(Brill Research Perspectives) Tony Saich-State-society Relations in The People's Republic of China Post-1949-Brill Academic Pub (2016)

State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949
State-Society Relations in
the People’s Republic of China
Post-1949
By
Tony Saich
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Originally published as Volume 1(1) 2016, in Governance and Public Policy in China,
DOI 10.1163/24519227-12340001.
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Contents
Author Biography vii
State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949 1

Tony Saich
Abstract 1
Keywords 1
Introduction 1
Registration, Workplace, Cellularization, and the Rise of New
Communities 2
State-Society Relations under Mao Zedong 10
Civil Society, Corporatism, and Authoritarian Resilience: Perspectives on
Post-Mao State-Society Relations 18
Multiple Models: State-Society Relations at the Local Level 33
Conclusion 44
References 45
Author Biography
Tony Saich is the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and
Innovation and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, teaching courses on
comparative political institutions, democratic governance, and transitional
economies with a focus on China. In his capacity as Ash Center Director, Saich
also serves as the director of the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and the
faculty chair of the China Programs, the Asia Energy Leaders Program and the
Leadership Transformation in Indonesia Program, which provide training pro-
grams for national and local Chinese and Indonesian officials.
Saich first visited China as a student in 1976 and continues to visit each year.
Currently, he is a guest professor at the School of Public Policy and Management,
Tsinghua University, China. He also advises a wide range of government, pri-
vate, and nonprofit organizations on work in China and elsewhere in Asia.
Saich is a trustee member of the National Committee on US-China Relations
(2014–), independent board member of AMC Entertainment Inc., the chair of
Trustees of the China Medical Board, and a Trustee of International Bridges to
Justice. He is also the US Secretary-General of the China United States Strategic
Philanthropy. From 1994 to 1999, he was the representative for the Ford
Foundation’s China Office. Prior to this, he was director of the Sinological
Institute at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
His current research focuses on politics and governance in post-Mao China,
China’s urbanization and rural-urban inequality in China; and the interplay
between state and society in Asia and the respective roles they play in the pro-
vision of public goods and services at the local level. His most recent books
include Governance and Politics of China (Fourth Edition, 2015); Chinese Village,
Global Market (2012, with Biliang Hu); Providing Public Goods in Transitional
China (2008); Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic (with David Apter,
1998); The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party (1996); and China’s
Science Policy in the 80s (1989); He has edited books on Political Governance in
China (2015), Philanthropy for Health in China (with Jennifer Ryan and Lincoln
Chen, 2014), China’s Urbanization (with Shahid Yusuf, 2008), and Aids and
Social Policy in China (with Joan Kaufman and Arthur Kleinman, 2006).
He holds a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Letters, University of Leiden, the
Netherlands, having completed his undergraduate training at the University of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and his Masters program at the School of Oriental and
African Studies, London University.
State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic
of China Post-1949
Tony Saich
Harvard Kennedy School
Abstract
This essay provides an analytical review of the most important works on the evolving
nature of the state-society relationship in China post-1949. It is not intended to provide
a new theoretical framework for understanding state-society relations; rather, the goal
is to draw together the most important analyses in Western and Chinese writings. We
begin by looking at the changing role of two key institutions that have been used by
the state to manage society: the household registration system and the workplace. The
analysis of the Maoist period looks at theories derived from Soviet studies as well as
those that draw on the Chinese Communist Party’s own experiences pre-1949. We
complete the review by looking at competing theories such as civil society, corporat-
ism, or authoritarian resilience that seek to define the relationship and then look in
depth at how to categorize the variety of state-society relations at the local level.
Keywords
China – state and society – participation – civil society – corporatism – authoritarian

resilience – new social media
Introduction
The nature of state-society relations in post-1949 China has been subject to

a wide range of analyses, but considerable confusion still remains. As early
as 1983, Nee and Mozingo (1983, p. 17) wrote that it was not surprising that
there was no consensus among Western historians and social scientists
* I thank David Li for his research assistance and Nancy Hearst for her invaluable help with
the bibliography and checking sources. I also thank Chen Huirong, Joseph Fewsmith, Yang
Xuedong, and Yu Keping for their helpful suggestions on sources.
© Tony Saich, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004322943_001

2 Saich
about the nature of the state and, by extension, its relationship to society. Baum
and Shevchenko (1999), writing more than fifteen years later, still claimed that
there was “considerable confusion about the state of the state in China.” In the
early 1980s, much of the confusion derived from the lack of access to China;
subsequently, much of the confusion derived from the increasing access and
the tendency to extrapolate system-wide analyses from detailed studies of spe-
cific locales.
This review essay is not intended to provide a new theoretical framework
for understanding state-society relations; rather, the goal is to draw together
the most important analyses in Western and Chinese writings. Clearly, not
everything can be covered in a short review, and I am sure that some impor-
tant works have not been included. Furthermore, a number of related topics
have been intentionally excluded, such as the extensive and important lit-
erature on protest and on participation, both of which deserve a full review
on their own.
We start with a review of two key concepts of state control and organiza-
tion of society: the workplace (or work-unit) and the system of household
registration. These were key elements that contributed to the cellularization
of society. Their influence continued well into what is usually defined as the
reform period (post-1978) and continued to shape policy choice. However, as
the reforms have progressed, their influence has changed and, in key ways,
declined. We look at the issue of state-society relations during the pre-reform
period (1949–1978) in the next section below. Given the lack of access to infor-
mation at that time, most analyses tended to focus on the macro system. Yet as
more archival materials have become available and interviewing has become
possible, we have seen new lines of research that provide a more nuanced and
textured view of life at the grassroots. The third section below reviews general
approaches to understanding state-society relations during the reform period,
and the fourth section reviews the burgeoning literature about such interac-
tions at the local level.
Registration, Workplace, Cellularization, and the Rise of New

Communities
The two institutions of the household registration system—the hukou 户口 and

the work-unit (danwei, 单位) system that restricted labor mobility—reinforced
the cellular nature of Chinese society.
These two institutions were crucial for defining interactions between gov-
ernment and society during the early years of the People’s Republic, but both
State-Society Relations in the People ’ s Republic of China Post-1949 3
have eroded during the reform era. The hukou system privileged urban over
rural society and ensured that state resources were channeled primarily to
the cities, while, at the same time, substantial amounts of the rural surplus
were transferred to urban industry, the military, and other priority projects of
the state. Wang (2004) identifies four key functions of the system: (1) provid-
ing a basic system for registration of residents that provided key information,
(2) forming a basis for how resources were allocated in the system, with a clear
pro-urban bias, (3) controlling internal migration, thus resulting in relatively
low levels of urbanization, and (4) assisting in the management of groups that
were identified as problematic.
The post-1949 origins of the system derived from the desire to send as
many of the refugees in the urban areas back to the countryside. The pro-
gram proved successful both because it was voluntary and because, due to
land reform, the state was able to offer land and/or money as an incentive
to leave the city and return to the countryside. Cheng and Selden (1997) trace
these origins and subsequent developments, pointing out that, at the time, the
state did not announce that it would effectively close cities to the rural popula-
tion. However, in June 1955 and in 1958, regulations were promulgated establish-
ing a permanent system of household registration that covered both the rural
and the urban areas. These regulations made it extremely difficult to move
from the countryside to the city and strengthened the monitoring of move-
ments both within the countryside and from city to city. Cheng and Selden
argue that the system that evolved after 1960 was quite distinct in both China
and the socialist systems more generally. People were then permanently reg-
istered at a particular locality on the basis of their place of birth (or, in the
case of women, on the basis of the place of birth of their husband). The hukou
“established and reified a permanent spatial hierarchy of positions that were
transmitted across generations” (p. 45).
Li (2011), looking at state-society relations through the prism of migra-
tion, concurs with Cheng and Selden’s view that controls were tightened in
the 1960s. Despite the stricter regulations introduced in 1958, due to the Great
Leap Famine that year some 62.5 million people still moved in both direc-
tions. According to Li, the highest rate of migration of any period prior to 1978
occurred during the three-year period of famine. As the household registra-
tion system became stricter and more effective after 1962, the rate of migration
declined significantly.
Chan (2010, p. 357) writes that the hukou system “is the foundation of China’s
divisive dualistic socioeconomic structure and the country’s two classes of
citizenship.” In his view, it created two different societies, with an urban class
that enjoys at least limited welfare and “full citizenship” and peasants, who,
4 Saich
unable to leave the land, had to produce “an agricultural surplus for industri-
alization and . . . had to fend for themselves” (p. 358). Some researchers, such
as Alexander and Chan (2004), have even raised a question as to whether this
kind of system amounted to a form of apartheid.
Solinger (1999), in an earlier work, had explored the interaction between the
large number of migrants and urban society and state institutions. She demon-
strates that while market reforms had created the possibility for them to move
into new or old urban spaces, but that integration proved difficult because of
resistance from “official” urban dwellers and the lack of incentives for local
governments to devise new polices and institutions that could resolve the
challenges. As she writes (p. 277), “Sojourning laborers were ever welcome to
work . . . but were seldom considered suitable candidates for citizenship.” The
result was a layering of types of citizens in the cities and the provocative con-
clusion that, where markets are nascent, the outcome might not produce more
egalitarian access to services and a clearer path to citizenship.
Dou (2015) sees an important shift now taking place. Whereas the logic of
the land system during the Maoist era was related to productivity, forming the
economic foundation of policy transformation and innovation, in the future
the granting of land rights to farmers will provide the main impetus for reform.
The reforms that led to the growth of the nonstate sector have meant that the
state no longer had a monopoly over job allocations. The focus on the house-
hold as the center of farming released large numbers of surplus laborers and
the development of free markets, thus undermining the role of grain coupons
and contributing to the erosion of the effectiveness of the hukou in control-
ling citizen movement. Yet, although the restrictions have been loosened, the
hukou system has not yet been replaced or abolished, thereby creating major
problems in integrating the huge number of migrant workers in urban welfare
networks. Chan and Buckingham (2008) concur that the reforms have not fun-
damentally changed the system but, rather, have simply devolved control over
the hukou system to local governments.
Chan (2010) highlights two attempts to reform the system. The first was the
decentralization of fiscal and administrative powers to lower levels of govern-
ment. This means that, beginning in the mid-1990s, local governments were
granted power to decide who and how many people could be granted urban resi-
dency within their respective administrative jurisdictions. Most frequently, the
wealthy, investors, or those with a higher level of education were granted such
residency. The devolution of this power contributed to the rapid urbanization,
as some peasants in the peri-urban areas were also granted urban residency
(formally called non-agricultural household registration) in return for giving
up their rural land-use rights to allow development. More generally, since 1997,
integration into smaller towns has been relatively easier, in part because both
fewer migrants and fewer benefits are involved. The second reform was to
make the process “more humane.” This included giving urban hukou to chil-
dren or the elderly parents of migrants who had already gained urban status.
The second key institutional pillar is the role of the workplace. This is at the
core of the Walder’s (1986) study of factory politics, which provides an “inquiry
into the social foundations of a communist political order,” or what Walder calls
“communist neo-traditionalism.” He suggests that this might be a more com-
mon feature of communist systems than he initially thought, and he rejects
the notion of totalitarianism as a suitable description of the Chinese politi-
cal system because it places an emphasis on coercion and lacks any notion of
human agency. Walder’s analysis shows how the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) uses material incentives and other rewards to create a network of sup-
porters through personal ties (guanxi 关系). This creates a clientelist pattern
of authority. From the 1950s to the 1980s, such a pattern of authority gradu-
ally evolved into personal rule. Only a minority of workers become “activists”
through this process, but it did result in a divided workforce in the factory,
which Walder describes as “easily the most politically salient social-structural
cleavage” (p. 166). The state-owned enterprise (SOE) certainly provided the
most suitable environment for the CCP to promote such relations. However,
although this may have been the case into the mid-1980s, it is clear that clien-
telist networks have eroded over time, within the SOEs as well as among those
in township and village enterprises and short-term workers in urban areas.
Walder (1989) acknowledges such changes and notes that rewards in SOEs
are now more based on paternalistic networks rather than on overtly political
networks. Work by Perry (1993, 1997) shows that even in earlier times the CCP
created important cleavages among the proletariat. Her study of workers’ pro-
test in Shanghai (1993) reveals how these cleavages within the working-class
created barriers for the CCP in mobilizing class struggle.
The centrality of the danwei system in determining state-society interac-
tions has been a focal point of much research, especially in terms of looking at
how the influence of the workplace has declined during the reform period. The
cellular structure of Chinese rural society has long been apparent (Skinner,
1964–65). The organizational structure of the CCP and its pre-1949 operations
dramatically influenced the idea of using this as the organizing principle for
society as a whole during the post-1949 period.
Shue (1988), in four essays in one volume, discusses how to think about the
Chinese state, including especially its interactions with rural society. As in
6 Saich
Walder’s work, Shue’s analysis rejects the dominant paradigm of totalitarian-

