ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a review of the background of China's social assistance programmes and their evolution, initially in urban areas and followed by rural areas. Rural economic reforms have transformed China into an international example of effective poverty reduction. Under the socialist system of central planning, the primary responsibility for social protection fell to the work unit in urban areas and communes in rural areas. Facing rising layoffs and unemployment in the 1990s due to the restructuring of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the Ninth Five-Year Plan called for reforming the traditional social assistance system as an integral part of the social security system. The first formal urban-based social assistance programme was called 'the Minimum Living Standard Guarantee System' or 'dibao', and was first implemented in Shanghai in 1993. Finally, the chapter appraises key issues and the significance of social assistance in the development of the welfare state in China.
