China has experienced dramatic socio-economic changes in the past four decades, and scholarly attention has been attracted to various dimensions of its social development. Building on his long-term research and observation of the transformation of China, Alvin So's book offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the class structure and class conflict from 1949 to the 2010s.
As So rightly points out in the preface of the book, in Mao's China, class pervaded the social and political life of Chinese citizens. “Class” and “class conflict,” however, have disappeared from Chinese society in the past 30 years. A rising pattern of social conflicts, especially those from the workers, has inspired some Chinese scholars to call for the return of class analysis to understand contemporary China. So's book, therefore, is a timely project that adds a historical and comparative perspective to class analysis in China. It is an excellent reference for readers in the fields of political science, sociology, social development and labour studies.
The book consists of nine chapters, some of which were revised from the author's earlier publications. In chapter one, So outlines the background and framework of this book. His introduction starts from the skyrocketing number of “mass incidents” in the country, especially the Honda workers’ strike in 2010 and the Wukan villagers’ protest in 2011, both in Guangdong province. His approach to class analysis draws largely from Immanuel Wallerstain and E.P. Thompson, who emphasized the historical transformation of class relationship. Chapter two provides an overview of class relations in socialist China (1949–78). The author points out that as the property-based definition of social classes was not useful in socialist China, a power-based definition was adopted by Leftists to attack state bureaucrats, especially during the Cultural Revolution.
Chapter three illustrates how the Chinese state has been transformed from the late 1970s onwards towards state neoliberalism, a term used to distinguish the Chinese government's marketization policy from the mainstream neoliberalism promoted by the Washington Consensus model. While adopting a state-centred approach in his analysis, So has at the same time paid full attention to social protests staged by intellectuals, workers and peasants, and to how these protests have constrained the state's development strategies.
From chapter four to chapter eight, So provides a good analysis of the origin, development and prospects of five major “classes” in contemporary China: the cadre-capitalist class; the old working class in urban China; new migrant workers in South China; peasantry; and the new middle class. These main chapters review how class relations and class conflicts have changed since the establishment of the PRC in general, and in the past three decades in particular. Most of the evidence supporting his argument is based on secondary sources of data. The author has reviewed a wide range of academic literatures and media reports.
In this book, So offers a number of insightful arguments. First, the state has played a decisive role in the restructuring of class and class conflict in both socialist and post-socialist China. Second, the legacy of the socialist state has shaped the making of the cadre-capitalist class through the “embourgeoisement of cadres” and the “patronization of capitalists.” Third, the state has successfully prevented the rise of a labour movement that was potentially formed by the protests of urban workers in the late 1990s. Fourth, migrant workers in South China have manifested a clearer workers’ identity, rather than “peasants” as previous studies showed, and started to articulate their suffering from the class perspective. Fifth, the “bifurcated state” between the central and local governments has led peasants to protest within the limit of “rightful resistance” against the local government. Finally, the new middle class has expanded in size and tends to advance their interests through institutional channels. Therefore, the middle class has the potential to push for a “quiet democratization” in China.
In my view, most of these arguments and judgments are convincing. But the following two points deserve further research in light of China's rapidly changing social relations. First, domestic privately-owned enterprises have played an increasingly significant and independent role in the economics. Although it can be categorized as cadre-capitalist class, the interests of the small and middle-size enterprise owners may not be always the same as that of the state bureaucrats. Second, the middle class may have played a more active role in voicing out their concerns, for example in the rising pattern of environmental protests in China.
