ABSTRACT

In China, there is the literature that explores the socio-economic development and population profile of the country and, using various metrics, aims to furnish evidence that a middle class, who will supposedly be bulwarks of social stability and embodiments of the Party-state's promise of generalized prosperity, is indeed emerging. The importance of consumption in the broader government of contemporary China, shaping and constituting anew both the apparatus of a capital-G Government of the state and the everyday orderly conduct of increasingly individualized Chinese subjectivities, points to the final issue. This concerns how 'class' is particularly pivotal as an arena for power/knowledge action in China. The deepening incorporation into global capitalism has unquestionably subjected Chinese society to its characteristic progressive individualization and uneven development. The convergence of the middle risk-class and suzhi spells the progressive emergence of a new dynamic propelling the middle risk-class itself towards its qualitative transformation.