Policy consistency in the midst of the Asian crisis: Managing the furloughed and the farmers in three cities

Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the Post-Deng Era

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 149-192

  Solinger, Dorothy J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 58549105124     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511617157.006     Document Type: Chapter

References (170)

1. Peter T. Y. Cheung, “Introduction: Provincial Leadership and Economic Reform in Post-Mao China,” in Peter T.Y. Cheung, Jae Ho Chung, and Zhimin Lin, eds., Provincial Strategies of Economic Reform inPost-Mao China: Leadership,Politics, and Implementation, (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1998), pp. 3-46
2. Jae Ho Chung, “Recipes for Development in Post-Mao Chinese Cities: Themes and Variations,” in Jae Ho Chung, ed., Cities in China: Recipes for Economic Development in the Reform Era (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 1-17
3. Dorothy J. Solinger, “Despite Decentralization: Disadvantages, Dependence and Ongoing Central Power in the Inland-The Case of Wuhan,” The China Quarterly, No. 145 (1996), pp. 1-34.
4. Dorothy J. Solinger, “Demolishing Partitions: Back to Beginnings in the Cities?” The China Quarterly, No. 159 (September 1999), pp. 629-39.
5. Xu Jinshun, Cao Xiaofeng, and Zhang Zhuomin, 1997-1998 nian Liaoning sheng jingji shehui xingshi fenxi yu yuce [1997-1998 Liaoning Province Economic Social Situation Analysis and Prediction] (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1998), p. 276.
6. Yan Youguo, “Wanshan laodongli shichang shixian” [“Realize the perfection of the labor market”], Zhongguo laodong [Chinese Labor] (hereafter ZGLD), 1 (1998), p. 17.
7. Barry Naughton, “China's Emergence and Prospects as a Trading Nation,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2 (1996), pp. 273-280. He notes that, between l984 and l995, China's real gross domestic product grew by 10.2 percent annually, according to official statistics, as the nominal value of manufactured exports increased by 22 percent per year. By 1994, the ratio of foreign trade to gross domestic product had jumped up to 44 percent, from just 10 percent 16 years before.
8. Quoting the sociologist Feng Lanrui in South China Morning Post (hereafter SCMP), August 8, 1998, p. 15.
9. “Laid-off” or xiagang workers are those who have left their production and work post and are not doing any other work in their own unit owing to the enterprise's production and work situation, but who retain their labor relationship with the unit. See No author, “Woguo di shiye renyuan he xiagang zhigong tongji diaocha” [“Astatistical investigation of our country's unemployed personnel and layoffs”], ZGLD, 5 (1998), pp. 15-16
10. There is also a definition in Wuhan wanbao [Wuhan Evening News] (hereafter WHWB), May 30, 1998, p. 1.
11. Liu Zhonghua, “Guanyu zaijiuye gongcheng yu laodongli shichang jianshe di sikao” [“Thoughts on the Reemployment Project and Labor Market Construction”], Laodong neican [Labor Internal Reference], 2 (1998), p. 42.
12. Peasant migrants’ wages can be anywhere from 20 to 30 percent to 40 to 50 percent less than those of urban workers. See Chen Huilin, “Guanyu nongmingong qingkuang di diaocha yu sikao” [“Thoughts and Research on Peasant Labor's Situation”], Zhongguo gongren [ChineseWorker], 5 (1998), p. 17
13. in addition, they are often denied the welfare benefits that at least in principle (though less and less in practice) are to be accorded city laborers and the social security payments firms are obliged to make for urbanites.
14. Guangming ribao [Bright Daily] (hereafter GMRB), June 23, 1998, p. 4.
15. Yan Youguo, “Wanshan Laodongli,” p. 17.
16. Ru Xin, Lu Xueyi, and Dan Tianlun, eds., 1998 nian: zhongguo shehui xingshi fenxi yu yuce [1998: Analysis and Prediction of China's Social Situation] (Beijing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 1998), p. 86.
17. Wang Tianxing, “Kunjing yu chulou” [“Difficult Straits and the Way Out”], Shehuixue yanjiu [Sociology Research], 6 (1997)
18. in Xinhua wengao [New China Documents], 3 (1998), p. 25.
