Does China's recent ‘harmonious society’ discourse reflect a shift towards human development?

Abstract

This paper analyses whether the Chinese state's recent efforts since 2003 to build a ‘harmonious society’ (HS; hexie shehui) represents an ideological shift towards global human development (HD) norms promoted by the United Nations. At first glance, the one-party authoritarian state of China seems worlds apart from the more inclusive HD approach. However, China's increasing emphasis on rebuilding health insurance, expanding compulsory education and reducing inter-regional inequalities somewhat resembles HD. To clarify these ambiguities, the study analyses recent PRC social development reports and scholarly debates to understand the HS ideology. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of HS discourse and a clarification of six key dimensions on which the HS appears to differ from the HD approach to development.

Notes

 1. A detailed summary of China's economic liberalization process is presented in Barry Naughton, Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform 1978–1993 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995) and Barry Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).

 2. Comprehensive analyses of post-Mao era administrative reforms include Shaoguang Wang and Angang Hu, The Chinese Economy in Crisis: State Capacity and Tax Reform (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002); Dali Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004); Jude Howell (Ed.), Governance in China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Governance in China (Paris: OECD, 2005); Barry Naughton and Dali Yang (Eds), Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the Post-Deng Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Lowell Dittmer and Guoli Liu (Eds), China's Deep Reform: Domestic Politics in Transition (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Mengkui Wang (Ed.), Good Governance in China—a Way Towards Social Harmony (New York: Routledge, 2009).

 3. The trajectory of China's legal reform is covered in Randall Peerenboom, China's Long March Toward Rule of Law (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

 4. It is important to note that China's selective market-oriented reforms since 1979 did not necessarily require many of the administrative reforms the Chinese Government has introduced during this period. For a comparative perspective on how China's economic growth performance has compared with other nations see Devin Joshi, ‘Multi-party democracies and rapid economic growth: A 21st century breakthrough?’, Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 7 (2011), pp. 25–46.

 5. On China's serious environmental problems see Vaclav Smil, China's Environmental Crisis: An Inquiry into the Limits of National Development (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993); Mark Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004); Elizabeth Economy, The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

 6. China's shortcomings on social policy are examined in Shi Li and Nansheng Bai (Eds), Zhongguo Renlei Fazhan Baogao 2005: Zhuiqiu Gongping de Renlei Fazhan (China Human Development Report 2005: Seeking Equitable Human Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Fazhan Yanjiu Jijinhui, 2005); Chak Kwan Chan, King Lun Ngok and David Phillips, Social Policy in China: Development and Well-Being (Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2008); Tony Saich, Governance and Politics of China, 2nd edition (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).

 7. China's limited progress in democratization is a hot topic in recent scholarship. A strong argument that China has insufficiently democratized is presented in Minxin Pei, China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Various challenges to democratization are discussed in Elizabeth J. Perry and Merle Goldman (Eds), Grassroots Political Reform in Contemporary China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

 8. Many scholars have examined different aspects of the growing inequality problems facing 21st century China. An important contribution to this debate is Wang Shaoguang, ‘Openness and inequality: The Case of China’, in Guoliu Liu and Lowell Dittmer (Eds), China's Deep Reform: Domestic Politics in Transition. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Aside from the abundant Chinese literature, the topic is further explored in two recent English language edited volumes, Vivienne Shue and Christine Wong (Eds), Paying for Progress in China: Public Finance, Human Welfare and Changing Patterns of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 2007) and Deborah S. Davis and Wang Feng (Eds), Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009).

 9. China's growing corruption problem in recent decades is impressively chronicled and analysed in Xiaobo Lu, Cadres and Corruption: The Organizational Involution of the Chinese Communist Party (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Melanie Manion, Corruption by Design: Building Clean Government in Mainland China and Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) and Yan Sun, Corruption and Market in Contemporary China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

10. Comparative empirical analyses of how international economic liberalization has led to concentrated gains and growing inequality in developing countries include Nita Rudra, ‘Globalization and the decline of the welfare state in less developed countries’, International Organization, 56(2) (2002), pp. 411–445; Nita Rudra, Globalization and the Race to the Bottom in Developing Countries: Who Really Gets Hurt? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

11. See for example Rosemary Foot, Rights beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights in China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Nicholas R. Lardy, Integrating China into the Global Economy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002); David Lampton, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008).