ism, which once held sway in the discipline, as well as subsequent attempts
to modify this perspective derived from Soviet studies, such as institutional
pluralism or even occupational pluralism (see the next section). That said, at
the time Shue was not convinced that the rural reforms would lift the “statist”
implications of the reform program. She was also not convinced that the domi-
nant view of state penetration under Mao was as extensive or as effective as
was generally accepted in the literature. She suggests that post-Mao penetra-
tion has been underestimated as well. State mobilization during the Great Leap
Forward (1958–60) might seem to contradict this view. Like Walder, she cites
how a nonmarket economy can shape state-society relations at the local level.
From this perspective, the danwei, as well as the various relationships that are
developed from it, is essential. These relationships are more paternalistic or
feudal than they are reciprocal or market based. However, in Shue’s view, many
policies strengthened the resistance of rural communities against the political
center. Policies promoting localism and an emphasis on “self-reliance” often
provided local communities with resources to resist state penetration. This is
because the solidarity in local rural communities meant central penetration
was “less direct and unmediated . . . than is frequently supposed” (p. 54). Shue’s
work is strongly informed by research on structures in traditional Chinese
society. She sees the attempts to impose central order marked by a “honey-
comb polity,” meaning that the Chinese countryside did not make the “decisive
transition from . . . premodern particularism to the centrally coordinated and
penetrating networks of modern statism” (p. 89). But the “honeycomb” nature
of society that existed during the Maoist era broke down with the reforms,
thus allowing greater state penetration into the countryside. The core ques-
tion remains whether this analysis can be extended to rural China as a whole.
In the third section of this review, we look at more recent authors who have
examined the factors that have created great variance in the local outcomes of
state-society relations, especially in rural China.
The cellularization of life, as reflected in the work-unit system, was inherent
in the cell system that the CCP developed before 1949 when horizontal con-
tacts were limited because of fears of betrayal that might lead to the destruc-
tion of the organization as a whole. However, Henderson and Cohen (1984)
and Whyte and Parish (1984) see this as a product of post-1949 developments.
They regard the development of the danwei as an integral part of the urbaniza-
tion policies and the drive to socialize industry and to structure the system of
job allocation.
The kinds of resources to which Walder refers include the allocation of
housing as well as welfare benefits, vacation time, and later even permission
about when to have children and how many. In an edited volume, Lü and Perry
(1997) examine the role of the workplace. They define the five basic features
of the danwei as follows: it controls personnel, provides communal facilities,
operates independent accounts and budgets, has an urban or industrial role,
and is part of the public sector. This system eschewed horizontal linkages, thus
contributing to the cellular nature of society that Shue has noted in the rural
areas. Lü and Perry (1997) concur with Walder that the primary political func-
tion of the work-unit is that it “operates as a tool of the state for organizing and
controlling urban society” (p. 8) and that it was through this system that the
working population was mobilized for political participation.
Bray (2005) provides the most complete review of the historical develop-
ment of the danwei system and its relative decline during the reform period.
Another good analysis, focusing on SOEs, is Bian (2005). Bray and Bian share
the view that the work-unit formed the fundamental social and spatial unit
in urban China. Using Foucault’s theoretical framework, Bray sees the work-
unit as central to a “distinctive form of socialist governmentality.” He notes
that, although initially the danwei was a response to a range of organizational
and practical challenges faced by the CCP-led government in the 1940s and
1950s, it became a means through which a form of socialist governance could
be deployed among the urban population (p. 2). Among the best Chinese-
language accounts of this unique form of organization are those by Lu Feng
(1989, 1993). Lu writes that the system originated with the supply system as
it evolved in the revolutionary base areas controlled by the CCP prior to 1949.
Frazier (2002) tries to pull together these differing views, but he suggests
that there is no such thing as a single danwei system. Instead, he writes about
“labor management institutions” that governed different aspects of hiring,
compensation, and the organization of the industrial workforce. He sees these
institutions as evolving over time in response to the various policy challenges
confronting the CCP.
Further, Bray (2005) agrees that the system has undergone significant
changes in the reform program (for a good account in Chinese of its decline,
see Cao and Chen, 1997), but he claims that the system has adapted and per-
sisted in “key aspects of urban life” (p. 170). As many roles were shifted from the
work-unit to local government, the government began to promote the idea of
community to take over the non-economic roles of the SOEs. These heteroge-
neous communities contained many migrant workers. They were to be based
on the existing residents’ committees, but they had a wider scope of obliga-
tions. For purposes of the relationship between state and society, Bray claims
that the party has moved to replace one form of collectivity with another.
Rather than allowing people to interact individually with the government and
8 Saich
the market, the government has created new organizations to take over the
collective aspects of work and service provision that formerly had been pro-
vided by the work-unit. Bray (2008), exploring this further in a study of two
communities in Wuhan, shows that the liberalization of the housing market
has led to an increase in government intervention in urban planning and the
design of residential areas. The government makes use of these interventions
to become involved in a much wider range of interactions.
Work by Heberer and Göbel (2011) reinforces this perspective. Describing
the committees formed in the shequ 社区 (urban communities) as a type of
“authoritarian communitarianism,” they maintain that the state has moved
away from its traditional, more direct and “paternalistic” form of interaction
with society to impose notions of community and self-governance.
Despite these moves to create new collective identities, the new communi-
ties that have emerged are not based on the core elements of the traditional
work-unit system, such as job allocations and housing. These often-gated com-
munities do form a communal space, but, as Bray (2005) notes, they are “priva-
tized realms that residents have bought their way into” (p. 177). As a result,
one would expect their relationship to the state to be different from the one
in the traditional urban mode of organization. Tomba (2014), who has con-
ducted the most extensive exploration of these new communities (xiaoqu
小区) and their relationship to government, points out that the government-
organized shequ committees “also fail to penetrate the upper echelon of
Chinese society, as they are concentrated mostly in poorer and dilapidated
neighborhoods” (p. 9). Yet, interestingly, his work also agrees that the property
revolution has actually strengthened rather than weakened the regime’s legiti-
macy and its ability to govern at the grassroots.
The traditional governing mechanism in grassroots’ urban society is the
residents’ committee ( jumin weiyuanhui, 居民委员会), which is covered by
Read (2012) in his comparative study of grassroots organization in China and
Taiwan. Read describes these committees as the first thread of the state’s con-
nection to its citizens. These committees are now encased by the communities
(shequ). It sees the development of these residents’ committees that are cre-
ated and sponsored by the state as a form of “administrative grassroots engage-
ment.” The heads of the committees are the state’s designated liaison in the
neighborhood, and the committees have the dual function of both policing
the community and providing a wide range of services.
Tomba’s book, covering the everyday practice of governing in urban China,
shows how the governance relationship between state and society is now
erformed by a mix of actors “including both private and public organizations,

p
state-controlled agents, individuals, and groups with different levels of auton-
omy” (p. 10). He shows that the various communities have a varying intensity
of governance. Not surprisingly, the high-end gated communities operate
at the greatest distance from the state. However, this does not represent the
development of a civil society or a move by the new middle class for greater
democratization.
The segregated nature of the urban communities during the reform era
means that the state now employs a variety of strategies to deal with the differ-
ent social groups. It is important for these communities to accept the dominant
narrative of the state, resulting in discussions of their concerns in the language
of the state, which includes its emphasis on concepts such as stability and
patriotism. This consensus, as Tomba calls it, does not imply the legitimacy of
the government, nor does it mean no conflict arises within the communities.
However, the government is able to “engineer” a consensus through techniques
such as a “monopoly over ideology, the active promotion of the interests of
certain social groups, the reproduction of chronic dependence on state welfare
among the new poor, limited forms of autonomy, the specter of social con-
trol and repression, or a mix of social and administrative institutions” (p. 21).
Yet the social groups can use such language and practices to pursue their own
interests in negotiations with the government. Thus, the laid-off state work-
ers or the urban poor might use a Maoist discourse to push the government
to improve their situation. Hurst (2008) refers to this as “framing.” Although
Tomba does not link such grassroots research to politics at the national level,
he does provide another insight into the resilience of the regime, as discussed
in more detail below.
In addition to the communities described by Tomba, a large number of
urban villages have been transferred to urban administration but still main-
tain collective economies. Tang (2015), in a study of three such villages in
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan, shows how village collectives and urban
administrations organize community governance. In such cases, successful vil-
lage collective shareholding companies play a leading role in city governance
by providing villagers with economic and social welfare. In addition, they sub-
sidize city administrative services and mobilize residents. In return for land
that has been appropriated for industrial and commercial uses, these villagers
have been reclassified as urban residents. Yet, regardless of whether money is
involved, the “villagers see themselves as ‘shareholders’ [gumin, 股民] rather
than as urban residents [shimin, 市民]” (p. 735).
10 Saich
State-Society Relations under Mao Zedong
Due to the absence of real social-science research by Westerners in China dur-

ing the Mao period, it is not surprising that relatively little has been written on
state-society interactions in the 1950s. This was also the case among Chinese
researchers, with the notable exceptions of official writings on how the CCP
interpreted the nature of state-society interactions.
The Western literature is based on three main themes: (1) the influence
of Chinese tradition, (2) studies of the Soviet Union, including variants of
totalitarianism, and (3) the consequences of the CCP’s pre-1949 revolutionary
experiences.
After seizing power in 1949, the CCP adopted the notion in the traditional
political culture of an omnipresent, penetrating state. Unchallenged by other
organizations, the state assumed an all-embracing role that included defin-
ing the correct ethical values on the basis of the prevailing interpretation
of Confucianism. In post-1949, this interpretation was based on Marxism-
Leninism‒Mao Zedong Thought. The influence of this traditional notion led
to the use of mass mobilization and campaign movements combined with a
distrust of independent intellectual criticism, which thereafter became asso-
ciated with a lack of loyalty. White (1983, p. 28) adopts this view when noting
that the “long tradition of the imperial Chinese bureaucracy was firmly rooted
in political authoritarianism.” In terms of the relationship of the state to soci-
ety, he describes it as distant and hierarchical. He notes that the relationship
expressed a “sharp distinction between superior officials to whom deference
and unquestioned obedience were due and a populace that had no formal
rights to influence the decisions of the official stratum.”
The most penetrating analysis of the relationship between the Chinese
intellectual tradition and the post-1949 regime remains Levenson (1958–65).
Levenson seeks to understand the relationship between tradition and modern
culture during the process of transition from a society that was governed by an
imperial system regulated by Confucian principles and norms to the society
that emerged under CCP rule. This work stands in stark contrast to works that
see the modern Chinese state as a variation on the Soviet model or solely as a
response to the challenges of modernization posed by Western engagement in
China during the previous 100 years. In Levenson’s view, communism became
the new Confucianism—“Confucianism with another name and another skin
but the same perennial spirit. Canonical texts and canonical texts, bureaucratic
intellectual élite and bureaucratic intellectual élite—nothing has changed.
allegedly—except, possibly everything” (1: 162). However, Levenson suggests
that this is indeed a radical break. In his view, although communism became a
logical successor to Confucianism as the dominant value system under which

