ABSTRACT
Are there any sex workers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? At first glance, this question may seem superfluous. After all, it is well known that, following its accession to political power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) embarked upon a series of campaigns designed to eradicate prostitution from mainland China, and its apparent success in realising this goal by the late 1950s was subsequently acclaimed as one of the major achievements of the new regime.1 This meant that the subject of prostitution effectively disappeared as a serious object of governmental and intellectual concern in the PRC for a period of nearly three decades. Since the mid to late 1980s, however, governmental authorities in the PRC have readily admitted that the phenomenon of prostitution has not only reappeared on the mainland but that it also constitutes a widespread and growing problem (Quanguo renda changweihui 1991:12-13). In fact, it is now considered that new laws and regulatory measures have proved unable to curb the prostitution business.2 My opening question is thus purely rhetorical: sellers of sex can be found throughout present-day China.