19. The population holding urban household residence permits is literally termed “feinong,” or “nonrural.” In practice it refers to people with urban registration. Source: Zhongguo tongjiju chengshi shehui jingji diaocha zongdui bian [Chinese Statistical Urban Social and Economic Research General Team, ed.], Zhongguo chengshi jingji nian jian 1997 [1997 Chinese Urban Statistical Yearbook] (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1998), pp. 53, 63, 64.
20. Guangzhou shi jihua weihyuanhui [Guangzhou City Planning Committee] (hereafter Guangzhou shi), ed., Jingji shehui bai pishu [Economic-Social White Paper] (Donghuang: Guangdong jingji chubanshe, 1998), pp. 79-81, 156, for Guangzhou; and, for Guangdong
21. Zheng Zizhen, “Dui Guangdong sheng renkou qianyi liuru wenti di zhanlue sikao” [“Strategic Considerations About the Issue of Guangdong's Population Migration and Inflow”], Zhongguo renkou kexue [Chinese Population Science] (hereafter ZRK), 3 (1997), p. 43
22. Li Zhao and Li Hong, eds., Guangdong jingji lanpishu: jingji xingshi yu yuce [An Analysis and Forecast of the Guangdong Economy] (Chaoqing: Guangdong renmin chubanshe, 1998), pp. 237-242.
23. Huang Ping interview, September 3, 1998.
24. Interview with Jin Weigang of the Division of Strategy in Ministry of Labor and Social Security's Institute for Labor Studies, August 27, 1998.
25. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 28.
26. Li Zhao and Li Hong, eds., Guangdong jingji lanpishu, p. 404.
27. Interview, August 14, 1998, with a bureaucrat in the provincial Planning Commission. Interview with city labor bureau official, August 18, 1998. Interview at provincial Planning Commission, August 14, 1998. In 1997 there was a decline of 20 percent, and in the first half of 1998 the fall was as much as another 31 percent, compared with the same period the year before, according to this interview.
28. Wang Baoyu, “Zaijiuye gongcheng renzhong dao yun” [“Reemployment Project: The Burden is Heavy and the Road is Long”]. Unpublished manuscript prepared for the Wuhan City People's Congress (Wuhan, 1997), p. 6.
29. These are the figures provided by officials from the city's Planning Commission's tertiary sector planning coordination office, September 9, 1998. Possibly I misrecorded their information, as the total is just 89 percent. Perhaps they really said that 16 percent wa s private.Wuhan labor interview.
30. In “Why We Cannot Count the Unemployed,” The China Quarterly, No. 167 (2001), pp. 671-88, I detail the causes for inaccuracy, including that official numbers exclude vast numbers of people who have lost their jobs, but who are not labeled “xiagang” because they do not meet the official definition for this term.
31. In Gangao jingji [Hong Kong and Macao Economy], March 1, 1999, in Summary of World Broadcasts (hereafter SWB) FE/3514, April 21, 1999, G7.
32. Li Zhao and Li Hong, eds., Guangdong jingji lanpishu, p. 237; and Yangcheng wanbao [Sheep City Evening News] (hereafter YCWB), November 26, 1997.
33. Li Zhao and Li Hong, eds., Guangdong jingji lanpishu, p. 236.
34. YCWB, January 3, 1998.
35. Although as of summer 1998 a State Council decision still reaffirmed the Party Congress pronouncement on state enterprise reform (GMRB, June 23, 1998, p. 1), it seemed that the “spirit” of the original message had been altered: At a special meeting on unemployment and layoffs held inMay, a call was sounded stating that this “spirit” entailed “realiz[ing] the Fifteenth Party Congress and the Ninth People's Congress's objectives of arranging the work of state enterprise layoffs”
36. Jingji ribao [Economic Daily] (hereafter JJRB), May 18, 1998.
37. Guangzhou shi, p. 126, states that Guangzhou's rate went down to 15.7, whereas the national average was 20.9 percent.
38. Interview, provincial Machinery Bureau, August 19, 1998.
39. China Daily Business Weekly, August 23, 1998, p. 7.
40. Interview with Song Naiyi, August 18, 1998.
41. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 274.
42. Interview with Ma Daming, August 19, 1998. Labor Bureau interview.
43. Interview with officials from the City Economic Commission, September 8, 1998.
44. Changjiang ribao [Yangzi Daily] (hereafter CJRB) (Wuhan), April 9, 1998, p. 1. This is by no means to deny the severe financial and administrative inadequacies that kept millions of laid-off workers from being served, especially in Shenyang andWuhan.
