ABSTRACT
The prosperity of the non-state sector has created the group of new rich in China – owner-operators and managers of these enterprises (Goodman 2008). These people have taken advantage of the country’s economic reform and have made a quick accumulation of capital in less than three decades. As this chapter illustrates, economic reform has not only created wealth for China’s new entrepreneurs, but also raised their status in local communities, especially by providing them with access to the Party-state system. On the other hand, despite the fast expansion of the private sector and its current signifi cance in China’s economy, private entrepreneurs still have to depend on the government and local offi cials for the development of their businesses, as ‘the imperfect market mechanism developed in China has yet to uproot the bureaucratic infl uence on the economy’ (Yep 2003: 80). Although China has been developing as a market economy for some 30 years, the traces of a planned socialist economic system can be found everywhere. Government and offi cials still retain infl uence in economic development. Although they have much more freedom in comparison with SOEs, private enterprises are still restricted by laws, regulations and rules of governments and have to pay taxation and different kinds of administration fees. Moreover, different levels of government control resources, loans and some raw materials, and are an important source of business information and business contacts (Dickson 2003; Yep 2003). Inevitably individual offi cial’s attitudes and predispositions may determine outcomes as regulations and rules are implemented, and in a system relatively lacking in mechanisms of public accountability the personal effect may well be magnifi ed. Consequently, in the eyes of many private entrepreneurs, a close affi liation with the Party-state and its offi cials is necessary to make better use of capital, resources and information controlled by the government, as well as to ensure their political security.3 As a result, reform has created ‘a system of increasing dual dependency, with entrepreneurs depending on administrators for favours, and administrators depending on entrepreneurs for income’ (Michelson and Parish 2000: 134-56). Based on a series of interviews with 171 women entrepreneurs undertaken from 2003-05 in three localities in China (Jiaocheng County in Shanxi Province; Qiongshan District of Haikou City in Hainan Province; and Mianyang City in Sichuan Province), this chapter examines the nexus between the Partystate and this special group of China’s new rich. It argues that these new rich entrepreneurs obtain their political capital, in four major ways: (1) joining the CPC; (2) holding leadership positions in the local Party-state; (3) obtaining membership in political organizations; and (4) in the award of various titles and honours from the Party-state system. All these lead to a process of incorporation and political socialization. At the same time, interview results indicate that these women were also well connected, and probably in general better connected in any case to the Party-state through their parental and
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4
Current scholarship has shown that Communist Party membership is a sought-after political capital among China’s ‘red capitalists’; at the same time as it is also an effective way for the Party-state to integrate the private entrepreneurs (Dickson 2008). Table 11.1 provides information on the interviewees’ CPC membership.4 Calculated from the offi cial fi gures, by the end of 2005, some 2.1 per cent of China’s female population were CPC members.5 At the same time, almost one-quarter of the interviewees in this research held CPC membership. 12.9 per cent of the Jiaocheng interviewees, 15.1 per cent of the Qiongshan interviewees and as high as 41.1 per cent of the Mianyang interviewees reported Party membership. In other words, it seems safe to argue that compared with women in general, new rich women is a group with stronger Party connections. However, the percentage of those interviewees with CPC membership was clearly lower than that of their husbands, their fathers, their fathers-in-law, their siblings and their siblings-in-law. In other words, these women might not have been CPC members themselves, but they were almost certainly wives, daughters, daughters-in-law, sisters and sistersin-law of CPC members. This suggests that the connection between these women entrepreneurs and the Party could be established both by themselves or, more likely, through their family ties. As the importance of the private sector grows, the Party is more and more willing to recruit private entrepreneurs as members, in order to promote its major task of economic development, as well as not to ‘shut itself off from the best supply of human resources’ (Dickson 2003: 38). However, for some time there was no ideological justifi cation for those who used to be regarded as exploiters of the working class to join the Party, as the Party had long claimed itself to be representing the interests of the proletariats and business people were excluded. The problem of legitimacy was fi nally solved in 2000. Jiang Zemin (then President of China) revealed his ‘Three Represents’ Theory in this year, which asserts that ‘the Party should represent the developmental
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3
