The 1990s: Chinese Privatization and Reframed Discourses of Workers’ Democracy

The discourse of workers’ democracy in 1990s China was redeployed in response to shifts in the CCP’s economic development strategies, which attempted to move small-and medium-sized SOEs in the direction of privatization. The changes were most dramatic in China’s small-and mid-sized SOEs in the 1990s, and it was in that sector that the offi cial discourse of workers’ democracy was most vociferously promoted.