45. Li Zhao and Li Hong, Guangdong jingji lanpishu, p. 241.
46. Shijie ribao [World Daily], April 25, 1998, p. A9, claimed that 53,400 or 2.67 percent of all staff and workers were furloughed in Guangzhou, in comparison with a national official average rate of 8.18 percent
47. However, according to Ming Pao [Bright Daily] (hereafter MP), January 13, 1998, the city's mayor claimed that only about 40,000 were xiagang’d but that more than an additional 60,000 were officially unemployed as of the end of 1997. However, SWB FE/3369 (October 28, 1998), G/5 (from XH, October 26, 1998) stated, quite discrepantly, that 55,600 workers who had been laid off by state firms had found new jobs in 1997(!). There is no good explanation for the divergent figures.
48. Article from July or August 1998 in Guangzhou ribao [Guangzhou Daily] (hereafter GZRB). Unfortunately there is no citation because I received this article from a Beida student who did not note the article's date. However, photos of the summer floods on the same page as the cut-out article place it in either July or August.
49. Caijing zhoukan [Asian-Pacific Economic Times] (the paper has these two names on its masthead), April 2, 1998, p. 1.
50. Caijing zhoukan [Asian-Pacific Economic Times]. and GZRB.
51. MP, May 17, 1998
52. and JJRB, March 24, 1998.
53. Caijing zhoukan, April 2, 1998, p. 1.
54. JJRB, March 24, 1998.
55. YCWB, February 26, 1998.
56. GZRB.
57. XH, October 26, 1998, in SWB, FE/3369, G/5.
58. Liaoning ribao [Liaoning Daily] (hereafter LNRB), October 17, 1996. LNRB, September 4, 1996, gives the number of staff and workers as of early September; if the laid-off people were being counted as members of the staff and workers, this would mean that 13.04 percent of the total had already been laid off. This term refers to those whose firms had been merged, had gone bankrupt, or were otherwise shut down, so that these former workers no longer had any linkage with their previous enterprises.
59. No author, “Woguo dengji shiyelu gediqu bupingheng” [The Imbalance Among Various Districts in Our Country's Registered Unemployment Rate], ZGLD, 1 (1998), p. 44.
60. Wang Chengying, ed., Zhongguo zaijiuye [Reemployment in China] (Chengdu: Sichuan daxue chubanshe, 1998), p. 201.
61. Interviews with the city Industrial and Commercial Administration, August 19, 1998, and with Zhou Qiren of Beijing University's Chinese Economy Research Center on September 1, 1998, in Beijing.
62. Interview, Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences (hereafter LASS),August 18, 1998, and Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, pp. 143, 274-6, and 280-1. LASS interview.
63. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 276, and interview with an official from the Shenyang Labor Market Management Committee'sOffice and the city's EmploymentWork Leadership Small Group Office, August 18, 1998.
64. No author, “Yi bashou gongcheng zai Liaoning” [“Number One Project in Liaoning”], Zhongguo jiuye [Chinese Employment], 3 (1998), pp. 13-14.
65. LNRB, June 1, 1995. The preferential policies were essentially the same as those offered in Guangzhou or in any other city to deal with the local laid-off workers, including free business licenses for the first year, no management fees, sites for carrying out their new businesses, tax exemption for the first year, and reduction in commercial and other types of management fees for the first year. Firms in which over 60 percent of the workers had previously been unemployed or laid off could escape income tax for three years. However, the government of Shenyang seemed more energetic in pursuing these policies than Guangzhou's did.
66. For instance, Wang Chengying, ed., Zhongguo zaijiuye, pp. 201-4
67. “Shishi ‘zaijiuye gongcheng’ jingyen jieshao” [“Enforce the Introduction of Experience on the Reemployment Project”] Gongyun cankao ziliao [Workers’ Movement Reference Materials] (hereafter GYCKZL), 1 (1996), pp. 12-15
68. LNRB, September 5, 1996; interviews with city's labor official, August 18, 1998, and with officials at the city's Industrial and Commercial Administration, August 19, 1998.