Chinese society should operate, it was not a lineal heir. For historical analysis
of the development of the Chinese state, see the two books edited by Schram
(1985, 1987).
In a different vein, a good example of writings that see continuity in the
impact of traditional power structures, Tsai (1996, p. 494) notes the endurance
of gender inequalities that suggest “the centrality of patriarchy as a socially
constructed system.” She argues that the “institutional dynamics of patriar-
chy” could well survive changes in a specific political orientation or economic
modes “precisely because they are embedded in the very efforts themselves.”
Until well into the reform period, the study of China was often seen as a
branch of Soviet studies, with themes and concepts developed in the study
of the Soviet Union being applied to see whether they were also applicable
to developments in China. Thus, Western scholarship in the 1950s and 1960s
focused on the structures of the new state and how they were used to penetrate
society, an approach heavily influenced by studies of the Soviet Union (for one
of the best examples, see Schurmann [1968], the most detailed attempt to
explain the new regime and its relationship to society). However, very early on,
Schwartz (1951) warned against seeing the CCP as a clone of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Some analyses drew on the notion of totali-
tarianism, arguing that the new regime went further than the traditional statist
disposition to seek greater control and penetration of society than the CCP’s
imperial and Nationalist predecessors (Wittfogel, 1957).
Tsou (1986) traces this desire to penetrate deeper into society not only to
the historical legacy but also to the process of power consolidation by the CCP.
“Total control and total mobilization, two distinguishing features of a totalitar-
ian polity, were indispensable ingredients of the Beijing regime’s stability and
success” (p. 3). Unlike in the CPSU, the demands to create political integration
after 1949 led the CCP to unify all major social formations under its leader-
ship and only exclude from this coalition the “most uncompromising groups”
(p. 26). With the trend toward radicalism, a basic change occurred in the rela-
tionship between the party and the various groups that were established after
1949 (p. 37). Tsou (1983) describes the “revolutionary-‘feudal’ totalitarianism”
that emerged as a more extreme form of totalitarianism and sees the emer-
gence of this system as a reaction to the political disintegration during the first
half of the twentieth century. He claims that the ideas were revolutionary
because they called for the overthrow of the “new bourgeois class” that had
allegedly emerged. They were feudal because, despite the revolutionary pro-
gram and rhetoric, they were related to the feudal political culture and the per-
sonality cult, and they were totalitarian because they pushed to extend political
12 Saich
control over every sphere of political life (Tsou, 1986, p. 55). According to Tsou,
the reforms began the process of pulling Chinese state-society relations back
from this brink. Tsou (1968) provides the earliest attempt to understand the
radicalization of the Cultural Revolution when he claims that Mao had always
envisaged a sweeping transformation of Chinese society and that the Yan’an
period (1937–45) had always contained within it moderation and radicalism
(pp. 307–11). Friedman (1983) also eschews the use of the term “totalitarian-
ism,” preferring the use of a mixture of feudal and fascist.
Among Chinese scholars, Sun (1993) argues most strongly that a totalitarian
society emerged from the work-unit system during the Maoist era. The system
provided the state with a strong mobilization capacity to engage the entire
society to focus on national development. After the CCP seized power in 1949,
the previous three-tiered system of state–society elites–masses was changed
to a two-tiered system of “state-masses.” This allowed top-down communica-
tions to dominate over any bottom-up feedback. In a later work, Sun (2004,
p. 31) claims that China had an undifferentiated social structure in which the
state controlled the economy and had a monopoly over all social resources.
Politics, society, and ideology had a high degree of overlap.
Walder (2015) provides a detailed and nuanced view of politics under
Mao. He writes that the CCP did not seek to control everything but, rather,
“focused its attention on organizations where key government functions were
performed, where major decisions about resource allocation were made, and
where China’s future elite would be trained” (p. 8).
Both official Chinese views and views of independent Chinese critics have
raised the idea of a combination of “feudal” and “fascism” to describe the
Cultural Revolution. Official analyses are careful to avoid criticism of Mao
Zedong for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and seek, instead, to portray
the group denounced as the “Gang of Four” as remaining under the influence
of feudal thought to promote their authoritarian and militaristic rule (for such
official responses, see Benbao teyue pinglun yuan, 1979; Yu, 1980). The idea that
a persistent influence of “feudal” thinking was hampering the progress of the
reforms was a constant refrain among reformers in the 1980s (Su, 1986).
The view that China had descended into a form of “feudal fascism” during
the Cultural Revolution was also argued in political manifestos outside official
CCP circles. The best known is the Li Yizhe manifesto that was posted on the
streets of Guangzhou on November 10, 1974, although it had already been in
gestation for at least a year (see Chan, Rosen, and Unger, 1985). It represented
the view of one group of “Cultural Revolution rebels” who had become disil-
lusioned by the events that had unfolded. This manifesto contained a mix of
the aspirations of the movement’s original intent and criticism of the results.
The focus was on criticism of what the writers termed the “Lin Biao system,”
which they denounced as “fascist.”1 Despite Lin’s death, it was clear that the
system persisted. The manifesto called for “socialist democracy and legality”
to replace the new “feudalistic social-fascist dictatorship.” The authors agreed
with the thrust of the Cultural Revolution that maintained that special privi-
leges had formed the basis for a “new bourgeois class,” but they were more tol-
erant about allowing different perspectives to be aired, and they were opposed
to the violence that had become part and parcel of the struggle. The manifesto
claimed that the theory of “genius” had eliminated 800 million brains, but peo-
ple were not allowed to ask “why.” The fact that such a view enjoyed some offi-
cial support is indicated by the fact that when the authors were rehabilitated in
1979, official organs, including the People’s Daily, praised the manifesto.
This manifesto and others, such as “Whither China” (Sheng-wu-lian, 1968),
revealed that, far from enforcing conformity within Chinese society and blind
allegiance to Chairman Mao, there was considerable diversity in society, and
different groups and people experienced this high point of Maoism in differ-
ing ways. Yang Jian (1993), in his work on the underground literature produced
during the Cultural Revolution, provides one window into what was actually
an extremely varied social response to the tumultuous situation.
Perry (1994) not only points out the limitations of the totalitarian approach
and perspectives developed from Soviet studies but also offers a critique of
the state-society approach. She maintains that the idea of a unitary “state” and
an undifferentiated “society” have blinded us to the most interesting aspects
of the impact of the reforms (p. 705). In her view, “[T]erms such as ‘state’ and
‘society’ are simply too gross to capture the enormous variation that differen-
tiates one Chinese region—or level of government—from another” (p. 707).
Greater access to China and the ability to interview people have led to a more
nuanced view of the variance within society during the Mao years. Indeed,
archival research by Perry (1993) provides a good example of what can be
done using sources that only began to become available in the 1980s. Her
research shows that even though the working class was relatively privileged, it
did not universally approve of the socialization of industry. By early 1957, the
changes had led to a decline in workers’ real income and a loss of input into
decision-making.
Thus, despite the Maoist rhetoric, it behooves us to delve deeper into what
was actually happening in society and how its relationship with the state was
1 Defense Minister Lin Biao had been regarded as Mao Zedong’s successor at the beginning of
the Cultural Revolution. He died under mysterious circumstances in 1971. Official accounts
claim that his plane had crashed en route to the Soviet Union following a failed coup attempt.
14 Saich
evolving. One work that seeks to delve deeper is the edited volume by Brown
and Johnson (2015). As they note, rather than a top-down conformist con-
trolled environment, the “underlying reality” was characterized by “conflict,
tension, and variation” (p. 1). The essays in this volume show the new research
directions that can be pursued because of increased access to local and insti-
tutional archives, diaries, interviews, and oral histories. They reveal a relation-
ship between state and society that is complex, with the language of the state
infusing that of the society but, at the same time, also being used to critique
the state or to twist or subvert the state’s original intent. Wang (2015), in a study
of Rui’an county, Zhejiang province, describes the persistence of local customs,
such as dragon boats and rain-making displays, despite state policy and pres-
sures. This research helps explain why traditional practices could be revived
so rapidly after the reforms were launched and the state released its grip over
local society.
Earlier works, such as Diamant (2000) on marriage and divorce between
1949 and 1968, also show what can be done with the newly available sources.
Diamant asks: “To what extent can states change family structure, family rela-
tions, and conceptions of proper family behavior?” (p. 2). His focus is on the
impact of the 1950 Marriage Law, which was seen as heralding a dramatic
change in traditional relations. Politics underlies his study as he attempts to
discover the role that “labels” played in influencing the selection of partners.
He finds that, despite a messier situation than the totalitarian model might
lead us to expect, the Marriage Law had the greatest impact among the “rural
educated” in the urban and rural areas. Political designations were of great
importance to intellectuals.
The third trend in research that influences our understanding of state-soci-
ety relations after 1949 is the impact of the CCP’s pre-1949 experiences (Tsou,
1986, pp. 25–26). The CCP was successful in areas where its cadres understood
the local environment and where they were adept at micropolitics. In part,
this sensitivity to the locality was reinforced by the simple need to survive.
Keating’s detailed study (1997) of the experience of the rural cooperativization
drive in 1943–45 in two adjacent counties in the Shaan-Gan-Ning [Shaanxi-
Gansu-Ningxia] Border Region shows just how much local state-society inter-
actions can affect policy outcomes.2 Selden (1971), in an examination of CCP
efforts at community building with a genuinely participatory ethos, provides
the strongest support for constructive interaction between state and society
2 Before 1949, the CCP ruled a number of “base areas,” where they carried out policies such as
land reform that would influence post-1949 practices. The most important base area was the
Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region, where Mao had his capital in Yan’an.
in the border regions. However, later research has argued that the populism
observed by Selden was always combined with the authoritarianism and
state-strengthening ambitions of the CCP, which were carried out at society’s
expense (Chen, 1986).
Certainly after 1949, the authoritarian strands of the pre-1949 legacy came to
dominate over any proto-democratic proclivities, something that is recognized
in Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden (1991) and Selden (1995). This more nega-
tive inheritance is proposed by Wang and Zhao (2011), who, based on a study
of Shandong, highlight the negative interactions between officials and villag-
ers during the Maoist era. Claiming that this hindered both production and
the drive toward modernization, they highlight how officials faced pressures
from both state mandates and villagers, thus pulling them in opposite direc-
tions. Excessive production quotas forced severe actions by officials, but, on
occasion, some sided with the villagers and only half-heartedly implemented
state policies. The severity of implementation could lead to protests by the
peasants, who would then be punished. Wang and Zhao thus suggest that such
tension led to the “four clean-ups” movement,3 which sought to impose better
discipline on local officials.
One crucial legacy of the CCP experience before 1949 was that the party and
the state enjoyed significant autonomy from the specific interests of the vari-
ous social forces. CCP ideology gave preference to the proletariat, but, in fact, it
had had no effective contact with the proletariat for over twenty years. Yet, as
soon as conditions permitted, the party reasserted the primacy of urban work
over rural work, from which it had originally drawn its strongest support. The
socialization drive of the new party-state ran against the material interests of
both the peasantry and the proletariat. This disregard for the interests of the
two primary classes that the CCP was supposed to represent derived from
the party’s “privileged” position in relation to both the peasantry and the prole-
tariat prior to 1949. In the absence of an actual proletariat in the revolutionary
base areas, proletarian rule in practice meant rule by its vanguard, that is, the
CCP. The party adopted the habit of speaking in the name of the proletariat
without the nuisance of having to listen to an actual, existing proletarian class.
This affected post-1949 state-society relations as the party developed the habit
of speaking on behalf of all social forces, determining that the party knew best
what was in their real class interests (Saich, 1996).
3 The “four clean-ups” is another name for the Socialist Education Campaign launched by Mao
in 1963 to bring local rural officials in line and to reduce corruption and collusion. The cam-
paign continued until 1966, when it was superseded by the events of the Cultural Revolution.
16 Saich
The official view of state-society relations and their interactions was gov-
erned initially by two key concepts propounded by Mao—“New Democracy”
and the “Mass Line.” In “New Democracy”, Mao (1940/1965) sought to persuade
the public at large that the CCP had something to offer them. The party would
not rule in the name of only the proletariat but, rather, initially at least, it
claimed it would rule based on a coalition of all revolutionary classes—the
“joint dictatorship of all revolutionary classes”—under a government system
of “democratic centralism.” The evolution of this thinking would lead to a
united front composed of the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie, and the
national bourgeoisie under the leadership of the working class. Such a united
front would comprise the “people’s democratic dictatorship.” As a result, for a
short period more moderate policies were pursued, as only a limited number
of people were categorized as class enemies (the “reactionary big landlords
and the big bourgeoisie”).
State and party officials would interact with society through the “mass line.”
According to Mao (1943/1965, p. 119):
In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily
“from the masses, to the masses.” This means: take the idea of the masses
(scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study
turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses
and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as
their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the
correctness of these ideas in such action. . . . Such is the Marxist theory of
knowledge.
This view was often interpreted as an example of Mao’s populism, with the
CCP’s policies supposedly coming from the masses and deriving legitimacy
from its interaction with them. However, in practice this led to increased
attempts by the party-state to penetrate the formal organizations in which
the “masses” participated so that the party could lead them to the “correct
opinion.” It also resulted in a very particular form of citizen participation, that
is, mass campaigns, in terms of accepting policy and criticizing “enemies of
the state.”
Any notion of a more moderate relationship between state and society
changed as Mao’s views and policies became radicalized, reaching a zenith
during the Cultural Revolution. This relationship was extraordinary not only
in terms of China but also in the history of all other socialist states. At one
point, it seemed that the relationship consisted only of Mao in holy commu-
nication with the masses. As Walder (2015, pp. 201, 205) writes, the Cultural
Revolution entailed a “simultaneous mobilization of a mass insurgency from
below.” For almost two years, students, and later industrial workers, were let
loose to run amok and to set up organizations to denounce and bully officials
whom they deemed “revisionist.” These legacies provided the framework for
the subsequent relationship between state and society that would evolve dur-
ing the reform period.
One of the biggest challenges for the relationship between the CCP and soci-
ety was the move back to the cities after 1949. Following the destruction of
the urban base of the CCP after 1927, the party had no deep contact with the
urban working class for twenty-two years. Insofar as there was support from
society, it was from the peasantry and disaffected intellectuals. Studies by Gao
(2004), Lieberthal (1980), and Vogel (1969) of Hangzhou, Tianjin, and Canton
(Guangzhou), respectively, shed interesting light on the process of how the
CCP and its state apparatus came to dominate urban society.
Vogel shows how in the early years post-1949, the need to strengthen
the political system was given priority over economic modernization. This
required a series of campaigns that helped the state reorder society and meant
that the evolving political structures entailed “invasion into what was formerly
the private sector” (p. 351). In Vogel’s view, the CCP developed a political sys-
tem that was strong enough to control and transform society. Some continu-
ities remained, but what emerged represented a fundamental institutional
breakthrough.
The interaction between tradition and modernity, and continuity and
change, forms the core focus of Lieberthal’s (1980) study of how the CCP came
to control Tianjin. He looks at the balance of modern and traditional elements
in the consolidation of power in Tianjin. More specifically, the new leaders had
to decide on the extent to which they should rely on traditional socioeconomic
units and practices to accomplish tasks. The fear was that the range of jobs to
be completed would overwhelm a new administration. The challenge was not
just the need to control an urban environment in which they had shallow roots
and little experience but also their desire to bring about a revolutionary trans-
formation. Their experiences in the countryside before 1949 convinced them
of the need to develop deeper roots in the social structure in order to be able
to transform those structures from their very foundations. After the lack of suc-
cess of ambitious strategies, Liu Shaoqi devised a more focused policy with a
more moderate pace. This entailed a carefully controlled revolution “from the
top down,” which required the demobilization of many sectors of the popu-
lation that had originally been brought together to make political demands
in 1948–49. As a result, the revolution would come to different sectors of the
urban population at different times (pp. 7–8). The initial focus, apart from
removing “counterrevolutionaries,” was bringing key economic enterprises
under control so that the state had greater resources with which to pursue
18 Saich
its more transformative agenda. In the traditional sector and indeed further
afield, relying on traditional personal networks (guanxi) meant that there
was little civic consciousness and few were bothered about events outside
their immediate social milieu. Government propaganda received little atten-
tion. This meant that many either did not understand class relations and class
struggle or find them relevant. As a result, the state began to develop institu-
tions to address functions that were usually handled by traditional networks,
such as social insurance, hiring offices for those workers to be redeployed and
job assignments. The key turning point came in 1952, when the party launched
the three-antis and the five-antis campaigns, which brought its revolutionary
fervor for transformation to the majority of the urban population. These two
campaigns were launched by the CCP to reduce corruption in the system and
to weed out those who were seen as enemies of the state.
Gao’s Hangzhou is a city that lacked a tradition of labor organization or
revolutionary fervor (unlike Tianjin and Guangzhou) and was “an antithesis
between revolutionary rural areas and the ‘bourgeois city’ ” (p. 6). Gao stresses
the importance of three elements in the process of transformation: opportun-
ism, political ritual, and identity formation. His focus is the cultural dimension
of the Chinese revolution. Like Vogel and Lieberthal, he traces the initial mod-
erate policies that marked the immediate post-1949 state-society relationship
but shows how the communists used cultural weapons to transform urban cul-
ture. Interestingly, all the key urban officials were moved to Hangzhou from
Shandong and thus to a new environment in which they had no political or
cultural context. Moderate policies toward society were thus a short-term
pragmatic response to the realities they faced. This would provide a platform
for later, more radical policies to be introduced. Gao notes: “Opportunism
was indeed the only approach possible at the local level” (p. 247). This meant
that CCP policy “was not to physically eliminate the urban bourgeoisie but to
expropriate it economically and remodel it culturally” (p. 258). Key in the polit-
ical ritual was the use of meetings (huiyi), which imposed social pressure and
the coercive power of the state on society. Gao concludes, “Followed by Mao’s
political campaigns, state coercion was the foundation of the communist take-
over, cultural criticism its expression, and political control its aim” (p. 260).
Civil Society, Corporatism, and Authoritarian Resilience:

Perspectives on Post-Mao State-Society Relations
Following the death of Mao in 1976 and the arrest of the “Gang of Four” later
that year, economic modernization was stressed over “class struggle,” thus
requiring that the party relax its control over society and public discourse.
The new policies and the impact of the economic reforms redefined the social
structure, redistributed power between the state and society, and altered the
principles on which society is organized and the way in which it interacts
with the state apparatus. As a consequence, Chinese society has become more
complex in terms of both structure and attitudes, and, at the same time, it has
become more fluid and dynamic than at any time since the early 1950s. Social
and geographical mobility as well as horizontal interactions have increased, and
integration has developed as the vertical and cellular boundaries of the tradi-
tional Leninist system have become more porous.
These changes have led to a wide range of views about the nature of state-
society relations. This section looks at general theories about the changing
relationship, and the following section reviews various ideas about the rela-
tionship between the local state and society. The tumultuous changes that the
economic reforms unleashed have produced a wide range of analytical obser-
vations about the nature of state-society relations. The main conundrum has
been how to resolve the tensions between increasing freedoms that have come
with the reforms and what appears to be a relaxation of state control in certain
areas despite the continued presence of the CCP and its coercive apparatus. As
we have seen, the state has adopted new mechanisms to manage this evolv-
ing environment. Thus, even though social space has opened up, the state has
continued to retain a great deal of its organizational power, and it has moved
to dominate the new social space and to reorganize the newly emerging orga-
nizations. This has resulted in new hybrid forms of public and private that are
difficult to define precisely. That the public clearly dominates in most cases is
reflected in the growing interest in the ideological sphere among the genera-
tion of younger Chinese intellectuals who have adopted the statist ideologies
of neo-authoritarianism and neoconservatism.
Given this phenomenon, as well China’s traditional culture and previous
practices of CCP rule, it is surprising that the concept of civil society received
so much scholarly attention during the 1990s. At that time, the rise or the
reemergence of civil society was seen as an important component, or even a
precursor, of democratization in China. Such a search for signs of civil society
was sharpened by the large-scale Chinese student demonstrations in 1989 and
the collapse of the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
two years later. The number of people who participated in the demonstrations
and the rapidity with which they formed autonomous organizations led some
to argue that the movement heralded the emergence of a civil society in China
(for one of the earliest examples, see Ostergaard, 1989). Sullivan (1990) uses the
ideas of Rousseau to suggest the possibility that formerly fragmented groups in
20 Saich
society could suddenly put aside their differences and come together to form
a moral and collective body. He sees this in the alliance between students and
workers who came together in the later stages of the 1989 protests.
Some writers turned to history to seek possible societal organizational
forms that might be a precursor to civil society in contemporary China. Strand
(1990), in his study of the student-led demonstrations in 1989, shows similari-
ties between societal organizations in the 1920s and the 1980s, concluding that
both the rhetoric and the style of protest were similar, with the 1989 demon-
strations resembling a “morality play done in Beijing opera style.” Brook (1997),
basing his analysis on Republican and imperial China, writes that observers
have tended to overemphasize the role of the state and to neglect aspects of the
role that society can play in governance. He uses the term “auto-organization”
to describe how social communities based on place of origin or profession
coalesce that are not under the direct governance of the state. Although he
acknowledges that the post-1949 state effectively eradicated such social com-
munities, he notes that the formation of “autonomous” student and worker
organizations that cut across the vertical silos of Chinese society is an indica-
tor that “auto-organization” remains a possibility for Chinese society.
Work by White, Howell, and Shang (1996), who study coastal China, rep-
resents the most systematic review to determine whether a civil society was
emerging in China. According to their work, civil society is defined as the
emergence of an autonomous sphere of voluntary associations with the poten-
tial to organize the interests of socioeconomic groups that are developing as a
consequence of reform and might be able to counterbalance the unchallenged
dominance of the state. They look at a range of organizations, from mass
organizations, such as the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, to the newly
developing social organizations, both registered and nonregistered. Their find-
ings preconfigure most later research, revealing a messy picture, with organi-
zations spanning a spectrum from “mass organizations” that function as an
arm of the state to unregistered organizations that fit into their definition of a
civil society. For these authors, there is no sharp distinction between state and
society but, rather, an “intermingling and braiding” (p. 209), in which social
organizations do not have clear political potential.
Zhang, Fang, and Wang (2009) also look at the emergence of civic associa-
tions in the post-Mao era. They see the main driving force for change as the
withdrawal of the state, despite state control of the process. During the period
prior to 1978, they regard state and society as virtually identical, resulting in
a pillar-like structure in which the state in many ways substituted for society.
After the reforms, they see the relationship as funnel-shaped, in which the
state and grassroots society lack a high level of intersection, but as one moves
up the administrative ladder, more cracks and divergences emerge between

