Of quality, harmony, and community: Civilization and the middle class in Urban China

Positions

Volumn 17, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 591-616

  Tomba, Luigi ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 75849157841     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-2009-016     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Børge Bakken, The Exemplary Society: Human Improvement, Social Control, and the Dangers of Modernity in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 54
2. For example, Chen Jie, Popular Political Support in Urban China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004)
3. Tang Wenfang, Public Opinion and Political Change in China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005)
4. David S. G. Goodman, "The New Middle Classes," in The Paradox of Chinas Post-Mao Reforms, ed. Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar, Harvard Contemporary China Series (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 241-61
5. Luigi Tomba, "Creating an Urban Middle Class: Social Engineering in Beijing," China Journal 51 (2004): 1-26
6. Luigi Tomba and Beibei Tang, "The Forest City: Homeownership and New Wealth in Shenyang," in David S. G. Goodman, ed., The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives (London: Routledge, 2008), 171-86
7. For a debate on the issue see the special issue of the Journal of Democracy, titled "Will China Democratize?" 9, no. 1 (January 1998)
8. See also Bruce Gilley, Chinas Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004)
9. Zhao Suisheng, ed., China and Democracy: Reconsidering the Prospects for a Democratic China (New York: Routledge, 2000)
10. Mitchell Dean and Barry Hindess, Governing Australia: Studies in Contemporary Rationalities of Government, Reshaping Australian Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 6
11. The governmentality literature is overwhelmingly concentrated on liberal systems, and only recently have issues of socialist governmentality attracted scholarly attention. See, for example, David Bray, Social Space and Governance in Urban China: The Danwei System from Origins to Reform (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005)
12. Susan Greenhalgh and Edwin A. Winckler, Governing Chinas Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005)
13. Lisa Hoffman, "Autonomous Choices and Patriotic Professionalism: On Governmentality in Late-Socialist China," Economy and Society 35, no. 4 (November 2006): 550-70
14. and Gary Sigley, "Liberal Despotism: Population Planning, Subjectivity, and Government in Contemporary China," Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 29, no. 5 (2004): 557-75
15. Mitchell Dean, "Liberal Government and Authoritarianism," Economy and Society 31, no. 1 (2002): 42
16. Lu Xueyi, ed., Dang dai zhongguo she hui jie ceng yan jiu bao gao (Research on Contemporary Chinas Social Stratification) (Beijing: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she: Jing xiao xin hua shu dian zong dian Beijing fa xing suo, 2002)
17. Lu Xueyi, ed., Dang dai zhongguo she hui liu dong (Social Mobility in Contemporary China) (Beijing: Shi: She hui ke xue wen xian chu ban she, 2004)
18. See Christopher Buckley, "How a Revolution Becomes a Dinner Party: Stratification, Mobility and the New Riches in Urban China," in Culture and Privilege in Capitalist Asia, ed. Michael Pinches (London: Routledge, 1999), 208-29
19. Bruce J. Dickson, Red Capitalists in China: The Party, Private Entrepreneurs, and Prospects for Political Change, Cambridge Modern China Series (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
20. Goodman, "The New Middle Classes"
21. David S. G. Goodman, "The People's Republic of China: The Party State, Capitalist Revolution and New Entrepreneurs," in The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds and Middle-Class Revolution, ed. Richard Robison and David S. G. Goodman (London: Routledge, 1996), 225-42