69. Shenyang renmin zhengfu [Shenyang People's Government], “Pizhuan shi laodongju guanyu shishi zaijiuye gongcheng anshan fenliu anzhi qiye fuyu zhigong yijian di tongzhi” [“Circular Transmitting the City Labor Bureau's Opinion on Implementing the Reemployment Project, Properly Diverting and Arranging Enterprise Surplus Staff and Workers”], Shenyang, No. 31, 1996. This document was obtained for me by a student at Beida and there is no further documentation.
70. Niu Renliang, “Xiagang zhigong chulu sikao” [“Thoughts on theWay Out for the Laid-Off Staff and Workers”], Lingdao canyue [Leadership Consultations], 1 (1998), p. 10.
71. Similarly, Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 283
72. “Yi baoshou,” p. 14.
73. Niu Renliang, “Xiagang,” p. 9.
74. Jianghan daxue ketizu [Jianghan University Project Group], “Wuhan shi shishi zaijiuye gongcheng duice yanjiu” [“Policy Research on Wuhan City's Implementation of the Reemployment Project] (Wuhan, 1998), p. 2.
75. This report was from, I believe, GMRB, December 21, 1997 (the article was clipped for me without the source having been noted).
76. As of 1989, in Shenyang heavy industry accounted for 65 percent of the gross value of industrial output and only 55 percent in Wuhan (Solinger, “Despite Decentralization,” p. 11).
77. Si Yuan and Zeng Xiangmin, “Wuhan 1998 hongguan zhengce shou xuan mubiao-zaijiuye” [“Reemployment-Wuhan's 1998 Macro Policy's First Objective”], Wuhan jingji yanjiu [Wuhan Economic Research], 3 (1998), p. 56.
78. Also see Solinger, “Despite Decentralization.”
79. Wang Baoyu interview, September 9, 1998. Interview with Planning Commission officials.
80. Instructions from the mayor, in CJRB, April 9, 1998, p. 1.
81. Labor interview. I read a lot about these centers, but I do not explore that topic in this chapter.
82. JJRB, May 2, 1998
83. labor interview, September 6, 1998.
84. GMRB (probably), December 21, 1997, and planning interview.
85. On Wuhan, no author, “Wuhan shi zhuazhu,” p. 16, JJRB, May 2, 1998
86. Jianghan daxue ketizu, “Wuhan,” p. 61 on Shanghai
87. Yang Yiyong et al., Shiye chongji bo [The ShockWave of Unemployment] (Beijing: Jinri zhongguo chubanshe, n.d. [probably 1997]), p. 230.
88. On both, see Si Yuan and Zeng Xiangmin, “Wuhan 1998,” p. 56.
89. CJRB, November 5, 1997, and another article from the same paper sometime just after the Ninth National People's Congress (article clipped for me but without the date).
90. ForWuhan, interview with Industrial and Commercial Administration officials, September 10, 1998; for Shenyang, interview with the same office there on August 19, 1998.
91. CJRB, April 9, 1998, p. 1, and May 30, 1998
92. and No author, “Wuhan shi zhuazhu,” p. 17.
93. No author, “GuanyuWuhanshi Zaijiuye went di diaocha bao” [An investigation report on Wuhan City's reemployment question], probably written around mid-1997-8 and Planning Commission interview.
94. For instance, see Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS), February 23, 1995, p. 68, March 16, 1995, p. 33, April 10, 1995, p. 46, and June 28, 1995, p. 81 for some of the earlier rulings
95. Xiao Lichun, “Shanghai shiye, xiagang renyuan xianzhuang ji fazhan qushi” [“Shanghai Unemployment, Laid-Off Personnel's Situation and Development Trend], ZRK, 3 (1998), pp. 26-37.
96. MP (Hong Kong), January 13, 1998.
97. Interview with Zhou Qiren, September 1, 1998.
98. Interview with Edward McKeon, August 11, 1998.
99. Interview with Stephen McGurk, August 28, 1998.
100. Informal interview at the center, Haizhu district, Guangzhou, August 11, 1998.
101. Nanfang ribao [Southern Daily], March 31, 1997, p. 1.
102. This was not the first such effort. In 1994, the authorities in Guangdong proclaimed an end to the hiring of labor from outside the province, although at that time the ban was merely to last through the New Year period SCMP, December 14, 1994, p. 9
103. in FBIS, December 14, 1994, pp. 10-11. According to XH, January 5, 1999, in SWB FE/3426, G/5, Guangdong had laid out its first set of regulations governing the control of transients in 1995. The official data in Table 5.10 do at least indicate a much slower increase in Guangzhou of rural labor arriving from other localities at the end of 1997 and 1998 than at the end of 1996, as compared with the year before in each case (18.5 percent in 1996, 3 percent in 1997, and 7.6 percent in 1998).
