people report enough income... to put them into an upper-middle class... A far smaller, but more visible, group are the super rich...
"Recently, President Hu Jintao has responded to the growing gap between rich and poor by demanding that more attention be paid to a "harmonious society."...
"The urge to flaunt economic success competes with the desire to keep a low profile. While many Chinese are flattered by the prestige of landing on various 'rich lists,' they also fear the publicity and the extra scrutiny from tax collectors, who seem to follow no known assessment standards.
"Even so, wealth is beginning to bring other privileges. In Jiangsu province, just north of Shanghai, authorities announced last year that 'large taxpayer' entrepreneurs who pay the government more than $375,000 a year get to help decide whether an official is dismissed or promoted...
"It is difficult to separate wealth from power in China. A recent report in the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily said research from China's State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the research office of the Central Party School showed that 90 percent of China's RMB billionaires (people with more than $128.2 million) are the children of senior officials. The rich get nowhere without official connections -- a commodity as valuable as capital and known as guanxi...
"The need for guanxi does not stop with the rich. The broader middle class is also dependent on its personal relationship to power. You need connections when the landlord of your luxury apartment decides to charge you extra maintenance payments, or glues your front door shut after you refuse [to pay]...
"That is just the beginning of their anxiety. As these Chinese get richer, they... struggle to cope with stress and success... They have told pollsters of their insecurity and inability to find suitable marriage partners. Some complain of the possibility of losing their wealth overnight because of official corruption, while others said they fear criminals and jealous neighbors.
"But mostly what they fear is having their new success snatched away. They are anxious about whether they have made the right connections, just in case their position of privilege turns out to be built on boggy ground.
"'The only thing they think about is guanxi,' Shi Xiaoyan says..."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:04 AM
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