ABSTRACT
Analysing the interactions between agents, institutions and politicaleconomic forces occupied a central place in much of Gordon White’s work. This analysis is a contribution to that tradition. We analyse the interactions between two of the most important factors shaping China’s dual transition and China’s evolving industrial labour systems. To briefly expand upon this, consider first China’s dual transition-from a developing to an industrial economy and from a centrally-planned to a market economy. Both of these transitions imply major structural changes and have significant implications for labour. In the contemporary period, the two dominant factors shaping this dual transition are globalisation and privatisation. That is, first, the development process in China and other developing countries must be seen as operating within the context of a new phase of global capitalism. Secondly, privatisation, while a major component of the transition in the countries of the former Soviet bloc but initially eschewed by China’s leadership, has recently risen to a prominent position on China’s policy agenda. So far, privatisation has been selectively applied in the state-owned enterprise sector but has been implemented with great speed in the rural industrial sector since the mid-1990s.
