Introduction

The Introduction takes issue with predictions that China will deteriorate into either dictatorship or predatory competition. It counters them with a claim that social forces, in particular social enterprises, contribute to creating a Chinese society that is neither. A brief overview of the geographical and historical setting is provided. Three eras are used as chronological markers, the Mao, Deng, and Xi eras, named after the most recent paramount rulers who set the country on radically new courses. Chinese social enterprises are viewed through the lens of the Durkheimian social contract and the Maussian total social facts or guanxi, a similar Chinese framing. Neither revolutionary nor revisionist, social enterprises nevertheless alter the content of the social contract. They engage with various stakeholders and alter particular configurations of subject and object positions. By redefining the discursive topology, they change relations with the state too. The Introduction concludes that social enterprises in China revitalise two deeply rooted cultural conventions, social inclusion, and civilised society in a unique way.