the two. They are critical of the work of others for overemphasizing civil soci-
ety and for not paying sufficient attention to interactions at different levels of
the government.
This overbearing presence of the state, however, has led observers to look
for other models to explain state-society relations in post-Mao China. As
Chamberlain (1998) notes in a perceptive review essay, three reactions to the
changes have resulted: “to alter the concept to fit the landscape; to look for
changes in the landscape to fit the concept; or to drop the concept entirely”
(p. 69). What has followed are attempts to adapt civil society to fit with China’s
realities, an interest in corporatism, especially state and local corporatism, and
subsequently an interest in how, despite the tremendous social and economic
changes, authoritarian rule has persisted. Writers have thus sought new expla-
nations of how the state still exerts control over society in this dramatically
changed environment.
Saich (1993, p. 5) highlights the interrelationship among the state, civil
society, and society, noting “civil society is a product of both state and society
striving to limit the powers of the former while seeking to civilize the latter.
However, while civil society is linked to the institutional framework of the
Party-state and they are interpenetrated, it is located outside of it.” This symbi-
otic nature and connectivity became prominent in writing about civil society
and led to a revival of interest in corporatism.
Such a perspective led Brook and Frolic (1997, p. 10) to conclude that it was
necessary to bring “the state back into our discussion of civil society.” Frolic
does so with great enthusiasm through his concept of “state-led civil society,”
something that may seem contradictory in terms of prior writings that stress
society’s autonomy from the state and, in more extreme instances, opposi-
tion to the state. Frolic’s work (1997) formed part of a trend toward once again
blurring the lines between state and society. He sees potential institutions
of civil society being instigated by state actions and many of the groups that
have arisen during the reform era serving as “support mechanisms to the state”
(p. 56). However, Frolic also points to the validity of notions of corporatism in
trying to understand state-society relations.
The post-1989 interest in theories on civil society also piqued the interest of
researchers in China. Before the early 1990s, Chinese writings had focused on
explaining foreign concepts of civil society and then conducting limited explo-
rations of their applicability to reform-era China (see, e.g., Li, 1987). However,
in a review of Chinese writing on civil society in the 1980s, Ma (1994) points out
that the focus was on the “creation of a modern citizenry” through state efforts
to inspire “civic awareness” among the people. The notion of a civil society
22 Saich
developing against the state was absent; rather, he envisions a civil society
developing in harmony with the state.
When Chinese writers picked up the theme of civil society in the early to
mid-1990s, the focus was more clearly its relevance to China’s development as
the economy became more market oriented and greater space for autonomy
was created. However, civil society was still seen as operating in harmony with
the state. Deng and Jing (1992) launched such discussions, resulting in scores of
subsequent articles on the nature of civil society in China and its relevance to
Chinese conditions. Thereafter, the key articles were translated in Deng’s (2011)
edited volume. For Deng and Jing, civil society was defined as “both a private
area where social members abide by contractual norms voluntarily and auton-
omously in their social and economic conduct and a non-official public area
where the masses participate in the management of public affairs” (1992, p. 61;
2011, pp. 31‒32). Unlike in the past, these contractual relations derived from
market transactions, which replaced traditional “blood ties” and “hierarchical
administrative relationships.” Deng and Jing reject the notion of confrontation
between civil society and the state (a common view among Chinese writers),
and, although civil society is independent, it does not enjoy autonomy. Hence,
they propose a “positive interaction theory” in which state intervention is
necessary to deal with the conflicts within society, but rational limits to such
interventions are imposed. The state, in turn, is required to recognize the inde-
pendence of civil society and to provide legal and institutional guarantees for
its existence. As civil society matures, it will gain greater independence and
autonomy, ultimately leading to a precondition for democracy.
Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan [Chinese Social Sciences Quarterly] in Hong
Kong subsequently published some twenty articles on the subject, and articles
in mainland journals, such as Tianjin shehui kexue [Tianjin Social Sciences], also
took up the debate. According to Wang (2014, p. 166), such writings followed
two distinct paths. First were articles of a more academic bent that provided
theoretical bases for the construction of a Chinese civil society. Second were
articles interested in practical applications, using phrases such as a “socialist
civil society” to help resolve China’s increasing social problems or to assist the
political transition by developing a “civil society with Chinese characteristics.”
A prominent issue has been how to translate the term “civil society” into
Chinese. Deng and Jing (1992, pp. 64‒65) reject the use of minjian shehui
民间社会, as this represents a more folksy rendering that reflects traditional
societal views against officialdom. The term minjian shehui has been used by
scholars on Taiwan, but, according to Yu (2009, p. 38), it is used in the sense
of being marginalized. The term shimin shehui 市民社会 (literally “urban resi-
dents’ society”), derived from translations of Marxist texts, is used to refer to
“bourgeois society,” thus attaching a slightly negative tone. Thus, over time
many have shown a preference for gongmin shehui 公民社会 (citizens’ soci-
ety), as it has a more positive connotation and suggests both citizen participa-
tion and restraints on state power.
Yu has been a key analyst of civil society. In his earliest writings, he refers to
a “socialist civil society” (1993, pp. 45–48). Yu defines civil society as a “ public
sphere outside the spheres of government and the market economy that com-
prises all kinds of civic organizations not affiliated with the government or
businesses” (2009, p. 38). In Yu’s view, the state’s approach toward civil society
is characterized by macro encouragement combined with micro restrictions
(2006, pp. 109‒22; 2011, p. 78). It is noteworthy that Yu adopts the use of gongmin
shehui, rather than the narrower shimin shehui. Like most Chinese researchers,
he focuses on the role of civic organizations in providing services, thus taking a
limited view of civil society. He cites four features of civil society organizations.
First, they are non-official and thus do not represent the position of the state.
Second, they are nonprofit, and their main purpose is to provide public welfare
and services. Third, they are relatively independent of government and have
their own sources of funding. Fourth, they are voluntary (Yu, 1999, pp. 105‒17;
2008, pp. 162‒68).
A second key feature of Yu’s writings is that he adopts a theoretical concept
very similar to Frolic’s “state-led civil society,” using the term “government-
led civil society.” However, Yu goes further than Frolic by suggesting that the
civil society organizations, even those that are not created by the state, seek
to cooperate with the state and to align their mission with state objectives.
At the same time, Yu’s work suggests that this might not be an ideal situation
because of the government’s dominance. He notes that civil society in China
is “typically government-led, characterized by public-private duality” (2008,
p. 162; Yu, 2009). In Yu’s view, most civil organizations are too dependent on the
party and government organs of political power, and they have a “strong offi-
cial nature.” However, Yu does not see the situation as static, and he suggests
that the reforms will lead to further growth and greater independence of civil
organizations. He complains that, for many organizations “their official nature
is too strong, and their civil nature is too weak” (2008, p. 166).
Tang (2010) focuses on the service-delivery aspect of civil society organiza-
tions. He claims that three models have dominated the discourse in China,
the first two drawn from the West (civil society and corporatism) and the
third, developed by Kang and Han (2007), called “administrative absorption
of society.” Kang and Han argue that, because of the control the state exerts
over civil society, organizations can be used to satisfy the social needs that
the state cannot meet. In a study of a township-level branch of the All-China
24 Saich
Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Tang (2010) proposes a new approach.
“Administrative” refers to the state and its actions, and “services refer to
the ability of civic organizations to provide public services.” “Absorption” is the
process through which the government can use civil society organizations to
provide public services. This is not an equal relationship but, rather, one in
which the government plays the leading role, and the civic organizations serve
as appendages. The relationship enhances government legitimacy while the
civic organizations receive the resources they need to develop.
The notion of micro restrictions is picked up by Kang and Han (2008). In
their view, the state adopts different control strategies for the various social
organizations, depending on their capabilities and the kinds of public goods
that they can offer. The reform program that led to the emergence of diverse
social interests led to the dissolution of the traditional modes of governance.
Kang and Han see a new system evolving in which the state may exert strict
control over some organizations and less monitoring over others, and still
others are left to their own devices. They propose a “system of graduated
controls” as an “ideal type” juxtaposed against notions of a “civil society,” “cor-
poratism,” and so forth. Fan (2010) also devised a categorization to describe the
relationships of different organizations with the state. These range from those
that are strongly controlled by the state and contain no features of a civil soci-
ety to those that operate through government intermediaries and have limited
features of a civil society, to philanthropic foundations and social groups that
are effectively autonomous.
Zhu (2004) claims that China is still a pre‒civil society state because of the
enormous obstacles faced by the emerging grassroots nongovernmental orga-
nizations (NGOs). In a study of two voluntary organizations in Guangzhou and
Shanghai, respectively, he highlights the legal impediments that they face as
well as their human resource development, human resource retention, and
funding challenges. He also notes the problems of trust that stem from a lack
of knowledge about NGOs among the public.
The essays in the volume edited by Yu and Gao (2012) try to locate the idea
of civil society within the historical context of China, and, as they note in their
introduction, the concept is “derived from Western historical experience, so it
may prove problematic as a way of understanding social change in societies
with very different historical trajectories and social characteristics” (p. 2). The
volume uses the broad concept of governance to emphasize the collaboration
between the state and society, rather than competition or a zero-sum game.
In Yu’s essay with Zhou (2012), the two case studies they use offer a conclu-
sion on most writing about the application of civil society to China. The state
dominates and directs social development, and the “dichotomy of state and
society is a historical phenomenon applicable only in the Western context”

(p. 150), but that independence is not a necessary condition for social organi-
zation to participate in governance. Indeed, the process of participation itself
might help these organizations to gain greater independence.
The response of the party-state to the idea of civil society has been generally
negative. For example, the CCP’s theoretical journal, Qiushi [Seeking Truth],
warns that people should not “mistakenly believe and circulate the idea of the
Western concept of civil society and even fall into the trap set by some Western
countries” (Zhou, 2011, p. 37). Further, on April 22, 2013, a Central Committee
document (General Office, 2013) outlined seven topics that should not be dis-
cussed. Among these was civil society, and the document noted that those who
promoted this concept were undermining the social basis of the party.
In contrast, an extensive analysis by Simon (2013) suggests that civil society
is alive and, despite occasional setbacks, is thriving. As in most Chinese-
language writing on the topic, she looks at civil society in terms of the asso-
ciational sphere. Her book describes the historical development of the legal
framework for civil society. In her words, “The principal emphasis is on the
ways in which the Chinese people—as opposed to high-ranking officials or
cadres—have been able to play a part in the social and economic development
of China through the associations in which they participate” (p. xxvii). Simon
views the development of these associations as playing the role of the former
“transmission belts” (mass organizations, e.g., the federation of trade unions
or the women’s federation) in terms of “providing input from the people to the
party-state and vice versa” (p. 373). Perhaps a “mass line” for the modern age!
Simon challenges the view of a state-led civil society that focuses on state
control over such organizations. Such analyses ignore how the interpenetra-
tion of state agencies and societal organizations may actually allow the lat-
ter to promote their own interests and those of their members. Saich (2000,
2006) explores this argument with respect to the development of social orga-
nizations in the 1990s. He notes that, despite the moves by the CCP to develop
a traditional Leninist reordering of civil society, with legislation seeking to
mimic the composition of government departments and to limit horizontal
linkages, control is not absolute. He suggests that, in some cases, a symbiotic
relationship has developed in which the interests of members of civil society
organizations can be promoted or state intrusion can be deflected, thus per-
mitting circumnavigation of state oversight. The more complex relationships
that emerge from this process allow some organizations to have effective input
into decision-making and can create relationships that transcend traditional
Leninist vertical lines of control. He concludes that each social organization, if
it is not repressed, negotiates its own niche with state agencies: “In some cases
26 Saich
the outcome may be a close ‘embedded’ relationship with the state, in oth-
ers it may entail formal compliance while operating strategies of evasion and
navigation of the state” (2000, p. 139). He calls for the development of explana-
tions that take into account the complexities of the system, the “institutional
fluidity, ambiguity and messiness” that operate throughout China, especially
at the local levels” (2000, p. 141). In a similar vein, Ding (1994) writes of “insti-
tutional amphibiousness,” in which formal institutions are used to promote
the particular interests of state and nonstate actors. He uses the Institute
of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought under the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences as an example of how, in the 1980s, instead of propagating the
official ideology of the CCP, it became a focal point for critical intellectuals to
question the fundamentals of the ideology. Of course, this requires the willing
participation of those within the official organization. Below we return to the
complexities of state-society relations at the local level.
Virtual worlds and online forums are viewed by some as providing possible
realms for the development of a public sphere and a civil society. Yang (2003)
makes the strongest assertion that the Internet is opening up space for such
developments. Like Yu Keping, he sees civil society as “incipient but dynamic.”
However, unlike Yu Keping and other writers discussed above, Yang’s focus is
not organizations or associations but, rather, an “intermediate public realm
between the state and the private sphere,” perhaps a virtual public sphere.
For Yang, “the Internet facilitates civil society activities by offering new pos-
sibilities for citizen participation. Civil society facilitates the development
of the Internet by providing the necessary social basis—citizens and citizen
groups—for communication and interaction” (p. 405). He sees them as ener-
gizing one another in their “co-evolutionary development,” with the Internet
offering new possibilities for citizen participation (p. 406). Yang (2009) offers a
similarly positive view of the potential of the Internet to offer a positive space
for citizens to communicate. He writes, “Online activism is a microcosm of
China’s new citizen activism, and it is one of its most vibrant currents.” He
sees it as an expansion of “grassroots, citizen democracy” (p. 223). Xiong (2009)
shares this view, claiming that the Internet equalizes power between the state
and society by reducing the threshold for political participation. He argues that
the average netizen has greater democratic awareness than the average citizen.
Yang (2014) does not ignore state capacity for controlling discourse on the
Internet, which has been the focus of a number of other important pieces.
After Yang wrote his first articles (2003, 2009), the picture became even more
nuanced, and in recent years the CCP has certainly adapted to deal with online
communities more effectively. Not only has the party exerted greater control
over social media but it has also used social media to promote its own messages.
More interesting for our purposes is that, in addition to a raft of measures to

control the online “public sphere,” social media has also provided an outlet for
uncivil society.
Jiang (2016) regards his chapter as a successor to Yang (2003) and argues
that “the Internet has facilitated, on the one hand, the co-evolution of Chinese
civic spaces and authoritarian control, and on the other, the co-evolution
of civic activities and uncivil interactions.” Jiang sees this evolution as con-
tributing to the “fragmentation and cynicism of public opinion,” which has
enabled more uncivil exchanges. He portrays the Internet as a place of the
“simultaneous growth of authoritarianism and grassroots activism fueled by
contention and participation,” and he notes that the Chinese government has
been able to use the Internet to promote development while successfully mini-
mizing its political impact.
Teets (2014) contends that the study of state-society relations has evolved
from the theories of corporatism in the 1990s to viewing societal organizations
as enjoying greater independence within a complex web of relationships in
the 2000s. We return to her views in more detail below, but first we review the
most salient writings on corporatism in China. As Western social scientists
began to see more problems with applying the concept of civil society to China
and began to stress state engagement, the idea of corporatism gained traction.
Variations on the theme of corporatism have sought to explain how the plural-
izing socioeconomic changes induced by the market reforms can coexist with
the continued dominance of the party-state.
Two of the most enthusiastic proponents of corporatism as a way to explain
state-society relations are Unger and Chan (1999) and Oi (1999), who apply the
concept of local state corporatism to explain local government-led growth in
the southern Jiangsu region. We return to her work below when we look at the
local state and its relationship with society.
Unger and Chan (1995) argue that the application of corporatism can help
resolve the conundrum of state-society relations as they have evolved under
the reforms. Their ideas are developed from the evolution of corporatism in the
developmental experience elsewhere in East Asia, while acknowledging that
even pre-reform China had proto-corporatist organizations. This approach
extends the traditional view of peak organizations, such as trade unions, as a
“transmission belt” to an organization that pushes for greater participation in
legislation that affects workers’ interests (p. 41; for more details, see also Chan,
1993). The process “represents a shift from a Party command system that domi-
nated directly . . . to one that dominates partly through surrogates (authoritar-
ian corporatist)” (1995, p. 38). It also entails a harmony of interests between
the state and the subordinate organizations. Chan and Unger emphasize “state
28 Saich
corporatism,” in which the state determines which organizations will be rec-