22. David S. G. Goodman, ed., The New Rich in China
23. Li Jian and Niu Xiaohan, "The New Middle Class(es) in Peking: A Case Study," China Perspectives 45 (2003)
24. Tomba, "Creating an Urban Middle Class."
25. Robert Alan Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971)
26. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics, exp. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981)
27. and most recently, for China, Gilley, Chinas Democratic Future. For a critique of this argument see Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992)
28. Lu, Dang dai zhongguo she hui jie ceng yan jiu bao gao, 253
29. Tamara Jacka, Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration, and Social Change (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2006), 87-117
30. Li Bin, "Zhongguo zhufang gaige zhidu de fenge xing" ("The Unequal Nature of China's Housing Reform"), Shehuixue yanjiu (Research in the Social Sciences) 2 (2002), 80-87
31. Li and Niu, "The New Middle Class(es) in Peking"; Lu, Dang dai zhongguo she hui jie ceng yan jiu bao gao; Tomba, "Creating an Urban Middle Class"; Wanning Sun, this collection
32. Robert Benewick, Irene Tong, and Jude Howell, "Self-Governance and Community: A Preliminary Comparison between Villagers' Committees and Urban Community Councils," China Information 18, no. 1 (2004): 11-28
33. Thomas Heberer, "Die Reorganisation staedtischer wohnviertel im Lichte kommunitarischer und partizipativer Vorstellungen," CHINA Aktuell (2003): 1223-40
34. Benjamin L. Read, "Democratizing the Neighborhood.? New Private Housing and Home-Owner Self-Organization in Urban China," China Quarterly 49 (2003): 31-59
35. Benjamin L. Read, "Revitalizing the State's Urban 'Nerve Tips,' " China Quarterly 163 (2000): 806-20
36. Bray, Social Space and Governance in Urban China; Hsüeh Feng-hsüan (Victor F. S. Sit), Beijing: The Nature and Planning of a Chinese Capital City, World Cities Series (Chichester, NY: Wiley, 1995)
37. Hu Xiuhong and David H. Kaplan, "The Emergence of Affluence in Beijing: Residential Social Stratification in China's Capital City," Urban Geography 22, no. 1 (2001): 54-77
38. Wu Fulong, "Sociospatial Differentiation in Urban China: Evidence from Shanghai's Real Estate Markets," Environment and Planning A 34, no. 9 (2002): 1591-1615
39. Ann Anagnost, "The Corporeal Politics of Quality (Suzhi)," Public Culture 16, no. 2 (2004): 189-208
40. Jacka, Rural Women in Urban China; Yan Hairong, "Neoliberal Governmental- ity and Neohumanism: Organizing Suzhi/Value Flow through Labor Recruitment Networks," Cultural Anthropology 18, no. 4 (2003): 493-523
41. Andrew Kipnis, "Suzhi: A Keyword Approach," China Quarterly 186 (2006): 295-313
42. Zhang Li, "Contesting Spatial Modernity in Late Socialist China," Current Anthropology 37, no. 3 (2006): 461-84
43. Wu Fulong and He Shenjing, "Changes in Traditional Urban Areas and Impacts of Urban Redevelopment: A Case Study of Three Neighborhoods in Nanjing, China," Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 96, no. 1 (2005): 76
44. Miao Pu, "Deserted Streets in a Jammed Town: The Gated Community in Chinese Cities and Its Solution," Journal of Urban Design 8, no. 1 (2003): 45-66
45. Anagnost, "The Corporeal Politics of Quality."
46. Aiwha Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 103
47. In particular gated spaces characterize both newly built, wealthy, and privately run communities and traditional working-class areas, where the state's intervention is still very significant
48. Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception, 79
49. Benewick, Tong, and Howell, "Self-Governance and Community"; Heberer, "Die Reorganisation staedtischer wohnviertel im Lichte kommunitarischer und partizipativer Vorstellungen."
50. Read, "Democratizing the Neighborhood?"; Luigi Tomba, "Residential Space and Collective Interest Formation in Beijing's Housing Disputes," China Quarterly 184 (2005): 934-51
51. References to democracy must be understood in the traditional sense of strengthening "socialist democracy." Hu Jintao, Zai sheng buji zhuyao lingdao ganbu tigao goujian shehui zhuyi hexie shehui nengli zhuanti yantaoban shang de jianghua (Speech at the Special Meeting of Provincial Cadres to Discuss the Construction of a Socialist Harmonious Society) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2005)
52. The speech initiated an ongoing public discussion about what, beyond the slogan, a harmonious society is supposed to mean. As it happens, the expression "harmonious society" (hexie shehui) now appears in the title of a discouraging number of scholarly essays in the social sciences and in almost every official speech by party officials. With the help of new technology, the surge in the use of the expression can be calculated. A title query in the Chinese Academic Journals full text database reveals that the term hexie shehui appears only twice in the period 1994-2002, but 88 times in 2004, and 155 times in the first six months of 2005
53. Michael Dutton, Policing and Punishment in China: From Patriarchy to "the People" (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Read, "Revitalizing the State's Urban 'Nerve Tips' "; Martin King Whyte and William L. Parish, Urban Life in Contemporary China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)
54. The term shequ (which refers to a limited territory and not only to human communities) has been used to translate the English word community since the 1930s, when sociologist Fei Xiaotong first used it. Its usage to indicate a unit of administration dates from the 1980s
55. In newly built compounds, the management company is generally a private company established by the developer to provide services to the residents. In the case of older compounds where ownership has been privatized, private management companies often evolve from the traditional fangguansuo, which was formerly in charge of housing management at the neighborhood level. Although homeownership is not for everyone, China's model of housing reform has privileged subsidized ownership over public rented housing. While land use rights are leased, typically for seventy years in urban areas, owners do have ownership rights over their apartment, but this right is sometimes limited by conditions connected to subsidization. As a consequence of these policies on mass ownership, China's urban homeowners today constitute more than 80 percent of the total resident population in most large cities (see Li and Niu, "The New Middle Class(es) in Peking,")