12. Zhang and Ong argue that in the case of China, ‘neoliberal principles of private accumulation and self-interest—expressed in profit making, entrepreneurialism, and self-promotion—are not allowed to touch key areas that remain firmly under state control’ (p. 1). See Li Zhang and Aihwa Ong, ‘Introduction: Privatizing China: Powers of the self, socialism from afar’, in Li Zhang and Aihwa Ong (Eds) Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), pp. 1–20.

13. See for example Donald M. Nonini, ‘Is China becoming neoliberal’, Critique of Anthropology 28 (2008), pp. 145–176; Suisheng Zhao, ‘The China model: Can it replace the Western model of modernization’, Journal of Contemporary China 19 (2010), pp. 419–436; David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). John Williamson coined the term ‘Washington Consensus’ in 1990 to refer to a set of ten ‘neoliberal’ policies that the US Government, the World Bank and the IMF generally agreed upon when it came to giving loans, aid and policy recommendations to developing countries. These ten policies were (1) fiscal discipline, (2) tax reform, (3) redirection of public expenditure, (4) interest rate liberalization, (5) competitive exchange rate, (6) trade liberalization, (7) liberalization of FDI inflows, (8) privatization, (9) deregulation and (10) secure property rights. See John Williamson ‘What Washington means by policy reform’, in John Williamson (Ed.), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1990).

14. UNDP, Human Development Report 1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

15. Craig N. Murphy, The United Nations Development Programme: A Better Way? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

16. Useful discussions of how the UN's HD approach differs from the World Bank are found in Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and A.K. Shiva Kumar (Eds), Readings in Human Development, 2nd edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Richard Jolly, Louis Emmerij, Dharam Ghai and Frederic Lapeyre, UN Contributions to Development Thinking and Practice (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004).

17. Jolly et al., op. cit., Ref. 16.

18. See for example Devin Joshi, ‘Good governance, state capacity, and the millennium development goals’, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology 10 (2011), pp. 339–360. The millennium development goals (MDGs) address the issues of: (1) extreme poverty and hunger, (2) universal primary education, (3) gender equality and women's empowerment, (4) child mortality, (5) maternal health, (6) combating diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, (7) environmental sustainability and (8) a global partnership among developed countries to help support developing countries achieve these goals. More information on the MDGs and country progress reports are available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/.

19. The best-known articulation of this approach appears in Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999).

20. Sen, ibid.

21. Sen, ibid.; Fukuda-Parr and Shiva Kumar, op. cit., Ref. 16; Sabine Alkire, ‘A conceptual framework for human security’, (Working Paper 2: Center for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, 2003).

22. Most of these reports are available for free on the Internet from the UNDP Human Development Reports Website: http://hdr.undp.org/en/ (quotation viewed on 10 March 2009).

23. Marc Lindenberg, The Human Development Race: Improving the Quality of Life in Developing Countries (San Francisco, CA: ICS Press, 1993).

24. Jolly et al., op. cit., Ref. 16, p. 180; see also Gustav Ranis, Frances Stewart and Alejandro Ramirez, ‘Economic growth and human development’, World Development 28 (2000), pp. 197–219.

25. UNDP, Human Development Report 2009 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

26. Ibid., p. 170.

27. Devin Joshi, ‘Human development’, in Theodore Orlin, James M. Seymour and Daniel Yu (Eds) The Human Rights Dictionary: International, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Bilingual) (Taipei: Ministry of Education, 2007), pp. 76–77.

