Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T02:47:14.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Three Welfare Models and Current Chinese Social Assistance: Confucian Justifications, Variable Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

Dorothy J. Solinger
Get access

Abstract

To situate today's social assistance program conceptually and historically, this paper presents three ideal-typical stances states may adopt in welfare provision, especially for indigent populations: (1) extend assistance to accord with social citizenship rights—or to fulfill the Confucian concept of the rite of benevolence; (2) offer subsidies to attain support or to pacify anger and silence demands from the poor; or (3) grant benefits (education, health care) to enhance the nation's productivity. The intended beneficiaries of these projects are, respectively, individuals, society and the state, and politicians. This categorization can distinguish, in broad-brush fashion, official handouts at diverse historical moments; the models are meant not so much to characterize entire eras as to illustrate differential styles of allocation. Moreover, each era justifies its practice with reference to Confucian dicta. In this comparative context, today's political elite bestows financial aid—but just a conditional kind—mainly to preempt disturbances and prevent “instability,” in line with the third of the types.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 977 - 999
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Bein, Steve. 2013. Compassion and Moral Guidance. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Jeremy. 2012. City versus Countryside in Mao's China: Negotiating the Divide. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrillo, Beatriz. 2013. “Local Economic Elites and Charitable Giving.” Presented at Workshop on Local Elites in China, Dunhuang, Gansu, China, September 2–7.Google Scholar
Chen, Janet Y. 2012. Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900–1953. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Xi. 2012. Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Bary, William Theodore. 2000. Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dillon, Nara. 2007. “New Democracy and the Demise of Private Charity in Shanghai.” In Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People's Republic of China, eds. Brown, Jeremy and Pickowicz, Paul G., 80–102. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dillon, Nara 2008. “The Politics of Philanthropy: Social Networks and Refugee Relief in Shanghai, 1932–1940.” In At the Crossroads of Empires: Social Networks and State-Building in Republican China, eds. Dillon, Nara and Oi, Jean C., 179–205. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ding, L. 1999. “Cong danwei fuli dao shehui baozhang—ji zhongguo chengshi jumin zuidi shenghuo baozhang zhidu de dansheng” [From unit welfare to social security—recording the emergence of Chinese urban residents’ minimum livelihood guarantee system]. Zhongguo minzheng 11:6–7.Google Scholar
Frazier, Mark W. 2002. The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace: State, Revolution, and Labor Management. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gooptu, Nandini. 2001. The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth-Century India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guowuyuan [State Council]. 2012. “Guowuyuan guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang he gaijin zuidi shenghuo baozhang gongcuo de yijian” [State Council's opinions on progressively strengthening and improving the work on the minimum livelihood guarantee]. Guofa No. 45. http://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2012-09/26/content_2233209.htm (accessed October 16, 2014).Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, and Kaufman, Robert R.. 2008. Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, Daniel Robert. 2010. “Explaining Policy Making in the People's Republic of China: The Case of the Urban Resident Minimum Livelihood Guarantee System, 1992–2003.” PhD diss., University of Glasgow Department of Politics.Google Scholar
Hanlon, Joseph, Barrientos, Armando, and Hulme, David. 2010. Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South. Sterling, Va.: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Harriss-White, Barbara. 2007. “Destitution in India and Peru.” In Defining Poverty in the Developing World, eds. Stewart, Frances, Saith, Ruhi, and Harriss-White, Barbara, 198–216. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hurst, William. 2009. The Chinese Worker after Socialism. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasza, Gregory J. 2006. One World of Welfare: Japan in Comparative Perspective. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Taekyoon, Kwon, Huck-Ju, Lee, Jooha, and Yi, Ilcheong. 2011. “‘Mixed Governance’ and Welfare in South Korea.” Journal of Democracy 22(3):120–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Ching Kwan. 2007. Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weidong, Li. 2012. “Zhengce jianyi tigang” [An outline of policy suggestions]. http://www.politicalchina.org (accessed December 27, 2014; URL now defunct).Google Scholar