104. Interview, August 7, 1998.
105. YCWB, February 26, 1998.
106. The rules, drawn up to retard the inflow of migrants looking for jobs, were devised to make it easier for what were said to be 100,000 local unemployed workers to find jobs. Though allowing certain transients to apply for permanent residence status, these were just those who had resided in the same locations for seven consecutive years and had permanent housing. This was reported in China News Digest, January 6, 1999, in Global News, No. GL99-004, January 8, 1999, and in SWB FE/3426, G/5, from XH, January 5, 1999.
107. Li Zhao and Li Hong, Guangdong jingji lanpishu, p. 243. Note that their figures disagree with the national labor yearbook data in Table 5.10, but there is no explanation given. The program, or “agreement plan” (xieyi jihua), that the nine provinces devised involved setting up labor coordination centers in each province that were responsible for channeling and modulating the outflow of workers [interview, Zhongshan University, May 12, 1992
108. see also FBIS, December 24, 1991, p. 38, from XH, December 17, 1991
109. and FBIS, April 7, 1992, p. 30, from Liaowang (Overseas Edition), l2 (1992), pp. 5-6
110. By the spring of 1995, a Center for Information Exchange on the Labor Needs of South China, created to provide estimates of demand and to integrate information on regional supply and demand conditions, was at work, with the support of ministries and commissions under the State Council, as well as with the cooperation of the provinces involved in the network FBIS, March 16, 1995, p. 34
111. from JJRB, December 20, 1994, p. 1
112. Document observed on the street, August 7, 1998.
113. Guangdong sheng zhigong, duiwu di zhuangkuang ji zhuyao tezheng” [“The Situation and Important Special Characteristics of Guangdong's Staff and Worker Ranks”]. No documentation. This article was given to me by a Beida student who acquired it from “a friend.
114. MP, May 17, 1998.
115. Random street interviews, summer 1998.
116. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 305.
117. No author, “Shishi,” p. 13.
118. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 277.
119. Interview with Dong Chengli, August 17, 1998.
120. Interview, August 18, 1998.
121. Interview with Song Naiyi, August 18, 1998.
122. Talks with marketers, August 20, 1998.
123. No author, “Shishi,” p. 14.
124. Li Zhonglu, “Zai jiuye gongcheng di diaocha yu jishi” [“An Investigation and On The Spot Report of the Reemployment Project”],GYCKCL, 11 (1997), p. 19
125. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 277
126. Wang Chengying, ed., Zhongguo zaijiuye, p. 203
127. and August 18, 1998, interview with Labor Bureau official. In an interview at the Liaoning Academy of Social Science, August 18, 1998, one scholar affirmed that peasants were perceived as competitors for jobs with locals and so were being made to pay money and get certificates to enter town, whereas no such controls had existed previously.
128. Dorothy J. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), Chapter Three. InWuhan, representatives of this system said the same thing in an interview on September 10, 1998.
129. Interviews, August 25 and 28, 1998.
130. September 5, 1998 interview.
131. Street interview, September 6, 1998.
132. Interview with Yang Yunyan of Central China Finance and Trade University, Wuhan, September 6, 1998.
133. Si Yuan and Zeng Xiangmin, “Wuhan 1998,” p. 56.
134. Although the Labor Bureau officials claimed a figure of 800,000, many other sources said 700,000, and one (an undated newspaper clipping from 1997 or 1998) said 600,000. The Planning Commission officials and CJRB, December 1, 1997, p. 11, both said 700,000, and Si Yuan and Zeng Xiangmin, “Wuhan 1998,” p. 56, noted that in 1995 there was a floating population of 1.5 million in the city but that only about 700,000 of them were working.
135. Jianghan daxue ketizu, “Wuhan,” p. 58.
136. No author, “Guanyu wuhanshi zaijiuye wenti di diaocha bao” [“An Investigation Report on Wuhan City's Reemployment Question”], probably written around mid-1997, p. 3.