ognized as legitimate, and the state also appoints their leaders. The direction
of influence is thus still very much from the top down. However, Unger and
Chan suggest that the state’s grip is reduced compared to that in traditional
authoritarian models, and some of the organizations are shifting “gradually
but perceptively in a ‘societal corporatist’ direction” (p. 52).
Dickson (2006, p. 132), following the logic that corporatism might allow a
loosening of the state’s grip, suggests that such structures are “emerging in
China as a substitute for coercion, propaganda, and central planning to main-
tain party hegemony.” He raises the interesting question as to whether the
emergence of corporatism might lead to the decay of Leninist institutions.
He concurs with Unger and Chan (1995) that many corporatist groups are
not “peak associations” but, rather, are under the control of local party and
government authorities whose interests may not be aligned with those of the
center. In Dickson’s view, the undermining of the CCP’s monopoly would not
only mark a shift from state to societal corporatism but “increased political
decay of the communist system itself” (p. 135). Ultimately, Dickson views the
system as Leninist and the logic of this system as incompatible with a shift to
“societal corporatism.”
The height of interest in theories of corporatism occurred in the 1990s, after
which they received less scholarly attention. However, the edited volume by
Hsu and Hasmath (2013) revisits the idea of corporatism and concludes that
the Chinese government generally still practices a top-down style of state cor-
poratism but that at the local level indications of a loosening of control have
emerged. In their view, the “corporatist framework explains the dependent
relationship between the Chinese state and associations, but also highlights a
level of state co-optation of society” (p. 4). The chapters in this volume cover
a range of topics, from collective bargaining to business associations to reli-
gious organizations and NGOs more generally. Thus, Huang (2013) claims that
the state has played a leading role in collective bargaining at both the gov-
ernment and enterprise levels. Huang sees a convergence of interests devel-
oping as a result of the economic boom from 2001 to 2006 among the state,
management, and workers. Business associations also provide a fruitful area
for explaining the suitability of the corporatist model (see, e.g., Dickson 2008;
Foster 2002; Kennedy 2005; Nevitt, 1996; and Yang, 2013). However, the chapters
in Hsu and Hasmath (2013) also point out the limitations to the application of
corporatism, and the editors note an overemphasis on the state and assert that
corporatism cannot be applied in a static manner.
Gu (2011) tries to square the circle of civil society and corporatism without
resorting to a “state-led civil society” conundrum. He suggests that we shift
from looking at state-society relations as a “zero-sum game” and that a new

approach of “mutual empowerment” between the state and society is needed
(see also Wang, 1999). Gu sees corporatism as “simply a form of the relationship
between civil society and the state” (p. 389) that is more applicable than plural-
ism. For him, “The regulations on the social space are explicitly characterized
by state corporatism which highlights the control by the state and emphasizes
hard restrictions on the uniqueness, representativeness. and monopoly of
associations” (p. 385). Given Chinese realities, Gu sees the state as the prime
mover to “achieving societal corporatism and facilitating the development of
civil organizations in the public sphere” (p. 385). This approach is developed
more fully in Gu Xin and Wang (2005), which looks at the development of pro-
fessional associations in China. Although they view the development of these
associations as an important element in an emerging civil society, civil society
is still constrained by the level of state engagement. In their view, the regula-
tory system is characterized by corporatism, in which only one association can
enjoy monopoly representation. Thus they are more cautious about a possible
future evolution from state to societal corporatism, noting that the current
system may not be transitional because of China’s strong legacy of statism.
Based on a study of 2,858 civil organizations in Heilongjiang and Zhejiang
provinces and in Beijing municipality, Gu, Wang, and Yan (2006) suggest that
more autonomous and more democratically managed organizations can pro-
vide the government with effective support. This confirms the view that state-
society relations are not a “zero-sum game” and that the state should enhance
the operational capacity of civil organizations.
As it became clearer that any change in the relationship between the state
and society would be incremental and that the regime as a whole was not mov-
ing in a more liberal direction with respect to broader freedoms, theorizing
turned to looking at how the state was able to maintain control in the changing
environment. Nathan (2003, p. 16) expresses the view of regime survival most
articulately with his concept of “authoritarian resilience.” This work, focusing
on the increasing systemic institutionalization, highlights that the reforms
did not lead to calls for regime change but, rather, to an increase in popular
perceptions of regime legitimacy. This gives rise to the question of whether
authoritarianism might be viable “even under conditions of advanced mod-
ernization and integration with the global economy” (Nathan, 2013, p. 75).
Related literature has looked at mechanisms (including corporatism) for
integrating the new elites and has explored whether the ideas and values of the
newly emerging socioeconomic elites will challenge existing party and state
structures. Other work has examined how the CCP and the state have found
new mechanisms for maintaining control over society. Dickson’s detailed
30 Saich
studies of private business entrepreneurs, who are a product of the reforms,

show how the state has moved to integrate or co-opt them into the existing
party-state networks, including as members of the CCP (Chen and Dickson,
2010; Dickson 2003, 2008). This integration prevents them from forming an
opposition to the party. It should come as no surprise that entrepreneurs have
accepted the current political structures, as they have been the key beneficia-
ries of both national and local reform policies. Indeed, many entrepreneurs
have come from the party-state bureaucracy. The finding that they do not chal-
lenge the current system is supported by work by Goodman (2016).
Kellee S. Tsai (2007), in her study of the private sector, also rejects the notion
that private entrepreneurs are seeking change. Finding a much more complex
relationship between private entrepreneurs and the state, she attributes the
misunderstanding that they might challenge the regime to an outdated view
of the political role of private business in supporting the 1989 demonstrations
and a mechanical view that growth of the private sector will lead to demands
for democratization. According to Tsai, a more effective way to understand
their role is to assess whether they share a common identity and interests. In
fact, they are a very diverse group, therefore they “deal with the government
in different ways and have different political views—if they have any” (p. 4).
This is not to say that they lack influence, and Tsai shows how they make use
of “adaptive informal institutions” to bring about favorable policy changes.
These institutions “are both an effect of innovative coping strategies by every-
day actors and an emergent cause of changes in formal institutions. They are
intermediate, Janus-faced institutions that simultaneously embody local rep-
ertoires of informal practices and bear weight on the efficacy and relevance of
formal institutions” (p. 212). This process is also changing the formal political
institutions to reflect the interests of the private sector. She writes, “The fact
that China remains authoritarian does not mean that the country’s political
institutions have remained static” (p. 203). Although her research shows “lim-
ited evidence” of class formation and collective action by private entrepre-
neurs, they are active in promoting and defending their own interests. They
achieve this through “institutional subversion and institutional conversion”
(pp. 208–10). The former occurs through ignorance, inconvenience, or incon-
gruities in official rules. The incongruity occurs when actors appropriate for-
mal institutions to serve their own ends. Institutional conversion takes place
when private firms register as collective enterprises and when profit-making
businesses operate from government offices.
The notion of the state developing new governing mechanisms to fill
the space left by its partial withdrawal has been the subject of a number of
research articles. Teets (2013), in a case study of the Beijing-based Shining

Stone Community Action and in her book (2014), shows how the state has
sought to develop new mechanisms of indirect control. Thus, the expansion of
civil society does not necessarily lead to democratization but, rather, to better
governance and enhanced citizen satisfaction. This research supports the view
of “authoritarian resilience” noted above. She shares the view of Saich (2000)
that the “victim narrative” of civil society organizations ignores that some
organizations can work with the authoritarian state and change the views of
some officials. The rise of the color revolutions and the Arab Spring that over-
threw authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet republics and the Middle
East, served as warnings, and the perceived success of state-led development
in China in response to the global financial crisis (2008–9), placed limits on the
expansion of the civil sector. Thus, Teets looks at the influence of “New Left”
thinking that has given rise to “consultative authoritarianism.” This is distinct
from corporatism in that it permits a pluralistic society to participate in policy
formulation and implementation. Accompanying consultative authoritarian-
ism is the use of numerous indirect tools of state control. This explains the
possibility of the development of civil society under authoritarian conditions
without any momentum in the direction of democratization.
Teets (2014, p. 70) defines “consultative authoritarianism,” as “a hybrid
between liberal and corporatist state-society relationship models.” “Consul
tative authoritarianism” exhibits two main characteristics. First, it encourages
the development of a relatively autonomous civil society that is pluralistic and
that participates in policy formulation and implementation. Second, it has
both positive and negative incentives for controlling group activities. This is
developed from Li’s (2007) concept of “consultative democracy.” The idea of
differentiated controls over the various groups in society builds on the work of
Kang and Han (2007, 2008). But in Teets’s view (2014, p. 145), civil society is not
a passive recipient of the new “consultative authoritarian” model but, rather,
a co-creator of the model. Although the evolution of this system from initial
experiments in Yunnan might not result in democratization, the system does
provide better governance and citizen satisfaction. It is distinct from corporat-
ism in that it permits a pluralistic society to participate in policy formulation
and implementation.
Whereas Teets, as well as many others, concentrates on the state response
to these new organizations, Thornton (2013) suggests that the CCP itself has
begun to adapt in order to influence this emerging societal sector. In her view,
the downsizing of government that has taken place since 1998 has resulted in
an “unprecedented advance of the Party” to fill the space that has been created.
32 Saich
This has allowed the CCP to steer civil society to serve its own objectives. In con-
trast to earlier writings that focused on government-organized NGOs, Thornton
describes party-organized NGOs. This suggests that the CCP, far from passively
accepting state withdrawal and the rise of a more autonomous social sphere,
has actively promoted new mechanisms of social governance. Thornton’s work
is based on a detailed case study of Shanghai, where the party has shaped and
guided the civil sector to meet societal needs as defined by the regime. She
estimates that the party has engaged with and manages over 90 percent of the
NGOs in Shanghai through a policy she calls selective “absorption.”
Wright (2010) also grapples with the question of why citizens would will-
ingly accept authoritarian rule or at least not challenge it at a systemic level.
She views political attitudes and behavior determined by three factors: state-
led economic development policies, market forces related to late industrializa-
tion, and the legacies of socialism. These factors have shaped popular political
attitudes by “influencing public perceptions of socioeconomic mobility, mate-
rial dependence on the party-state, [and] socioeconomic status relative to
other groups and political options” (p. 2). As a result, key social groups have
tolerated or even supported CCP rule. Wright looks at five sectors (private
entrepreneurs, professionals, state-sector workers, private-sector workers, and
farmers) to show how their interests are embedded in state policies. For most,
socioeconomic conditions have improved, and they credit the state for such
positive progress. Therefore, they have few incentives to challenge the system
or to promote liberal democratic change.
Survey work on citizen satisfaction supports the view that the system enjoys
greater legitimacy than has been assumed and that the CCP might not be solely
dependent on economic progress to define its legitimacy. Saich (2011), in a
review of surveys carried out since 2003, finds that citizens “disaggregate” the
state, and although they express high levels of satisfaction with the central gov-
ernment, satisfaction declines at each lower level of government. This view is
confirmed in other surveys (Li, 2004, 2012; Li and O’Brien, 1996; Shi, 2001). The
fact that satisfaction declines as the state gets closer to the people is under-
standable, as it is the local government, especially at the county and town-
ship levels, that is responsible for providing most public services and carries
the heaviest financial burden. Although these findings might raise concerns
about the quality of local governance, they are not necessarily bad news for
the central government or for the system as a whole. Many appear to identify
problems with local policy implementation, rather than either a systemic bias
or the lack of will at the center. Thus, whereas the central government seems to
retain a strong source of legitimacy, at the local level the relationship between
state and society varies considerably.
Multiple Models: State-Society Relations at the Local Level
The reform era has opened up the possibility of archival research as well as
detailed fieldwork, which has led to a large number of studies on the local
state and its relationship with society. In turn, this has resulted in a plethora
of descriptions of state-society relations at local levels: local state corporatism,
the entrepreneurial state, and the predatory state, to name but a few. These
attempts to reconceptualize the relationship between the local state and soci-
ety are challenged by having to confront a moving target: a state and a society
both in transition. We are dealing not only with the dynamics of the inter-
action and how this has changed over time but also with changes within the
state sector as well as within society. What initially appears to be a predatory
local state may subsequently evolve into a state-society partnership. We are
also dealing with a country in which multiple models of state-society relations
are operating simultaneously.
The trend among both Chinese and Western scholars has been to focus on
the fusion of political and economic power at local levels of government. In
Western writings, this has been accompanied by an emphasis on property-
rights relationships. In this approach, the local state is described in terms of
the property-rights relations that have evolved from the financial decentral-
ization and the strategies the local state has employed to deal with these rela-
tions. The resulting structures are “path dependent” on the economic structure
that existed on the eve of the reforms.
Two additional important explanatory variables are the political contract-
ing system and the structure of local society. To complete our picture of the
forces shaping the local state, we need to incorporate into the analysis
the political demands placed on local officials by the agencies to which they
are subordinate. In some areas, the reforms have clearly allowed local officials
to enjoy greater financial freedoms from higher levels, and they have become
less dependent on higher-level approvals for career advancement and eco-
nomic rewards. In other areas, local officials have clearly acted in line with
mandates passed down from higher-level agencies. The influence of the social
structures on the nature of the local state is relevant both in terms of how
the newly emerging economic elites are accommodating the existing political
power (as noted above) and how the social structures are interacting with and
modifying the behavior of government officials. The former is relevant to all
levels of local government, whereas the latter is most applicable at the basic
levels of administration, for example, the village level.
Unger and Chan (1999) assert that in areas where the legacy from the com-
mune era has bequeathed significant collective-run industry or where township
34 Saich
and village enterprises have expanded rapidly, the local state dominates local
society. But in areas where there is little large-scale enterprise that might pre-
vent local officials from dominating the local economy, the outcome is likely
to be “corporatist.” Walder (1998), in his study of Zouping county (Shandong),
notes that it is impossible to explain the rapid economic development with-
out taking note of the economic role played by local government officials. In
his view, Zouping resembles an industrial corporation in which revenue gen-
eration is paramount, and the entire local government operates as a firm in a
competitive environment.
These ideas have been examined most extensively by Oi (1999) by apply-
ing the concept of “local state corporatism” to explain the explosive rural eco-
nomic growth in areas such as southern Jiangsu and Shandong, which took off
in the 1980s and continued to grow into the 1990s. The legacy of collectively
run industries in these areas formed the basis for the development of town-
ship and village enterprises. Oi shows how the change in incentives allowed
local CCP officials to play a key role in fostering growth through local govern-
ment entrepreneurship. The key factors were the loss of agricultural revenue
from decollectivization, combined with a hardening of budget constraints and
the granting to local governments of greater rights over any agricultural sur-
plus. This meant that leaders who were willing to take up the challenge had
a major opportunity to develop the rural industrial economy. In Oi’s view,
“collectively-owned industrial enterprises better served both the political
and the economic interests of local cadres during the initial stages of reform”
(p. 11). In this process, consistent with Walder’s suggestion, local officials acted
like a board of directors in terms of their management of village affairs. (For
an interesting collection of essays that attempts to apply this property rights–
based approach, see Oi and Walder [1999], particularly the chapter by Kung
[1999] on the evolution of property rights in Wuxi and the chapter by Lin and
Chen [1999]). Lin (1995) has noted a variant on local state corporatism based
on the strong clientelist ties that existed in some areas. Ruf (1998), in his study
of Meishan county in Sichuan province, notes strong clientelist pressures that
reduced societal influence on local government. Below we look at examples of
how societal influences work to contain the influence of local government or
where they co-opt local government.
Many writers have taken up similar themes to look at the local state as
developmental or entrepreneurial, but corporatism has also been criti-
cized as an adequate explanatory mechanism. Blecher (1991), in his study of
Guanghan county, Sichuan province, notes a tendency for local governments
to be entrepreneurial because of the need for revenue generation. Local gov-
ernments basically went into business with various agencies at the county
level to raise revenue and to provide employment opportunities for those