Qizi, Liang. 1993. “‘Pinqiong’ yu ‘qiongren’ guannian zai zhongguo sushi shehuizong de lizhi yanbian” [The historical evolution of concepts of “poverty” and “poor people” in Chinese secular society]. In Renguan yiyi yu shehui [Perspectives, meanings, and society], ed. Yinggui, Yuang, 136–67. Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan, minzuxue yanjiusuo.Google Scholar
Lipkin, Zwia. 2005. “Modern Dilemmas: Dealing with Nanjing's Beggars, 1927–1937.” Journal of Urban History 31(5):583–609.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipkin, Zwia 2006. Useless to the State: Social Problems and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927–1937. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mackinnon, Stephen R., and Capa, Robert. 2008. Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merton, Robert King. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China. 2012. “Minzhengbu jiang jianli dibao jiating caichan hedui jizhi” [The Ministry of Civil Affairs will establish a mechanism for checking the figures on dibao households’ assets]. http://www.21cbh.com (accessed October 16, 2014; URL now defunct).Google Scholar
Minzheng nianjian [Civil Affairs yearbook]. 2010. Apabi (accessed December 21, 2012).Google Scholar
Parish, William L., and Whyte, Martin King. 1978. Village and Family in Contemporary China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 2008. “Chinese Conceptions of ‘Rights’: From Mencius to Mao—and Now.” Perspectives on Politics 6(1):37–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piven, Frances Fox, and Cloward, Richard A.. 1993. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare. Updated ed. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Quanguo Zongtonghui Baozhang Gongzuobu [All-China General Trade Union Security Work Department]. 2001. “Guanyu xiagang zhigong laodong guanxi chuli ji shehui baozhang jiexu wenti di diaocha” [Investigation on handling laid-off staff and workers’ labor relations and social security continuation]. Zhongguo gongyun 5:14–16.Google Scholar
Random House Webster's College Dictionary. 2001. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoppa, Leonard J. 2006. Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Shue, Vivienne. 2006. “The Quality of Mercy: Confucian Charity and the Mixed Metaphors of Modernity in Tianjin.” Modern China 32(4):411–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Aminda M. 2013. Thought Reform and China's Dangerous Classes: Reeducation, Resistance, and the People. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Smith, Joanna F. Handlin. 1987. “Benevolent Societies: The Reshaping of Charity during the Late Ming and Early Ch'ing.” Journal of Asian Studies 46(2):309–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Joanna F. Handlin 2009. The Art of Doing Good: Charity in Late Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J. 2010. “The Urban Dibao: Guarantee for Minimum Livelihood Guarantee or for Minimal Turmoil?” In Marginalization in Urban China: Comparative Perspectives, eds. Wu, Fulong and Webster, Chris, 253–77. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solinger, Dorothy J., and Jiang, Ting. Forthcoming. “When Central Orders and Promotion Criteria Conflict: Recent Urban Decisions on the Dibao.” Modern China.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loic. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic. 2000. “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism.” In Reappraising Republican China, eds. Wakeman, Frederic and Edmonds, Richard L., 141–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zhenyao, Wang. 2014. “Gongyi lingyu de sange langchao yu sange fansi” [Three tides and three introspections on the welfare sphere]. Gongyi shibao, January 22.Google Scholar
Will, Pierre-Etienne, and Wong, R. Bin, with Lee, James. 1991. Nourish the People: The State Civilian Granary System in China, 1650–1850. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Wong, Linda. 1998. Marginalization and Social Welfare in China. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wong, R. Bin. 1997. China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Jae-Jin. 2013. “Parochial Welfare Politics and the Small Welfare State in South Korea.” Comparative Politics 45(4):457–75.Google Scholar
Fenghua, Zhou. 2014. “Providing Social Assistance in China: Provincial Variations and the Shaping Factors.” Prepared for delivery at the annual convention of the Association for Asian Studies, Philadelphia, March 27–30.Google Scholar