China today is a country that contrasts dazzling opulence with startling poverty. Its alarming level of inequality has spawned a large number of studies. This literature mostly comprises two genres – ethnographic work focusing on one social group (often a disadvantaged group), and quantitative assessments of general trends of inequality based on large surveys. Polarized Cities offers a rare account of China's inequality by presenting both ethnographic research and quantitative evidence from a group of major China specialists. Using the concept of “caste,” the editor argues that urban China is witnessing the formation of two castes – the super-wealthy and the abject poor – wrought by economic and welfare policies adopted by the Chinese government.
The chapters are organized into two major sections, the first focusing on the poor and the second on the rich. The first section opens with an article by editor Dorothy Solinger on the dibao population – poor urban residents who receive minimum living allowances from the government. She finds that this group fares worse than other destitute groups – the laid-off workers in the late 1990s, the rural poor in China, and the impoverished in other developing countries. She asserts that China's dibao population has become a highly discriminated caste, comparable to the Dalits in India, occupying the lowest ladder of the socio-economic hierarchy. To explain why the state has continued to neglect this group, Solinger points to the exclusionary vision of China's political elites, who envisage no space for the poor in the Chinese dream (Zhongguo meng). Solinger's chapter is followed by two vivid ethnographic accounts that explore the everyday struggles of Foxconn factory workers in Shenzhen (Mun Young Cho) and the livelihood strategies of migrant recyclers in Beijing (Joshua Goldstein).
In the second section on China's rich, veteran ethnographers Andrew David Field and James Farrer offer an up-to-date account of Shanghai's nightlife, observing that the dance floor that had been relatively egalitarian until the late 1990s has constricted, limiting interactions across social divides, as clubs cater mostly to big spenders, often children of the super-wealthy. Shifting to the politically powerful, John Osburg finds that the ongoing anti-corruption campaign has shrunk government–business networks substantially, concentrating opportunities within family-based cliques of government officials, and excluding business people who lack such family connections.
In addition to the accounts of rich and poor, two other chapters focus on the middle of the spectrum. Li Zhang examines how the urban middle class tackle homeowner-rights violations, air pollution and everyday stress. Not surprisingly, she finds that compared to the poor, the middle class have more resources with which to defend their rights, and they are more able to carve out a comfortable space for themselves in the city. In another chapter, Wang Feng notes two troubling trends regarding inequality in China: first, income disparity has deepened inequality in wealth. Today the top ten per cent of Chinese households owns 67 per cent of the total wealth, a consolidation that parallels that of the United States. Second, the educational mobility for lower-income households has slowed. In other words, the rich are also getting smarter because well-resourced parents can afford expensive preschools and universities overseas.
In her introduction to the volume, Solinger argues that China has become a caste society and that different castes are endowed with different degrees of agency. This is the part of the book that I find least convincing. Caste is a problematic lens to use to study social divides in China. To equate China's dibao group with India's Dalits (the untouchables) is misleading, given their markedly disparate historical trajectories – not the least being the discrimination that Dalits face based on religion, ethnicity, occupation and linguistic affiliations. It is also questionable to project a hierarchy of agency that applies to different social groups. Solinger compares the poor groups under study in the book, and asserts that migrant recyclers have more agency than Foxconn workers, and that both groups have more agency than dibao recipients. This discussion is too mechanical and simplified, as it glosses over the variations within each disadvantaged group in terms, for example, of social capital and entrepreneurial capacity. Subaltern studies in India offer rich accounts on the agency of the poor and lower castes – from Gayatri Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak? to Partha Chatterjee's thesis on the “political society,” and to recent critical urban studies by scholars such as Ananya Roy. India's urban slum dwellers often successfully defend their rights to stay put, and Indian farmers frequently stage large-scale protests demanding subsidies and defending their rights to land in cases of forced acquisition. Comparatively, the literature on contentious politics in China also offers plenty of examples of the agency of the poor, both urban and rural.
Polarized Cities has assembled a roster of major scholars in China studies, and each of their contributions offers a well-crafted synthesis of their recent work. The book presents excellent materials for teaching China-related courses, as well as key texts that can be used for designing the China component in courses on urban studies, international development and comparative inequality.