who were no longer on the government payroll. A study of real estate and
commerce government agencies in Tianjin by Duckett (1998) finds a similar
tendency for government agencies to establish and run their own businesses.
The clear objective of these agencies is to turn a profit, but not necessarily
for the broader developmental goals of the community over which they pre-
side. The benefits to society are questionable.
In contrast, Blecher and Shue (1996), in their work on Xinji municipality
(formerly Shulu county, Hebei province), suggest that the local state has been
more developmental than entrepreneurial. The distinction between a devel-
opmental and an entrepreneurial local state is that, in a developmental state,
official action is intended to promote the local economy by providing a good
physical environment, access to capital, and links to external markets or impor-
tant agencies. Unlike in the entrepreneurial or corporate models, local offi-
cials in a developmental model do not become directly involved in economic
activities; they are more concerned with producing an enabling environment
for society. In Xinji, the local government did not seek to maximize profits for
the government but, rather, attempted to expand “developmental horizons”
(p. 270). Blecher and Shue, following the path-dependence school, trace this
trend in the direction of developmentalism to the legacy of the Maoist period.
Prime explanatory factors are the continuity of leadership across the two
periods and a “poor context for entrepreneurship,” leading local leadership to
create a broad-based comprehensive development plan.
However, as noted above, the resources available to the local state vary
enormously, which affects the nature of entrepreneurialism and its relation-
ship with society. Local leaders with no industrial base either have to build
one, often with disastrous results, or become predatory on local society. Even
in the more economically developed areas, the nature of the local state can be
more predatory than developmental or entrepreneurial. On the basis of work
in a subdistrict of Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, Sargeson and Zhang
(1999) challenge Oi and Walder’s (1999) findings, even in more developed
areas. They question the general applicability of the assertion that local gov-
ernments with strong property rights act as entrepreneurs fostering economic
development and meeting social demands through the development of collec-
tive industries. Sargeson and Zhang show that local government officials put
their own objectives above not only those of the central government but also
above those of the local community. They assert that the notion of “local state
corporatism” mistakenly “conflates the interests of local governments, individ-
ual officials and the members of local communities, and also fails to consider
the broader implications of concentrating property and power in the hands of
36 Saich
lower-level governments and officials” (p. 79). With the lack of accountability,
the local community is excluded from the decision-making process and has no
choice but to go along with the decisions of the “board of directors,” regardless
of whether such decisions benefit the local community.
Two Chinese writers are also critical of a more benevolent view of local
state corporatism. In a study of township and village enterprises in Kunshan,
Zhang Yan (1998) presents a critical view of the “southern Jiangsu” model
(Sunan moshi 苏南模式). Zhang notes that the government is always supreme
and seeks to control everything—from appointing enterprise managers to
determining production quotas and investment levels. Enterprise decision-
making powers are curtailed in favor of the decision-making powers of the
local state. A “market orientation” is thus replaced by a “government orien-
tation.” As a result, this situation led to the 1996 ownership reforms. Zhang
Renshou (1995) offers a similarly critical view of the anti-market nature of
government in southern Jiangsu.
Since the promotion of shareholding in the second half of the 1990s, it has
become clear that local officials in many areas have used their official position
to reap major benefits for themselves, their families, and their associates. Lin
and Chen (1999), in their study of Daqiuzhuang, reveal the networks among
local officials operating in a predatory manner. They show how the sharehold-
ing system was exploited to transfer local enterprises into private hands.
Predation on local society has usually been identified in resource-deficient
localities or in localities that are dependent on one product, as seen in work
by Guo (1999, 2008) in Jinguan township (Yongsheng county, in northwest
Yunnan). In her 1999 article, Guo shows that such predatory behavior was
somewhat mediated by the fact that the township received some subsidies,
both because it was a minority area and because it was designated a poor
county. In both works, Guo shows how Jinguan local authorities were skilled at
retaining its “poor” classification, even though it is located in the more affluent
part of northwestern Yunnan, unlike Yongning, the second area in her study.
The local Jinguan administration forced farmers to plant tobacco to generate
revenue for the township government because of a favorable revenue-sharing
agreement with the county-level government. In the province as a whole, the
tobacco industry provided 70 percent of provincial revenue. Beginning in 1991,
the local county forced eleven of its eighteen townships to grow tobacco, only
excluding the mountainous areas where conditions were clearly not condu-
cive. Not surprisingly, the farmers were unhappy because not only did they
earn less from tobacco but also they were thereby unable to use the land to
grow rice. The county government, however, derived a vast amount of revenue
from the tobacco industry, as it had a sales monopoly that provided the highest
agricultural tax, at 38 percent. To buy the compliance of the township authori-

ties, the county signed a revenue-sharing agreement that allowed the township
to keep two-thirds of the tobacco revenue. This cozy agreement ran into prob-
lems at the end of 1993, when a bad harvest, combined with the government’s
harsh extraction policy, resulted in public protests. Compulsory tobacco pro-
duction was abandoned in 1994, but Guo surmises that this was attributable
to the 1994 general fiscal reforms, which resulted in an adjustment in the shar-
ing of tobacco revenue between higher and lower levels of government. When
the county reintroduced the tobacco quota in 1996, no coercion was applied,
with the result that only 10 percent of the quota was met. But the relationship
between the local state and rural society changed in 2006 after the agricultural
tax was abolished. Responsibility for rural public welfare shifted to the central
government, and the focus of local governance shifted from the township to
the village, thus alleviating pressures from the township on local farmers.
A systemic analysis of the predatory state is outlined in Pei (2006). In his
view, the “symptoms of a trapped transition have become highly visible or even
pervasive” (p. 10). He argues that the gradual economic reforms have enabled
officials to muster sufficient resources and connections to frustrate the reforms
and to pursue their own interests against those of the central government and
often to the detriment of the local population. He argues that one outcome of
the reforms has been a “critical transition” to a “decentralized predatory state”
(p. 132) that, in some localities, has even allowed the creation of a local mafia
state (pp. 161–65, 194–95, 219–22). This “predation” has a number of causes that
derive in part from the reform strategy itself and in part to the fact that some
local officials have no confidence in the future.
Zhou (2008) does not take such an extreme view but notes a salient feature
of collusion among local governments in which they form alliances to derail
and compromise the original intent of state policy, causing significant and
persistent deviations and goal displacements in the process of policy imple-
mentation. This process has become highly institutionalized, and although in
theory it is informal and illegitimate, in practice it has become a legitimate
procedure. Even though the outcome was not intentional, according to Zhou,
it was due to the design of the incentives for local officials.
The picture is different in areas with a high degree of privatization. Unger
and Chan (1999), in their work on Xiqiao township in Guangdong province, not
far from Hong Kong, show how the criteria for success in private enterprise and
public office are beginning to converge. The local township government has
been strongly in favor of local private businesses and does not need to levy any
general taxes on village households. As Unger and Chan conclude, this experi-
ence differs from general writings on local government in two significant ways
38 Saich
(p. 73). First, local officials do not give priority to publicly owned industry over
the private sector, and, second, local officials do not insist that private enter-
prises be subordinate to and dependent on them. The study of Chen village in
Guangdong province (Chan, Madsen, and Unger, 2009, p. 315) shows that the
development of manufacturing owes little to village innovation, because
the village lacked both manufacturing expertise and knowledge of the market.
The study by Saich and Hu (2012) of Yantian village (in Dongguan county,
Guangdong province) reveals a similar hands-off approach to the develop-
ment of the private sector (covered in more detail below). The practice of
private business is guided by the market with no government interference in
production. In a more collectivist vein, however, the village government has
reinvested substantial funds to develop welfare services and to build a “social
citizenship” among registered residents, thereby creating a symbiotic relation-
ship between local officials and business. As in the study of Xiqiao township
(Unger and Chan, 1999), the village leadership does not place priority on local
government–owned businesses, nor is this necessary because, as a collective,
the village government benefits from such businesses and decides on the dis-
tribution of the revenue.
Empirical research thus questions the viability of a single model that can
describe the nature of local government–society relations. China is a patch-
work of different relationships, each of which is negotiated through complex
interactions among different levels of government and among different agen-
cies of local government and society. The precise outcome is dependent on
the area’s historical legacies, resource endowments, and leadership. The main
general imperative that cuts across more economically developed and more
resource-constrained localities is the need to derive revenue, and this impera-
tive has become all the more acute because of the de facto fiscal decentraliza-
tion that has taken place.
To complete the picture, we need to understand far more about the political
demands that are placed on local officials by their superior agencies and how
such demands affect their interactions with society. In some areas, the reforms
have clearly allowed local officials to enjoy greater financial freedom from
higher levels and to be less dependent on higher-level approvals for career
advancements and economic rewards. Although many scholars assume that
the vertical chain of career advancement is a greater concern for those at the
municipal and provincial levels than for those at lower levels, it is clear that
even officials working at the county and township levels must be cognizant of
the demands placed on them by the higher levels of administrative leadership.
Work by Edin (2000, 2003), Whiting (2001, 2004), and a group of researchers
at the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the Central Committee (Rong
et al., 1998) has argued persuasively that we need to shift our attention from
a purely political-economy approach that views state agents as revenue maxi-
mizers and, instead, pay more attention to the political incentives generated
by the cadre responsibility system and the political contracting system, and
the performance contracts (gangwei mubiao zerenshu 岗位目标责任书) that
local governments and officials must sign. Edin (2003) shows that, far from dis-
couraging economic development, these performance contracts make it clear
that local officials are required to carry out a complex set of tasks. Such tasks
include preserving social order, delivering taxes to higher levels of govern-
ment, and maintaining birth-control quotas. These are organized as soft tar-
gets ( yiban zhibiao 一般指标), hard targets ( ying zhibiao 硬指标), and priority
targets with veto power ( yipiao fojue 一票否决).
Multiple principal-agent relationships operate among the various levels of
local government, and they need to be understood better in order to improve
analyses of the functioning of the local state and the incentive structure for
local officials. Following this logic, Whiting (2001) sees the top-down com-
mand structure as playing a vital role in determining the behavior of local
officials and, by extension, their relationship to local society. According to
Whiting’s analysis, local officials are subject to three factors that shape their
incentives: the need to extract revenue from their community to meet set tar-
gets, the cadre evaluation system, and the need to fund local public goods. As
a result, she concludes that profit maximization is not the only objective of
local officials as their performance evaluations by higher levels of government
include the kinds of targets enumerated by Edin. Her study of Wuxi (Jiangsu
province), Songjiang (Shanghai municipality), and Yueqing (Zhejiang prov-
ince) leads her to question the local state corporatism model proposed by Oi
(1999). Because of the performance contracts and the need to please different
masters at higher government levels, she rejects the idea of township govern-
ments as business-focused entities.
The precise nature of these contracts varies across time and place, but
they do establish performance expectations that provide the basis for official
evaluations. According to the Compilation and Translation Bureau research-
ers, the system originated in the late 1980s and became more formalized over
the course of the 1990s. The first countywide implementation of the cadre
responsibility system was launched in March 1988 in Mi county (later Xinmi
City, Hebei province). This involved contracts signed between the county party
committee and the county government with the secretaries of the township
party committees and the leaders of the townships to accomplish rural work
in 1988 (Rong et al., 1998, pp. 276–77). Each county issued performance con-
tracts to be signed by the mayors and the party secretaries in the townships
40 Saich
under their jurisdiction. Thereafter, contracts were signed between the towns
and townships and the functional departments under their jurisdiction, and
then finally contracts were signed between the heads of the functional depart-
ments and their work personnel. Work personnel are often required to make a
financial deposit when they sign their contracts. This is returned only if they
accomplish their given tasks.
The contract system often results in pressure on society as the township gov-
ernments lack both the power and the necessary financial resources to carry
out their mandates. The fact that agencies at the township level receive con-
tracts from their superior agency at the county level means that it is difficult to
coordinate the work of their functional agencies. This has led Dai et al. (1991)
to dub the township government a “big title” (paizi xiang 牌子响), with “many
responsibilities” (zeren da 责任大) and “little power” (quanli xiao 权力小)
that is “difficult to deal with” (banshi nan 办事难). Policy in recent years has
attempted to reduce the number of townships through mergers and to concen-
trate functions and finances at the county level.
Contracting produces a similar relationship between the township and
the village, in which village organizations become politicized and serve as an
extended branch of the township government at the village level (Yang, 2000).
The contracts cannot be implemented solely by administrative fiat; rather,
the township must resort to the use of material resources to effectively exert
control. The main incentive for villagers’ committees to fulfill their tasks is to
receive assistance from the township. This is even more important in poorer
areas, where financial appropriations are critical. This relationship is different
from that between the township and the county because the township officials
are appointed by the county and thus are dependent on the county for positive
work evaluations that will lead to promotion. For the most part, village lead-
ers will remain in the village and will be elected through village elections (in
areas where such elections have been implemented). Below we look at how the
social structure can influence relations within the village.
The result is a system that Rong et al. (1998) refer to as a “pressurized sys-
tem” ( yalixing tizhi 压力性体质), which is a “management mode of dividing
up tasks and a system of conducting assessments by giving material awards
adopted by the political organization at the county or township level in order
to develop the economy and attain the targets set by the higher authorities”
(pp. 269–70). In a later piece, Yang (2012), who was the principal initiator of the
term, discusses its origins and development.
Fewsmith (2013) follows this line of reasoning, viewing the cadre system as
the fulcrum on which state-society relations hinge. In his view, the reforms
in the 1990s were intended to increase political participation in order to reduce