56. Tomba, "Residential Space and Collective Interest Formation in Beijing's Housing Disputes."
57. Tao Xidong, "Jiakuai chengshi hexie shequ jianshe jizhi de chongjian yu zaizao" ("Accelerate the reconstruction of the mechanisms for the edification of harmonious communities in the cities"), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), June 21, 2005
58. Ibid
59. Qiao Farong, "Chengyan: Goujian hexie shehui de daode jichu" ("Truth: The Moral Foundation of a Harmonious Society"), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), July 19, 2005
60. Zhao Beihai, "Goujian hexie shehui er san yan" ("A Few Words on Harmonious Society"), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), July 14, 2005
61. Feng Shuquan, "Goujian hexie shehui bixu jiejue ruoshi qunti wenti" ("The Construction of a Harmonious Society Must Solve the Problem of the Disadvantaged Groups"), Renmin ribao (People's Daily), July 21, 2005. This attitude is reminiscent of Marx's remarks, in The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, to the effect that peasants "cannot represent themselves, and must be represented" (New York, 1852), chap. 7
62. Feng Shuquan, "Goujian hexie shehui bixu jiejue ruoshi qunti wenti."
63. The excerpts in this section can be found at http://house.focus.cn/ newshtml/101191, accessed July 6, 2005
64. Shu and Bei have become very popular through the Beijing media and the Internet for organizing social activities in their own gated communities and for their strong stance on issues of civic coexistence. They both run popular Web sites and have become consultants for other communities on best practices in self-management
65. The reference here is to Mao's August 1937 speech "On Contradictions," where he highlighted the rationale for continuing class struggle in a socialist society. The claim being made is that the contradictions between interests today are no longer "antagonistic."
66. Residential proprietary communities have in recent years been characterized by frequent disputes involving management companies, developers, and residents. In a number of cases these have turned into open protest and occasional skirmishes and have received attention in the press
67. From documents collected in 2004, originals in possession of the author
68. Zhu Yaoqun, Zhongchan jieceng yu hexie shehui (Middle Strata and Harmonious Society) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin gong'an daxue chubanshe, 2005), 148
69. Shanghai shi qingshi wenmin jianshe weiyuanhui bangongshi (Office of the Shanghai Municipal Committee for the Edification of Spiritual Civilization), Zuo Re'ai de Shanghai ren: Shanghaishimin shouce (How to Be a Lovely Shanghainese: Instructions for Shanghai Citizens) (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 2005)
70. The attempt to "produce human beings," for the sake of the country's development, out of uncivilized peasants by encouraging them to migrate to the cities and civilize has been, according to Yan Hairong, an effect of the discourses framing suzhi as a "value articulation of human subjectivity." See Yan, "Neoliberal Governmentality and Neohumanism"; Nicole Newendorp, "Teaching Responsibility: Social Workers' Efforts to Turn Chinese Citizens into Ideal Hong Kong Citizens," in Chinese Citizenship: Views from the Margins, ed. Vanessa Fong and Rachel Murphy (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 123-50
71. Chengdu residents often portray their lifestyle as leisurely, and the city is often called yucheng, city of desire
72. Housing Provident Funds are available only to employees in large, mainly state-owned enterprises. After the end of housing allocation in 1998 the funds helped to facilitate access to housing property for employees and professionals in this section of the labor market
73. Li Yang, "Zhongchan yu 'chengdong' de miyue" ("The Honeymoon between the 'Middle Class' and the 'Eastern Districts' "), Ju zhoukan (Housing Weekly), August 19, 2005, 11