28. Jolly et al., op. cit., Ref. 16, p. 179.

29. Sabine Alkire, ‘Dimensions of human development’, World Development 30 (2002), pp. 181–205.

30. Xue Tan, ‘Goujian hexie shehui weihe tishang zhongyang yishi richeng’, ‘Why has building a harmonious society been put onto the sgenda of the CCP central committee’, in Han Xue (Ed.), Cong Duoyuan dao Hexie—Hexie Shehui de Goujian (From Plurality to Harmony: Building a Harmonious Society) (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe, 2005).

31. The term ‘socialist market economy’ is based on the German mixed economic model Sozialmarktwirtschaft (social market economy). The ‘third way’ refers to political economy models that fall between socialism and capitalism but, unlike social democracy, which seeks to balance the two, the ‘third way’ leans more closely towards capitalism.

32. This conception is articulated in China Institute for Reform and Development, China Human Development Report 2007/2008—Access for All: Basic Public Services for 1.3 Billion People (Beijing: China Translation & Publishing Corporation, 2008).

33. Some of the few English language studies analysing the HS discourse are the various contributions to Sujian Guo and Baojian Guo (Eds) China in Search of a Harmonious Society (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008); Ai Guo Han, ‘Building a harmonious society and achieving individual harmony’, Journal of Chinese Political Science 13 (2008), pp. 143–164; Chenming Deng, ‘Basic concepts of the harmonious socialist society’, Nature, Society, and Thought 20 (2007), pp. 199–204; John Delury, ‘“Harmonious” in China’, Policy Review 148 (2008), pp. 35–45.

34. A recent study based on a 2004 survey of perceptions of distributive injustice analysed in Chunping Han and Martin King Whyte, ‘The social contours of distributive injustice feelings in contemporary China’, in Susan Davis and Feng Wang (Eds), Creating Wealth and Poverty in Postsocialist China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009) found the ‘rocky stability’ scenario to be more likely than a ‘social volcano’ given that many of the most disadvantaged groups in China were less outraged about distributive injustices than certain groups who were objectively better off materially.

35. As mentioned in Xue Han, Cong Duoyuan dao Hexie—Hexie Shehui de Goujian (Building a Harmonious Society) (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe, 2005).

36. Delury, op. cit., Ref. 33, p. 41.

37. Wen Jiabao statement in 2005 as quoted in http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2005-03/23/content_2732356.htm (quotation viewed on 10 March 2009).

38. A second Hu–Wen ambiguity is that it is not clear who will benefit most from the HS and when the new policies will begin.

39. Xi Zi, ‘Preface: Thoughts on the word “harmony”’ in Han, op. cit., Ref. 35, p. 1.

40. Table 3 is based on Li Peilin, Chen Guangjin, Zhang Yi and Li Wei, Zhongguo Shehui Hexie Wending Baogao (Chinese Social Harmony and Stability Report) (Beijing: Shehui Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2008), pp. 6–7.

41. Fumin Shu (Ed.), Zhongguo Quanmian Xiaokang Fazhan Baogao 2006 (China's Completely Reaching a Moderately Well-Off Society Development Report 2006) (Beijing: Shehue Kexue Wenxian Chubanshe, 2006).

42. Josef Gregory Mahoney, ‘On the way to harmony: Marxism, confucianism, and Hu Jintao's Hexie concept’, in Sujian Guo and Baojian Guo (Eds), China in Search of a Harmonious Society (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 99–128.

43. Shi Li and Nansheng Bai, Zhongguo Renlei Fazhan Baogao 2005: Zhuiqiu Gongping de Renlei Fazhan (China Human Development Report 2005: Seeking Equitable Human Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Fazhan Yanjiu Jijinhui, 2005).

44. Li et al., op. cit., Ref. 40, pp. 2–4.

45. Ibid., p. 4.

46. Keping Yu, Globalization and Changes in China's Governance (Boston, MA: Brill, 2008), p. 61.

47. Ibid., p. 61.

48. Keping Yu, ‘Toward an incremental democracy and governance: Chinese theories and assessment criteria’, New Political Science, 24 (2002), pp. 181–199.