the abuse of power by local officials. However, little was changed in the way
they were selected or in terms of developing institutions to constrain their
behavior. The prior emphasis on evaluating local officials in terms of economic
performance meant that abuse of power and conflict with society could often
be the outcome. Thus, not surprisingly, the institutionalization of societal
interests remains weak, and the CCP is unwilling to develop institutions that
might constrain its power.
Increasingly, the literature on local state-society relations has returned to
the issue of the structure of society. This is relevant in terms of both how the
newly emerging economic elites accommodate the existing political power
and how social structures interact and modify the behavior of government
officials. The former is relevant to all levels of local government, whereas the
latter is most applicable at the basic levels of administration, for example at
the village level.
As noted above, research in a number of areas has revealed the fusion of
official interests with those of business, and this has had a clear impact on the
management of the local state. For example, Blecher and Shue (2001) refer to
the emergence of a new petty bourgeoisie and a new haute bourgeoisie as a
conscious creation of local state officials in Xinji municipality. Although offi-
cials have remained separate from this new stratum and have not engaged in
the same self-enriching practices as officials elsewhere, support from this new
bourgeoisie can only be conditional on further close cooperation with the offi-
cials and a policy framework that is beneficial to their interests.
Recent research has indicated the importance of the influence of more tra-
ditional social structures, such as clans and temples, in rural areas, in terms of
directing the allocation of resources within the local community. Following
the work of Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti (1993) on norms of reciprocity and
civic engagement in Italy, interest in social capital and how social structures
are important in determining outcomes at the local levels has been revived.
This is especially true at the village level in China. As Hillman (2005, p. 30)
has perceptively pointed out, when farmers in the 1980s and 1990s began to
reorganize and promote their interests but were unable to form official organi-
zations, such as farmers’ associations, they mobilized around informal social
networks, such as clans and lineages.
Hu (2007) and Lily Tsai (2001, 2002, 2007, and 2011) explore the role of these
informal institutions in contemporary China to show the importance of mem-
bership in social networks, given the low investment in village public goods by
most local governments. Hu (2007) discusses the importance of “village trust”
42 Saich
in setting up rotating savings and credit associations in Xiangdong village,

Zhejiang province. Lily Tsai (2007, p. 4) notes that if social boundaries overlap
with administrative or political boundaries, the social norms that are gener-
ated can “reinforce or even substitute for the public obligations and respon-
sibilities of officials and citizens that the state is supposed to establish and
enforce.”
Lily Tsai (2007) explores in depth the relationship between local officials
and the community. She starts with the basic question of why officials in an
authoritarian system would provide more than a minimum level of public
goods than is necessary to maintain social stability. She uses the notion of
“solidary groups” based on shared moral obligations and interests to ensure
that officials fulfill their public obligations. These groups include village tem-
ples and village-wide lineages. For local officials to be committed to the pro-
vision of public goods within the community, these “solidary groups” need
to be both “encompassing” and “embedding.” According to Tsai, encompass-
ing means that they must be open to all under the jurisdiction of the local
government, with social boundaries overlapping with political boundaries.
Embedding means that local officials are incorporated into the groups as
members. Where such conditions exist, weak formal accountability institu-
tions can be overcome, and these unofficial norms will help enforce “public
obligations.”
The relationship of clans and lineages to local power has provided a fruitful
area of research. In an early study of Qiaoxia village (Jiangxi province), Zheng
(1997) reveals the complex relationship that exists between clan organizations
and village authorities. Zheng argues that, although the village committee
was still responsible for carrying out party policy, production, the collection
of grain and fees, enforcing family planning, and overseeing schools, the clan
dominated in terms of property disputes and controlled all religious affairs,
even to the extent that the village authorities had to donate money and materi-
als for such activities.
The studies by Chan, Madsen, and Unger (2009) and Saich and Hu (2012),
looking at the importance of the clan in the power structure at the local level,
suggest that a new organizational form is emerging based on the new collec-
tive structures that, in turn, are based on land ownership and the strength of
lineages. Saich and Hu (2012), in their study of Yantian, discuss the importance
of the Deng lineage in shaping politics and the distribution of benefits within
the community. Although the collective structures in Yantian may be a new
product of the opportunities afforded by the reforms, they rest on a social
structure that long predates communist rule, that is, the lineage. Certainly,
the Deng family and its manipulation of the ancestral temple play a key role
in “embedding” village officials within the local community. Yet the Deng lin-
eage, while providing benefits for its members, also reinforces state author-
ity and legitimacy. Because the lineage and its ancestral hall only serve the
village community and those with family ties, they are not seen as a threat to
the power of higher-level CCP authorities. The Deng family members seem
to move easily between their role managing the village business and the affairs
of the lineage and fulfilling their obligations as the local embodiment of
the CCP.
The latter role raises interesting questions about the nature of the CCP at
the local level. Are party members from the Deng lineage importing the poli-
cies and values of the party into traditional village associations? Or are the
traditional networks of the lineage association being imported into the party?
Evidence of both can be found. For example, the party branch has been able
to ensure compliance with key central policies, such as family planning, and,
after the twists and turns of agricultural policy from the 1950s to the 1970s,
implementing the policy of returning farming to households at the start of
the reforms. Yet after the village decided that household farming was not in
its economic interests, despite national policy, the land was recollectivized.
In addition, it is clear that the party branch dominated by the Deng family
has been an important vehicle during the reform period to protect village and
lineage interests. Although the shareholding cooperative is new, its inclusive
nature reflects the role of the production brigade that existed during the for-
mer collective period. All registered villagers benefit from the cooperative,
and distribution is on an egalitarian basis. As Oi notes (1999, p. 79), in highly
industrialized villages, the reforms have “led not to the end of redistributive
socialism but to a new form of redistributive corporatism.” In Yantian, such
redistributive corporatism is strongly based on the lineage.
The model of economic organization and state-society relations in Yantian,
which appears to be common across the Pearl River Delta region, has certain
distinctive features. Although many of the successful village economies are
based on some form of collective economic organization, the precise struc-
tures vary. In Yantian, the village shareholding economic cooperative forms
an important part of the village power structure. Because of the rise of this
collective, much of the economic decision-making has shifted from the villag-
ers’ committee to the congress of the shareholding cooperative members and
the board of trustees and board of supervisors that it elects. The shareholding
cooperative decides on the disbursement of year-end profits, the budget, and
investments. The creation of this organization keeps village assets in the hands
44 Saich
of the registered inhabitants. Needless to say, the vast majority of the village
population, that is, migrants, is not involved in any of these bodies.
This model has emerged as a distinct form of development, especially in
southern Guangdong, where lineage ties are strong. Chan, Madsen, and Unger
(2009, pp. 341–42) note the same phenomenon in Chen village, with the
creation of the village shareholding company (cun gufen youxian gongsi 村股
份有限公司). In 2003, when drafting a new charter for the village shareholding
cooperative, the Yantian leadership decided to fix the number of shareholders
and give permanent ownership of individual shares to each of the villagers.
Along with the demographic changes within the village, this has regularized
the process of dealing with the reallocation of shares. No new shares will be
issued, but they can be transferred to family members upon the death of their
owner, thus effectively privatizing the shares. In September 2007, this process
was institutionalized by the Guangdong provincial authorities.
Such a structure is important, given possible future changes in rural gov-
ernance and attempts to incorporate migrants into the economic, social,
and political structures in the places where they live and work, rather than
where they were born. The economic structure of the shareholding coopera-
tive ensures that the wealth generated by the village remains in the hands of
the formally registered villagers, especially the dominant lineage. It will not be
shared with outsiders.
Conclusion
This review has highlighted the complexity of state-society relations and the
wide range of interpretations put forward to capture the essence of such rela-
tions. This is especially true with respect to studies of local society and the
state. The diversity of views shows that the broad concepts of state and soci-
ety are too unsophisticated to address with the complexity and reality on the
ground. They need to be unpacked. Each locality and each government agency
is embedded in an intricate web of reciprocal relations with multiple patron-
client relations. This can be frustrating for the social scientist who seeks to
bring order by discerning patterns. Such an exercise is more feasible at the
more abstract level of dealing with broad trends in the relationship and how
they have changed over time. In the future, much remains to be learned not
only from more detailed studies of specific places or institutions but also from
synthesizing the research that has been conducted to date to provide a better
picture of the entire elephant rather than merely its constituent parts.
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State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949

isbn 978-90-04-32293-6 (paperback)

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

State-Society Relations in the People’s Republic of China Post-1949 1

China – state and society – participation – civil society – corporatism – authoritarian

The nature of state-society relations in post-1949 China has been subject to

© Tony Saich, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004322943_001

Registration, Workplace, Cellularization, and the Rise of New

The two institutions of the household registration system—the hukou 户口 and

Walder’s work, Shue’s analysis rejects the dominant paradigm of totalitarian-

­ erformed by a mix of actors “including both private and public organizations,

State-Society Relations under Mao Zedong

Due to the absence of real social-science research by Westerners in China dur-

logical successor to Confucianism as the dominant value system under which

Civil Society, Corporatism, and Authoritarian Resilience:

up the administrative ladder, more cracks and divergences emerge between

society is a historical phenomenon applicable only in the Western context”

More interesting for our purposes is that, in addition to a raft of measures to

corporatism,” in which the state determines which organizations will be rec-

from looking at state-society relations as a “zero-sum game” and that a new

studies of private business entrepreneurs, who are a product of the reforms,

research articles. Teets (2013), in a case study of the Beijing-based Shining

Multiple Models: State-Society Relations at the Local Level

level to raise revenue and to provide employment opportunities for those

agricultural tax, at 38 percent. To buy the compliance of the township authori-

in the 1990s were intended to increase political participation in order to reduce

in setting up rotating savings and credit associations in Xiangdong village,

Available in translation at http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation

Gu, Edward. 2011. “Towards a Corporatist Development of Civil Society in China:

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© Tony Saich, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004322943_001

erformed by a mix of actors “including both private and public organizations,