China’s Capitalism
CHINA’S CAPITALISM
A Paradoxical Route to Economic Prosperity
Tobias ten Brink
Translated by
Carla Welch
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Originally published in German in 2013 as
Chinas Kapitalismus: Entstehung, Verlauf, Paradoxien.
Copyright © 2013 by Campus Verlag.
English translation copyright © 2019 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ten Brink, Tobias, author. Welch, Carla, translator.
Title: China’s capitalism : a paradoxical route to economic prosperity / Tobias ten Brink ; translated by Carla Welch. Chinas Kapitalismus. English.
Translation of: Ten Brink, Tobias. Chinas Kapitalismus : Entstehung, Verlauf, Paradoxien.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018033468 | ISBN 978-0-8122-5109-8 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Capitalism—China. | China—Economic conditions—2000–.
Classification: LCC HC427.95 .T4513 2019
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033468
The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften International—Translation Funding for Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publisher & Booksellers Association).
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. Analyzing China’s Political Economy
Insights, Gaps, and Desiderata in China Research
Researching China from a Political Economy Perspective
Chapter 2. From Mao to the Hu/Wen Era: The Origins and Trajectory of Capitalist-Driven Modernization
Protocapitalism: The Historical Background to the Transition Under Deng
The Emergence of State-Permeated Capitalism (1): Two Phases of Reform
The Emergence of State-Permeated Capitalism (2): China’s Integration into the Global Economy
Chapter 3. Current Developments in Chinese Capitalism
The Corporate Sector and Socioeconomic Dynamics
Planning for and with the Market(s): The Heterogeneous Party-State
The Limits of Chinese-Style Subordination? Developments in Labor Relations
Capitalist Development in China
Paradoxes of Prosperity
Theoretical Implications for Political Economic and China Studies
ABBREVIATIONS
| ACFIC | All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce |
| ACFTU | All-China Federation of Trade Unions |
| CCP | Chinese Communist Party |
| COE | collectively owned enterprise |
| CPE | comparative political economy |
| FDI | foreign direct investment |
| FIE | foreign-invested enterprise |
| GZFTU | Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions |
| IPE | international political economy |
| LGFVs | local government financing vehicles |
| LSG | leading small group |
| MNC | multinational corporation |
| MOFCOM | Ministry of Commerce |
| MOFERT | Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade |
| MOHRSS | Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security |
| NDRC | National Development and Reform Commission |
| NGO | nongovernmental organization |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| PBOC | People’s Bank of China |
| POE | privately owned enterprise |
| PRC | People’s Republic of China |
| R&D | research and development |
| RMB | Renminbi |
| SEZ | special economic zone |
| SME | small- and medium-sized enterprise |
| SOE | state-owned enterprise |
| SWRCs | Staff and Workers’ Representative Congresses |
| TVE | township and village enterprise |
| WFOE | wholly foreign-owned enterprise |
| WTO | World Trade Organization |
Introduction
Economic growth in China since the end of the 1970s has now outperformed every other long economic upswing in modern history. While the largest member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development