137. Wang Baoyu interview. Mr. Wang was formerly the head of the city's Social Science Academy.
138. Among those still working in textiles, some are peasants,” according to the Planning Commission informants; and Yang Yunyan claimed that “Textiles uses peasants on a large scale.” However, Wang Baoyu said that “the factories are shrinking, so peasants are leaving.
139. Labor interview, September 7, 1998.
140. Jianghan daxue ketizu, “Wuhan,” p. 60.
141. Jianghan daxue ketizu, p. 3. Wang Baoyu said much the same thing in his interview.
142. Wuhan city labor officials told me about these rulings. For other cities, see “Shanghai xianzhi mingong zeye” [“Shanghai Limits Peasant Workers’ Choice of Jobs”], Singdao ribao [Singdao Daily], March 4, 1995;
143. Beijingshi laodongju tongzhi [Beijing City Bureau of Labor Circular] (Beijing, 1998), pp. 23-37. Labor interview, Sept. 7.
144. No author, “Guangyu Wuhan shi,” p. 4. In Contesting Citizenship I note that this has tended to be more the case in cities farther from Beijing and where the market is more active. Labor interview.
145. WHWB, December 1, 1997, p. 1
146. Wang Baoyu, “Zai jiuye,” p. 11.
147. CJRB, November 5, 1997, p. 1.
148. CJRB, April 23, 1998, p. 4.
149. CJRB, May 30, 1998, p. 1.
150. Interview with Xia Xiping, September 8, 1998.
151. Interview, Wuhan Economic Commission, September 8, 1998.
152. The following discussion draws on Li Zhonglu, “Zai jiuye,” 18
153. LNRB, September 5, 1996
154. No author, “Yi bashou,” p. 15
155. and interview with official from the city labor bureaucracy, August 18, 1998. The one big labor market that developed, theWu-ai (five love) market, was nevertheless a boon to many a furloughed worker.
156. Wang Chengying, ed., Zhongguo zaijiuye, p. 203.
157. Xu et al., 1997-1998 Liaoning, p. 282.
158. No author, “Yi bashou,” p. 15, which saw publication at just the same time, claims that the province had organized nearly 20,000 unemployed and xiagang’d to go to other provinces and other countries to work. Even so, this is still not very many, given that just one city in the province contained 20 times that many in the category of xiagang, not to mention those fully “unemployed.”
159. No author, “Wuhan shi zhuazhu sanxiang gongzuo da da zaijiuye gong jianzhan” [“Wuhan City Grasps Three Items ofWork, Boldly Storms the Strongholds of the Battle of Reemployment”], Zhongguo jiuye [Chinese Employment], 2 (1998), pp. 16-17.
160. Planning Commission interview, September 9, 1998.
161. Wuhan labor interview, September 7, 1998.
162. Noauthor, “Wuhan shi zhuazhu,” p. 17 labor interview
163. Planning Commission interview; CJRB, December 18, 1997.
164. WHWB, February 24, 1998.
165. CJRB, December 1, 1997, p. 11.
166. CJRB, April 2, 1998, p. 14
167. CJRB shichang zhoukan [Market Weekly], April 30, 1998, p. 14.
168. See, for instance, Shaoguang Wang, “The Rise of the Regions: Fiscal Reform and the Decline of Central State Capacity in China,” in Andrew G. Walder, ed., The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political Decline in China and Hungary (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 87-113. WhenVice PremierWu Bangguo inspected Liaoning in April, he stated that “We should, through extending direct loans and reassessing debts, actively help state enterprises address their financial problems thorugh restructuring” [SWB, FE/3512 (April 19, 1999, G/9], from XH, April 12, 1999; and when President Jiang Zemin visited industrial plants in the province four months later, he promised that “The state will give these regions more support for asset realignment and restructuring, and in terms of the money they need for the resettlement of laid-off state enterprise workers” [SWB FE/3616 (August 18, 1999)], G/2). October 28, 2001, Wuhan street interview.
169. “Guowuyuan bangongting fachu tongzhi, ‘Guoban: zuo hao nongmin jincheng wugong jiuye guanli he fuwu gongzuo’” [“State Council Office Issues Circular, Do a Good Job of Management and Service for Peasants Entering the Cities to Work”], www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/3586/20030116/908641.html, January 16, 2003.
170. An English-language version appeared in the China Daily, January 23, 2003. The original notice was dated January 5, 2003, and was printed in the Renmin ribao [People's Daily] (Beijing), January 16, 2003.