China's Social Development and Policy: Into the Next Stage?

276 Pages·2015·14.886 MB·English

by  Litao Zhao

’
China s Social Development and Policy
In China, social development has fallen far behind economic development.
China’s Social Development and Policy looks at why this is the case, and
poses the question of whether the conditions, structures and institutions that
have locked China into unbalanced development are changing to pave the
way for the next stage of development. Based on an empirical examination of
ideological, structural and institutional transformations that have shaped
China’s development experiences, the book analyses China’s reform and
development in the social domain, including pension, healthcare, public
housing, ethnic policy, and public expenditure on social programs. The book
moves beyond descriptive analyses to understand the role of broader changes
in shaping and redefining the pattern of development in China.
Litao Zhao is Senior Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute, National
University of Singapore.
China Policy Series
Series Editor
Zheng Yongnian
East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore
1. China and the New International Order
Edited by Wang Gungwu and Zheng Yongnian
2. China’s Opening Society
The non-state sector and governance
Edited by Zheng Yongnian and Joseph Fewsmith
3. Zhao Ziyang and China’s Political Future
Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne
4. Hainan
State, society, and business in a Chinese province
Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard
5. Non-Governmental Organizations in China
The rise of dependent autonomy
Yiyi Lu
6. Power and Sustainability of the Chinese State
Edited by Keun Lee, Joon-Han Kim and Wing Thye Woo
7. China’s Information and Communications Technology Revolution
Social changes and state responses
Edited by Xiaoling Zhang and Yongnian Zheng
8. Socialist China, Capitalist China
Social tension and political adaptation under economic globalisation
Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne
9. Environmental Activism in China
Lei Xei
10. China’s Rise in the World ICT Industry
Industrial strategies and the catch-up development model
Lutao Ning
11. China’s Local Administration
Traditions and changes in the sub-national hierarchy
Edited by Jae-Ho Chung and Tao-chiu Lam
12. The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor
Culture, reproduction and transformation
Zheng Yongian
13. China’s Trade Unions
How autonomous are they?
Masaharu Hishida, Kazuko Kojima, Tomoaki Ishii and Jian Qiao
14. Legitimating the Chinese Communist Party since Tiananmen
A critical analysis of the stability discourse
Peter Sandby-Thomas
15. China and International Relations
The Chinese view and the contribution of Wang Gungwu
Zheng Yongnian
16. The Challenge of Labour in China
Strikes and the changing labour regime in global factories
Chris King-chi Chan
17. The Impact of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Massacre
Edited by Jean-Philippe Béja
18. The Institutional Dynamics of China’s Great Transformation
Edited by Xiaoming Huang
19. Higher Education in Contemporary China
Beyond expansion
Edited by W. John Morgan and Bin Wu
20. China’s Crisis Management
Edited by Jae Ho Chung
21. China Engages Global Governance
A New World Order in the making?
Gerald Chan, Pak K. Lee and Lai-Ha Chan
22. Political Culture and Participation in Rural China
Yang Zhong
23. China’s Soft Power and International Relations
Hongyi Lai and Yiyi Lu
24. China’s Climate Policy
Chen Gang
25. Chinese Society
Change and transformation
Edited by Li Peilin
26. China’s Challenges to Human Security
Foreign relations and global implications
Edited by Guoguang Wu
27. China’s Internal and International Migration
Edited by Li Peilin and Laurence Roulleau-Berger
28. The Rise of Think Tanks in China
Xufeng Zhu
29. Governing Health in Contemporary China
Yanzhong Huang
30. New Dynamics in Cross-Taiwan Straits Relations
How far can the rapprochement go?
Edited by Weixing Hu
31. China and the European Union
Edited by Lisheng Dong, Zhengxu Wang and Henk Dekker
32. China and the International System
Becoming aworld power
Edited by Xiaoming Huang and Robert G. Patman
33. China’s Social Development and Policy
Into the next stage?
Edited by Litao Zhao
’
China s Social Development
and Policy
Into the next stage?
Edited by
Litao Zhao
Firstpublished2013
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness
©2013selectionandeditorialmaterial,LitaoZhao;individualchapters,the
contributors
Therightoftheeditortobeidentifiedasauthoroftheeditorialmaterial,
andoftheauthorsfortheirindividualchapters,hasbeenassertedin
accordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatents
Act1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orin
anyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting
fromthepublishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor
registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanation
withoutintenttoinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
China'ssocialdevelopmentandpolicy:intothenextstage?/editedby
LitaoZhao.
p.cm.–(Chinapolicyseries;33)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.China–Socialpolicy.2.China–Socilconditions–2000-I.Zhao,Litao,
1972-editorofcompilation.
HN733.5.C44182013
303.3'720951–dc23
2012047754
ISBN:978-0-415-64283-5(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-49679-4(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
Contents
List of illustrations ix
List of contributors xii
Acknowledgements xv
List of abbreviations xvi
Introduction 1
LITAOZHAO
PARTI
China into the next stage of development 17
1 Society must be defended: reform, openness and social policy
in China 19
YONGNIANZHENG
2 China’s new stage of development 40
PEILINLI
PARTII
Social policy reform moving to the fore 49
3 Issues and options for social security reform in
China 51
SHILI
4 China’s fiscal expenditure on social security since
1978 83
YANZHONGWANGANDYUQILONG
5 Healthcare reform: where is China heading? 99
KAIHONGPHUAANDALEXHEJINGWEI
viii Contents
6 How successful are China’s public housing schemes? 115
BINGQINLI
7 China’s rapid demographic transition and its challenges to
the social security system 141
DINGLU
8 Political dynamics of social policy reform in China 161
YONGNIANZHENGANDYANJIEHUANG
9 Developmentalism, secularism, nationalism and essentialism:
current situation and challenges of the ethnic issue in China 186
YONGJIALIANG
PARTIII
China’s social development in a comparative perspective 205
10 The evolving East Asian welfare regimes: the case of China 207
CHACKKIEWONG
11 Singapore’s social development experience: a relevant lesson
for China? 230
LITAOZHAOANDJOHNWONG
Index 253
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 Intergovernmental decentralization 25
1.2 Professional composition of CCP membership, 2006 31
3.1 Changes in income inequality inurban and rural China,
1978–2007 52
3.2 China’s urban–rural income gap between 1978 and 2007 54
3.3 Poverty incidence of rural population based on official lines 54
3.4 Rural official poverty line as a percentage of household income
per capita, 1985–2007 55
3.5 Numberof urbanunemployed people in China, 1978–2008 56
3.6 Urban registered unemployment rate in China, 1978–2008 56
3.7 The number of rural–urban migrant workers in China 57
3.8 Changes in consumption as a percentage of GDP in China 58
3.9 Saving rate of households in urban, rural areas and China as
awhole 59
4.1 Fiscal allowance for social insurance 90
4.2 Net fiscal appropriation to national social security fund 92
4.3 Incidence of rural absolute poverty in China 92
5.1 Composition of China’s health expenditure, 1978–2007 100
5.2 Coverage of risk-pooling schemes, 2003 102
5.3 Total health expenditure and government health expenditure,
1990–2007 102
5.4 Sources of income for Chinese public hospitals (General),
1998–2008 103
5.5 Coverage of risk-pooling schemes, 2008 106
6.1 Population growth in China 118
6.2 Total number of permanent residents and numberof registered
residentswith Hukou in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and
Shenzhen, 1978–2008 119
6.3 Household size changes over time, 1982–2008 120
6.4 Household size changes of the whole country and of the four
major cities, 2001–08 120