ABSTRACT
The Chinese state is being quietly transformed. While observers have focused on the growth of private enterprise and the performance of state industry in China, the state administration has become involved in the emergent market economy. Since the late 1980s, but especially in the 1990s, individual departments across the state system have been setting up new profitseeking, risk-taking businesses.1 These businesses vary from small trading companies that operate from the departments’ own premises, to large department stores and real estate development corporations. But all are invested in by those departments, and are staffed by former bureaucratic employees. Most importantly, their earnings are shared with their parent department. After almost two decades of reform, the Chinese state has become entrepreneurial.