needs of the advanced social productive forces, the promotion of advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the greatest majority of people’ thereby by extension acknowledging the role of entrepreneurs as an advanced social productive force.6 In his 1 July 2001 speech, Jiang said that talented people who are from other social classes (other than workers, peasants, intellectuals, soldiers and cadres) but who meet the criteria for CPC recruitment should be admitted to the Party.7 Clearly, private entrepreneurs were included in this extended category. Despite the Central Government’s now friendlier attitude towards private entrepreneurs, few of the interviewees with CPC membership joined the Party after Jiang Zemin gave his watershed speech in 2001. Instead, it seems that the rising political status of China’s private entrepreneurs did not inspire these women to seek connections with the Party on their own initiative. Actually, most of them joined the Party when they were working as local cadres or managers of SOEs before they ever became entrepreneurs. A local difference could also be observed here: interviewees from different localities held different attitudes towards obtaining CPC membership. Unlike their counterparts in Jiaocheng and Mianyang, the interviewees in Qiongshan were the only one in the three locations of interviewees who explicitly expressed unwillingness to join the Party. This is unsurprising considering Hainan’s distance from the Central political power. It seems that in the comparatively light political atmosphere of the island, these women attached less importance to CPC membership and could express their opinion more freely. When asked about CPC membership, seven of the Qiongshan women (13.2 per cent) from a range of age groups told the research team that they were not willing and chose not to join the Party. Apart from the distance between the locale and the Central power, another reason that seems to infl uence these women entrepreneurs’ enthusiasm towards joining the Party is their own business success. In contrast to their Jiaocheng and Qiongshang counterparts, the Mianyang interviewees are the only group that had demonstrated initiative in seeking membership of the CPC when in business as private enterprise owners or managers. The importance here is that generally for the Mianyang interviewees, business success was seen as the entry condition for CPC membership by the women themselves as much as by the CPC. Two of those interviewed joined the Party after establishing their businesses – both after Jiang Zemin’s 2001 speech that offi cially included private entrepreneurs in the category of potential CPC recruits. Another two interviewees became Party members after obtaining senior management positions in private enterprises. Not only did these women seek to join the Party, but also in the cases of the enterprise owners, they reported having received invitations from the Party. Considering that Mianyang has a higher level of economic development than Jiaocheng and Qiongshan, and the size of Mianyang interviewees’ business was generally bigger than those of their counterparts in the other two research localities, the
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4
A friendly and cooperative attitude towards the CPC can also be shown through the establishment of Party branches in the private entrepreneurs’ businesses. In two cases, both interviewees stated they had established Party branches in their enterprises, although they were not CPC members themselves. The Party branch of one of these women’s enterprises was even honoured as a ‘先进基层党支部’ (advanced grass roots Party branch) by the local district CPC committee in 2006. This was regarded as one of the enterprise’s major achievements of the year and was reported in the enterprise’s publicity. Both of the interviewees were running large businesses, one with capital of 100 million yuan and the other with capital of 500 million yuan. This seems to correspond to Dickson’s analysis of the CPC’s co-optation strategy in private enterprises where the larger and wealthier enterprises would be more likely to have Party organizations in them and the size and wealth of these enterprises make them more visible targets for Party building (Dickson 2003: 113-14). By the same token, none of the small or medium-sized enterprises approached in the fi eldwork mentioned having Party branches. During the interviews, ten interviewees reported having participated in training classes, or higher education courses delivered by the local Party school at provincial or city level. The classes and courses were generally related to management, fi nance, law and philosophy, mostly designed to cater to people in business. While fi ve of these women were CPC members, two were not. Presumably, such Party school courses also serve as a link between the CPC and non-Party member private entrepreneurs. Moreover, they can certainly be seen as a sign of the CPC further opening its doors to the private sector (ibid.). Although CPC membership is an effective way for private entrepreneurs to access the political system, the interviews revealed that membership of other political parties (over and above the CPC)8 is also pursued by these people for the same reason. There are two possible reasons for this phenomenon: fi rst, most of these parties (such as the China Association for Promoting Democracy, the China Democratic League, the Jiu San Society, the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, the Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic Party, and the China National Democratic Construction Association) claim that they are organizations of higher-level intellectuals and professionals. Therefore, membership of these parties suggests a higher education level and even higher social status. And second, these democratic parties are commonly regarded as a short cut to other political assemblies, such as the People’s Congress or the People’s Political Consultative Conference, especially as the latter is mainly composed of members of the democratic political parties and non-CPC members.9 In this research, four interviewees stated that they or their husbands joined other political parties after the establishment of their businesses. Invariably, all of them were members of the local People’s Congress or People’s Political Consultative
