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The 1999 relief plan for China’s Minimum Livelihood Guarantee (called, for short, the dibao)—originally designed to assist all of the urban poor—changed by the mid-2000s, emphasizing employment, not handouts, for the able-bodied impecunious. Also, the center ordered that cities should subsidize just the most ill and needy. We find that only some Chinese cities—the less well-endowed and politically less prominent—responded to this shift by cutting back their percentage of merely unemployed recipients and increasing the percentage of the truly needy among their dibao beneficiaries. We suggest that two factors could account for this disparity: politicians in wealthier cities have greater autonomy; and they are closer to fulfilling a momentous career goal—stepping up to a post in the central government, and are thus more ambitious. It could be that in prosperous cities—where politicians have control over their budgets and where their trajectories have already positioned them near the peak of the mobility channel—leaders choose to keep the unemployed from protesting by continuing their allowances. This suggests that when two central concerns (redirecting the dibao and social stability) collide, officials in richer cities make different choices than do those in poorer cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To situate today's social assistance program conceptually and historically, this paper presents three ideal-typical stances states may adopt in welfare provision, especially for indigent populations: (1) extend assistance to accord with social citizenship rights—or to fulfill the Confucian concept of the rite of benevolence; (2) offer subsidies to attain support or to pacify anger and silence demands from the poor; or (3) grant benefits (education, health care) to enhance the nation's productivity. The intended beneficiaries of these projects are, respectively, individuals, society and the state, and politicians. This categorization can distinguish, in broad-brush fashion, official handouts at diverse historical moments; the models are meant not so much to characterize entire eras as to illustrate differential styles of allocation. Moreover, each era justifies its practice with reference to Confucian dicta. In this comparative context, today's political elite bestows financial aid—but just a conditional kind—mainly to preempt disturbances and prevent “instability,” in line with the third of the types. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study uses a micro set of Chinese city-level data to understand the varying choices taken by municipal officials in their distribution of a minimum livelihood scheme. It explores the variation in the apportionment of allowances offered to disparate types of poor groups in poor versus wealthy cities. The paper argues that in China, where profits, modernisation, competition and globalisation have become significant to leaders at all levels, there is a logic undergirding welfare allocation that has nothing to do with the calculus that spurs its delivery in democracies, and yet that is more nuanced than stylised models of dictatorship/authoritarianism presume. The paper also demonstrates that, where lower echelons of governmental administration have the authority to make rules about the rationing of social assistance, urban finances appear to have an impact upon (or at least to correlate with) administrators’ allocational decisions to groups among the poor. This influence of municipal financial health is exerted directly in the case of poor places, by enticing officials to attempt to save on funds; it also seems to operate indirectly in wealthier municipalities, by disposing richer cities’ authorities to design their urban areas as showcases, in the hope of attracting tourism and foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the broader social science literature, most studies of social protection investigate welfare in democracies, and at the national level, and typically assume that welfare is given in order to influence voting. This paper, to the contrary, considers social assistance in authoritarian China at the urban level. Its findings are compatible with an explanation that there are two dissimilar logics influencing the distributional decisions of lower-level administrators. That is, there appear to be two modes of social policy implementation, which vary with the fiscal capacity of a given city, as indicated by its average wage: Wealthier cities seem to prefer to push off the streets those viewed as unsuited to a modem city, therefore allocating a substantial proportion of their social assistance funds to them, in order to entice them to stay at home. On the other hand, poorer places seem to permit such people to work outside, in the hope that they will thus be better able to support themselves, thereby saving the city money. A data set from China's Ministry of Civil Affairs was used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the growth of unemployment in China since the early 1990s. The author provides an analysis how the country's move toward modernization have contributed to the dismissal of disqualified employees in the workplace and assesses the factors that resulted to their termination. He explores that strategies and programs implemented by the government which aim to address the challenges facing the unemployed, such as the establishment of the Reemployment Project and Regulations for the Minimum Livelihood Guarantee for Urban Residents. The author argues that despite the programs an effective labor policy should be developed the government to address the issue.

