Unequal China
Unequal China

Author: Wanning Sun

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1136229973

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Economic development and a dramatic improvement in living standards in many parts of the People’s Republic of China during the past three decades of economic reforms have been hailed by the Chinese Communist Party and many commentators in the international arena as the most spectacular achievements in the history of humanity. However, three decades of economic reforms have also transformed China from one of the world’s most egalitarian societies into one of the most unequal. This book offers a comprehensive account of inequality in China from an interdisciplinary perspective. It both draws on, and speaks to, the existing body of literature that is generated mainly in the fields of economics and sociology, while extending its scope to also examine the political, social, moral and cultural dimensions of inequality. Each chapter addresses the question of inequality from a specific context of research, including housing, health care, social welfare, education, migration, land distribution, law, gender and sexuality. Moving beyond traditional socio-economic theories, the contributors to this volume explore a wide range of social, political, economic and cultural practices that result from, as well as further entrench, the inequalities in Chinese society. Importantly, the essays in Unequal China probe the hidden causes of inequality - namely, the role of state power and the importance of culture - and underline how both state power and cultural factors have a key part to play in legitimating inequality. With an innovative approach that moves beyond the economic and sociological roots of inequality in China, this volume is a welcome addition to what is a growing field of study, and will appeal to students and scholars interested in Chinese culture and society, Chinese politics and Asian social policy.

China's Unequal Treaties
China's Unequal Treaties

Author: Dong Wang

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780739112083

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This study, based on primary sources, deals with the linguistic development and polemical uses of the expression Unequal Treaties, which refers to the treaties China signed between 1842 and 1946. Although this expression has occupied a central position in both Chinese collective memory and Chinese and English historiographies, this is the first book to offer an in-depth examination of China's encounters with the outside world as manifested in the rhetoric surrounding the Unequal Treaties. Author Dong Wang argues that competing forces within China have narrated and renarrated the history of the treaties in an effort to consolidate national unity, international independence, and political legitimacy and authority. In the twentieth century, she shows, China's experience with these treaties helped to determine their use of international law. Of great relevance for students of contemporary China and Chinese history, as well as Chinese international law and politics, this book illuminates how various Chinese political actors have defined and redefined the past using the framework of the Unequal Treaties.

Unequal China
Unequal China

Author: Wanning Sun

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-05-07

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1136229981

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Economic development and a dramatic improvement in living standards in many parts of the People’s Republic of China during the past three decades of economic reforms have been hailed by the Chinese Communist Party and many commentators in the international arena as the most spectacular achievements in the history of humanity. However, three decades of economic reforms have also transformed China from one of the world’s most egalitarian societies into one of the most unequal. This book offers a comprehensive account of inequality in China from an interdisciplinary perspective. It both draws on, and speaks to, the existing body of literature that is generated mainly in the fields of economics and sociology, while extending its scope to also examine the political, social, moral and cultural dimensions of inequality. Each chapter addresses the question of inequality from a specific context of research, including housing, health care, social welfare, education, migration, land distribution, law, gender and sexuality. Moving beyond traditional socio-economic theories, the contributors to this volume explore a wide range of social, political, economic and cultural practices that result from, as well as further entrench, the inequalities in Chinese society. Importantly, the essays in Unequal China probe the hidden causes of inequality - namely, the role of state power and the importance of culture - and underline how both state power and cultural factors have a key part to play in legitimating inequality. With an innovative approach that moves beyond the economic and sociological roots of inequality in China, this volume is a welcome addition to what is a growing field of study, and will appeal to students and scholars interested in Chinese culture and society, Chinese politics and Asian social policy.

State-Sponsored Inequality
State-Sponsored Inequality

Author: Shuang Chen

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2017-04-11

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 1503601633

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This book explores the social economic processes of inequality in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century rural China. Drawing on uniquely rich source materials, Shuang Chen provides a comprehensive view of the creation of a social hierarchy wherein the state classified immigrants to the Chinese county of Shuangcheng into distinct categories, each associated with different land entitlements. The resulting patterns of wealth stratification and social hierarchy were then simultaneously challenged and reinforced by local people. The tensions built into the unequal land entitlements shaped the identities of immigrant groups, and this social hierarchy persisted even after the institution of unequal state entitlements was removed. State-Sponsored Inequality offers an in-depth understanding of the key factors that contribute to social stratification in agrarian societies. Moreover, it sheds light on the many parallels between the stratification system in nineteenth-century Shuangcheng and structural inequality in contemporary China.