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3
Needless to say, working for the Party-state enables the entrepreneurs to be involved in the system more directly and strongly. Table 11.2 shows the Party-state positions the interviewees and their family members had ever held in village and neighborhood committees, at various levels of government and CPC committee, as well as in the People’s Liberation Army. Interview results show that these women entrepreneurs and their family had extensive experiences of serving in departments of Party organization, public security, employment, taxation, industry and commerce, as well as business planning. No matter whether these positions are at leadership level or not, presumably they are all of considerable power and relevance to the private sector of the economy and ensure more access to resources, loans, and raw materials as well as information and business networks. One fact that is conspicuous in the fi gures in Table 11.2 is that these women themselves were not as involved in formal politics as the rest of their family. Although higher than the percentage in the general population, only 8.2 per cent of these women had been working for the Party-state. Instead, their interaction with the Party-state came through their families and their marriages; 21.6 per cent of them were daughters, 13.5 per cent were wives and 19.3 per cent were daughters-in-law of cadres at different levels in the government as well as other organizations. This again indicates interviewees’ close interaction with the Party-state through family ties. Actually, such family ties could be so strong that it no longer matters whether these women were themselves a part of the system. For example, one interviewee – the wife of a clothes shop owner – had a brother who was a cadre in the local Labor Bureau, a brother who was a cadre in the local Agricultural Bureau, a brother-in-law who was head of local Women and Children Health Station, a sister-in-law who was vice-director of the local Agricultural Bureau, as well as a brother-in-law and a father-in-law who were cadres in the local Forestry Bureau. Her shop was one of the more successful trading operations in the county. All the county
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4
government’s departments and factories were their clients. When refl ecting on her involvement in business, the interviewee revealed that she did not see herself to be any different from men. She said, ‘Whatever men can do, women can do too.’ Considering the possibility of such a profound relationship with the county and even the provincial government, it was not likely that she would encounter much disadvantage in her business. Traces of gender inequality were apparent when considering the interviewees’ responses on their own and their family’s political participation. First of all, these women did not enjoy access to as much political capital as their male family members, such as their husband, father or father-in-law. Second, the women themselves did not seem to have had as much experience of Party-state leadership. Their limited leadership experiences were often at lower level, in deputy positions, or in departments considered to be less ‘important’ or ‘powerful’ (not leadership positions in industry, agriculture, and the economy). This would seem to correspond to information already available about the limited political career opportunities for China’s female population. Nowadays it is not uncommon for private enterprises to employ incumbent or retired government offi cials as senior employees or advisors.10 This leads to a relationship of mutual benefi t: the offi cials depend on the entrepreneurs for extra income, and the entrepreneurs depend on the offi cials for their experience in and relationship with government. This phenomenon is refl ected in the experience of one of the interviewees, a retired government offi cer working in a private enterprise as a manager. She had started to work in the county government in 1976. During the next 23 years, she worked at different positions in various departments. From 1976 to 1985, she was an offi cer of the county’s Bureau of Commerce, in charge of personnel affairs. Then she was transferred to the Personnel Bureau of the county. In 1986, she started to work in the Party Committee of the offi ce of the county government and was later promoted to be the Party vice secretary. On her formal retirement, she was working in the Organization Department of the county’s CPC Committee. Considering her leadership experience, it was understandable that immediately after retirement, she was offered a position by one of the county’s biggest private enterprises, to work as the offi ce director and director of women’s affairs. Her responsibilities in the enterprise include personnel affairs and reception of visiting guests and government offi cials. Although she did not participate in the enterprise’s strategic planning on important issues such as production and sales, she was invited to attend all the important business meetings.
