ABSTRACT
Economic reforms, now in progress over almost three decades, have changed the political, economic and social landscape of China. According to the Annual National Survey of Urban Residents, conducted by the Institute of Macroeconomics of the State Planning Commission, unemployment, corruption, and the increasing gap between the rich and poor have become, since the mid-1990s, the three most important issues challenging the Communist Party’s legitimacy (Hu 2003: 267). The rise of urban and rural unrest, sometimes on a large scale, has further sharpened the Party’s focus. As a consequence of these pressures, the Party has been preoccupied with a key question of governance: how to govern a consolidating market economy in an increasingly heterogeneous and polarized society, yet maintain the political monopoly of the Party? Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” (sange daibiao) and Hu Jintao’s “people-centered governance” (weimin zhizheng) are the Party’s latest efforts to conceptualize the task of representing “the people” as a cohesive social body in the midst of social polarization and social heterogenization. These efforts are crystallized in the state project of building a “harmonious society” (hexie shehui).