China’s Uneven and Combined Development
China’s Uneven and Combined Development

Author: Steven Rolf

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-15

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 3030555593

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This book mobilises the theory of uneven and combined development to uncover the geopolitical economic drivers of China’s rise. The purpose is to explain the formation and trajectory of its economic ‘accumulation system’ — which remains a confounding hybrid of statist and neoliberal forms of capitalism — as the outcome of China’s geopolitical engagement of the USA during the late stages of the Cold War, and its participation in manufacturing global production networks (GPNs). Fear of geopolitical catastrophe drove China to open its economy, while GPNs enabled China to generate substantial export surpluses which could be recycled through state-owned banks as cheap credit and subsidies to large, vertically integrated and politically-controlled state-owned enterprises. In this way, a synergy emerged between the ‘neoliberal’ and ‘Keynesian-Fordist’ sectors of the economy, while the national-territorial state retained its form and expanded its functions. The book chronicles how this reliance on export surpluses, however, rendered China extremely vulnerable to external shocks — prompting a dramatic monetary and fiscal stimulus response to the crisis of 2008, even while sustaining the illusion of economic ‘decoupling’ from the global economy. Finally, it examines the growing role of the state in the current crisis-ridden economic model, as well as China’s current geoeconomic and geopolitical expansionism in areas such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the militarisation of the East and South China Seas.

One Country, Two Societies
One Country, Two Societies

Author: Martin K. Whyte

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-02-25

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9780674036307

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"A collection of essays that analyzes China's foremost social cleavage: the rural-urban gap. It examines the historical background of rural-urban relations; the size and trend in the income gap between rural and urban residents; aspects of inequality apart from income; and, experiences of discrimination, particularly among urban migrants." -- BOOK PUBLISHER WEBSITE.

Rising Inequality in China
Rising Inequality in China

Author: Shi Li

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-10-31

Total Pages: 531

ISBN-13: 1107002915

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This book examines the evolution of economic inequality in China from 2002 to 2007; a sequel to Inequality and Public Policy in China (2008).

Leftover Women
Leftover Women

Author: Leta Hong Fincher

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2016-07-31

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 1783607912

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‘Scattered with inspiring life-stories of courageous women.’ The Guardian In the early years of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations. Yet those gains have been steadily eroded in China’s post-socialist era. Contrary to the image presented by China’s media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of rights and gains relative to men. In Leftover Women, Leta Hong Fincher exposes shocking levels of structural discrimination against women, and the broader damage this has caused to China’s economy, politics, and development.

Radical Inequalities
Radical Inequalities

Author: Nara Dillon

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-05-11

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 1684175585

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"The Chinese Communist welfare state was established with the goal of eradicating income inequality. But paradoxically, it actually widened the income gap, undermining one of the most important objectives of Mao Zedong’s revolution. Nara Dillon traces the origins of the Chinese welfare state from the 1940s through the 1960s, when such inequalities emerged and were institutionalized, to uncover the reasons why the state failed to achieve this goal. Using newly available archival sources, Dillon focuses on the contradictory role played by labor in the development of the Chinese welfare state. At first, the mobilization of labor helped found a welfare state, but soon labor’s privileges turned into obstacles to the expansion of welfare to cover more of the poor. Under the tight economic constraints of the time, small, temporary differences evolved into large, entrenched inequalities. Placing these developments in the context of the globalization of the welfare state, Dillon focuses on the mismatch between welfare policies originally designed for European economies and the very different conditions found in revolutionary China. Because most developing countries faced similar constraints, the Chinese case provides insight into the development of narrow, unequal welfare states across much of the developing world in the postwar period."