After the Chinese leadership became cognizant of the negative social externalities of marketization--especially potential threats to its hallowed objectives of social stability and successful state enterprise reform--it initiated a novel welfare approach, the dibao, to handle the people most severely affected by economic restructuring. I review the state's management of these people and the latter's experiences. I argue that they are seen subliminally (if not explicitly) by the elite as a menace to officialdom's modernization ambition. Hence, the dibao is structured so as to keep its targets quiet and out of view, now and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the comparison of the responses of Chinese workers to the globalization-induced job cuts and benefit reductions with those of workers from France and Mexico. The question of worker activism following economic liberalization and the death of socialist economies has been a favorite topic among researchers. Various studies showed inequality in the actions and outcomes in Russia and China where unions achieved greater autonomy from government. These workers became more demonstrative as the years of economic reform, internationalization and magnetization progressed. The feebleness of unions and the lack of other institutions that could settle on behalf of the distressed workers had driven expression on the streets in defense of what they considered important.

Despite a fundamental shift in China since 1978, elements of continuity persist. The concept of path dependence can be refined by distinguishing two levels on which policy is made and implemented: tactical and programmatic/strategic. Path dependence is lodged in institutional practices, not necessarily in the content of particular programs. This formulation offers a way to account for continuity amid change and a means of extending the concept of path dependence to polities where continuity occurs outside of the democratic electoral accountability of politicians to constituents. Recent Chinese unemployment insurance and poverty alleviation programs illustrate this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the state and society in urban China in the wake of the 16th Communist Party Congress. Correlation between Jiang Zemin's "three represents" and the various separate social groups making up the cities at the turn of the 21st century.

The article explores the impact of China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the country's urban workforce. The author conceives that although entering the WTO will not by itself create joblessness, it will intensify several alarming trends. For instance, by heightening competition, WTO will accelerate the rate of insolvency among the state firms. In addition, by demanding higher quality labor, WTO might result to urban workforce's replacement by upgraded machinery.

Delineates the severe difficulties that the program of cutting back the workforce is visiting upon the great majority of the middle-aged, erstwhile members in China. Significance of the private sector in providing employment for workers; Shortfalls of the Re-employment Project; Deficiencies in the program of social insurance.

Discusses some of the problems in analyzing unemployment in China. Use of a broad array of differentiating labels for laid-off people; Unemployment rate in state-owned firms; Problems with unemployment studies conducted by the government.

Discusses the consequences of the Chinese adoption of the practices of globalization. Impact of globalization on economic liberalism and the concept of human rights; Rate of unemployment in the country; Interrelationship between globalization and citizenship; Bid of three countries to join the global economy.

Examines the situation of migrant labor in China and compares it to the migration regime of Japan and Germany. Comparable role of outsiders in economic growth; Separation of newcomers at work from the natives by virtue of citizenship; Better treatment received by foreigners in Japan and Germany than transient nationals of China; Distinctions in developmental and political trajectories.

Discusses the effects China's transition from socialism to capitalism on peasant workers. Employment in foreign-funded firms; Comparison of the situation of workers in socialist and capitalist firms; Shifts and clashes in management perspectives.

Discusses the decentralization of fiscal and administrative powers to lower echelons of government. Reference to discrepancies in diverse sub-national administrations; Economic indicators for provincial capitals and centrally oriented cities; Impact of bureaucratic regulations on the implementation of investment projects; Failure of leadership.

Offers a look at China's transients and the state. Introduction; Two modes of civil society; Two very different interpretations; History and economic reforms of transience in China; Size and features of the floating population; Recruitment and organization; The floating population as civil society; Details; Conclusion.

Examines economic reform and state control of trade in China. Implications of the destabilization of the state-run economy; Stimulation of economic activism of state-owned firms and the private sector; Economic and financial relationship between the central government and the localities; Balance between macroeconomic regulation of the national economy and micro-level control of firms; Economic policies.

Focuses on the reforms adopted by industries in China in 1984. Critique of the pre-1979 industrial system on which the industrial reforms were based; Overview of the type of industrial reforms promoted and implemented in China since 1984; Interpretation of the challenges faced by industrial reforms.

Analyzes two processes, one benign from an official view, the other ultimately destructive, concerning China's migration of peasants into its larger cities since the start of economic reform in 1980. Current incorporation of the floaters; Pull of China's market; Communist `Urban Public Goods Regime'; Provision of entitlements to state workers.

The article explores the democracy movement in China in light of parallels of the 1989 demonstration with past protest in the country. It notes that popular opposition to the Chinese regime has asserted itself in times of weak central government, most notably in the 1920s and during the Nationalist period of the 1930s and 1940s. The mass consciousness tends to appear not only when people see the government as weak, but also when they believe some members of the troubled leadership are sympathetic to their concerns and tacitly approve of their actions. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident is described.