China’s ‘state capitalism’ in comparative and historical perspectives

Abstract

The persistent and increasing domination of the state in China’s contemporary capitalist development leads many to apply the vague concept of state capitalism to China’s economic model. Comparing China with the earlier Asian developmental states, I discuss the distinctiveness of China’s state capitalism, underlined by the state’s paternalistic disposition toward capital and the weakness in private property protection. I argue that the subordination of capital to the political imperative of the Communist party-state, as well as the party-state elite’s explicit reference to the state’s paternalistic discipline of capital in the Qing dynasty, illustrates a connection between today’s statist economic model and Qing dynasty’s familial statism, under which the Manchu state conceptualized and governed the empire as an imagined hierarchal-communalist patrilineage. Comparing and connecting state-capital relations in China's past and present will help us better understand the nature of economic governance in China today.

Keywords:

• China
• confucianism
• private property rights
• Qing dynasty
• state capitalism
• Xi Jinping

Acknowledgment

Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the East Asian Studies Center Colloquium at the Indiana University-Bloomington and the American Sociological Association panel on ‘Explaining Changes and Persistence of Economic Institutions’, both in 2022, and at the Global Policy Institute and Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies in Durham University, United Kingdom, in 2023. I am grateful for the comments by the events’ participants, especially Gordon Cheung, Rebecca Emigh, Morten Oxenboell and Ethan Michelson. I also thank the editors and anonymous reviewers of Economy and Society for their suggestions. They are not responsible for any mistakes herein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval statement

N/A (no human participants are involved in the research).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ho-fung Hung

Ho-fung Hung is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at the Department of Sociology and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, United States.