Introduction

Abstract

Characterising the evolution of social welfare of a country as vast as China -with one of the longest histories of civilisation, the world's largest population, and a cultural identity and social contract highly distinct from those of Western societies -is an exceedingly demanding task. In just over one hundred years, China has undergone one of the most astounding transformations in its history of political, economic and welfare development. The country has transitioned -at a breathless pace -from an agricultural fiefdom under centuries of uninterrupted imperial rule, to an inspired however dysfunctional and warring republic, to a thoroughly reorganised socialist society and command economy, to its current 'post'-socialist market-oriented regime. During these times, China's formal and informal welfare systems have been maintained by family and social relations, the State and the market -with tremendously varied outcomes and forms of support. China's intellectual traditions -recently revived to offer a moral compass to, among others, corrupt officials and its market-minded State -speak of a distinct responsibility between the ruler and ruled to provide social assistance and lead in a virtuous manner, creating a distinct relationship between morality, politics and welfare provision. Why then has welfare been so complicated and uneven during this century, and what factors have shaped its provision?This Handbook investigates the changing and many facets of welfare, and welfare providers and receivers in China. It is designed to cover the major themes in the development of China's social welfare trajectory, with a primary focus on contemporary issues, gains, challenges and actors, invited by recent developments in leadership vision and renewed commitments to address growing socioeconomic disparity and rising public dissatisfaction -particularly since the introduction in late 1978 of the economic reform and 'open door' strategy (gaige kaifang 改革开放), hereafter referred to as the reform era. These reforms introduced a market logic to welfare provision, with disastrous consequences for the majority of Chinese people, and resulted in tremendous social dislocation and economic uncertainty. The Handbook is also designed to provide insights into China's recent historical, political and cultural context, and introduce -via the case studies and historical chapters -the continuities and challenges that inform the construction, characteristics, progress and future challenges of China's welfare system.The Handbook follows Elisabeth Croll's (1999) classification of Dixon and Davis's theorisation of social welfare (shehui fuli 社会福利) -which includes social insurance (shehui baoxian 社会保险), social services (shehui fuwu 社会服务) and social relief (shehui jiuji 社会救济) -within and beyond China's borders. As an arm of welfare policy, social insurance refers to arrangements for retirement, such as pensions; for periods of unemployment, such as unemployment subsidies, maternity pay and benefits for work-related injury, illness or disability; and...

From Village Commons to Public Goods

“…The diff erences are due to specifi c combinations of regional and local histories and social confi gurations that either accelerate or slow down what we found across our fi eld sites to be a coherent ideological discourse with performative eff ects and a largely top-down planned process. However, state decentralization produces considerable disparities in policy implementation depending on each local government's fi scal means (Smart and Smart 2001;Ngok and Huang 2014;Carrillo, Hood, and Kadetz 2017), while also leaving space for local experimentation.…”

“…As per the defi nition of the National Bureau of Statistics (Liang and Ma 2004) Carrillo, Hood, and Kadetz (2017: 1-2) include under the rubric "social welfare" (shehui fuli): social insurance (shehui baoxian) such as retirement pensions, unemployment subsidies, subsidies for physical and mental healthcare, and maternity pay; social services (shehui fuwu), i.e., support for the elderly, the disabled, and the le behind, education, childcare, housing support, and legal aid; and social relief (shehui jiuji), i.e., assistance for vulnerable people and disaster relief. This book focuses on a limited number of items on this list and adds some urban public goods, such as parks and garbage collection; see below, "Comparing Three Urban Villages."…”