49. Yu, op. cit., Ref. 46, p. 14. Such contemporary reforms include promoting village elections, local government transparency, 24 h mayor's complaint hotlines, reforms in cadre selection and restricting cadre powers, administrative efficiency and honesty, packaging government services, allowing citizens to sue government officials, financial audits at the time officials leave a post and media supervision of government.

50. Yu, op. cit., Ref. 46, pp. 61–62.

51. Yu, op. cit., Ref. 48, p. 194.

52. Carl Riskin with UNDP, China Human Development Report: Human Development and Poverty Alleviation (New York: UNDP, 1997); Carl Riskin with UNDP, China Human Development Report 1999: Transition and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Stockholm Environment Institute with UNDP, China Human Development Report 2002: Making Green Development a Choice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Li and Bai, op. cit., Ref. 43; China Institute for Reform and Development, op. cit., Ref. 32.

53. Further information on Beijing Daxue Jingji yu Renlei Fazhan Yanjiu Zhongxin [Peking University's Center for Human and Economic Development Studies (CHEDS)] is available at: http://www.cheds.pku.edu.cn/

54. Interviews with the Director and Associate Director of CHEDS in Beijing, June 2007.

55. Murphy, op. cit., Ref. 15, p. 177.

56. Jolly, op. cit., Ref. 16, p. 185.

57. Rachel Murphy, ‘Turning peasants into modern Chinese citizens: ‘Population quality’ discourse, demographic transition and primary education’, China Quarterly, 177 (2004): pp. 1–20.

58. Ibid., p. 5.

59. Hitoshi Abe, Muneyuki Shindo and Sadafumi Kawato, The Government and Politics of Japan (translated by James W. White) (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1994).

60. Zhai Tianshan, ‘A study of how to improve the system of civil servant performance evaluation’, in Wang Mengkui (Ed.), Good Governance in China—a Way Towards Social Harmony (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 41.

61. Lampton, op. cit., Ref. 11.

62. Zhang and Ong, op. cit., Ref. 12; Murphy, op. cit., Ref. 57.

63. S. Subramaniam, ‘The new narrative of “good governance”: Lessons for understanding political and cultural change in Malaysia and Singapore’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 23 (2001), pp. 65–80.

64. Michael Wines, ‘Mythical Beast (a Dirty Pun) Tweaks China's Web Censors’, New York Times (March 12, 2009), pp. A1, A12.

65. Delury, op. cit., Ref. 33, p. 43.

66. Li et al., op. cit., Ref. 40, p. 6 ().

67. Susan Trevaskes, ‘The shifting sands of punishment in China in the era of “harmonious society”’, Law and Policy, 32 (2010), pp. 332–361.

68. Cheng Li, China's Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008); Cheng Li, ‘China's Team of Rivals’, Foreign Policy (March/April 2009).

69. Baogang He and Mark E. Warren, ‘Authoritarian deliberation: The deliberative turn in Chinese political development’, Perspectives on Politics, 9 (2011), pp. 269–289.

70. Ibid., p. 270.

71. Ibid., p. 271.

72. Xiaotian Tang, ‘Reforms in the petition letter and visit system of China and construction of a harmonious society’, Frontiers of Law in China, 5 (2010), pp. 77–90.

73. Jingbo Zhao, ‘Harmonious society and change of the concept of local legislation’, Asian Social Science 7 (2011), pp. 197–202.

74. Sienho Yee, ‘Towards a harmonious world: The roles of the international law of co-progressiveness and leader states’, Chinese Journal of International Law, 7 (2008), pp. 99–105.

75. Yu, op. cit., Ref. 46, p. 31.

76. Yu, op. cit., Ref. 48.

77. Ibid., pp. 192–193.