S&C - 4 - Social Landscape

Traditional confucian state social groups

These come from legalism: but have no moral judgement on these. each are equally as important

• Literati 士 shi

• Peasants 农 nong

• Craftsmen 工 gong

• merchants 商 shang

Early Confucians actually just had 上 and 下

• 君子

• 小人

• In the zhou they often just put the system of these 4 economic roles in the order we see now.

  • Shi and Gong as superior

  • Gong and Shang as inferior

    • they didnt add value to society in case of disaster.

      • Fields not taken care of because trading? → not helping in disaster.

In Han they take these 4 and “rank” them according to value

→ Slaves, Monks, Soldiers, Eunuchs were not part of this system

Dong Zhongshu

• Three Bonds

  • Superior and inferior

  • Father and son

  • Husband and wife

• 5 Rules

  • Relation between:

    • Uncles on father’s side

    • Older brother - younger brother

    • Between relatives with same family name

    • Between teachers

    • Between friends

four layers in an individual’s relations to society

1. He knows social distinction

2. He has to respect the traditional norms of social conduct that are connected to a social position

3. his relations are aimed at others who are also formed by the same social order

4. the own self-cultivation will have a re-forming effect on other individuals and this effect is in itself a measure for someones progress in self cultivation.

Society is both source of inspiration and the purpose of an individual existence

the value of an individual is measured in fucntion of his value for society

this also implies a higher social status brings a higher responsibility.

Social mobility

• almost non existent in traditional china

  • Gong and Shang were not allowed to do state exams

  • 2% - 6% of pop was elite

    • 90% lived in capital

      • 10% were local elite

• From Song

  • able to participate in exams

    • many new elite families

    • Shi was no longer inherited

• End of Qing: 3 new groups developed outside of the traditional structure

  • The industrial proletariat

  • The industrial bourgeoisie

    • No longer interested in traditional Shi

  • Intellectuals

    • private schools

      • Christian missions

    • Could not be employed in bureaucracy so worked in capitalist industries and commerce

    • Military

• Qing was in dire need of money so sold positions of the traditional Shi → weakening legitimacy

Republican educational reforms

• state exams abolished in 1905

• no longer focus on confucian values

• focus on:

  • Mathematics

  • Foreign languages

  • accountancy

• Women into schools

• militarization increase

The Ganbu 干部

• The new political elite in PRC

  • 58% recruited from the workers and peasants.

• only 2.2% had a university degree

CCP land reforms 1950:

• Destroyed base of revenue for the Shi

The new social system CCP

• ganbu 干部

  • The elite

• zhigong 职工

  • Workers and Peasants

• danwei 单位

  • Economic and Social units

    • Responsible for Hukou

  • Quotas

• hukou 户口

  • Housing, healthcare, schooling etc etc

  • People needed permission to leave

    • To stop people flocking to cities

  • introduced in 1958

  • Urban Hukou in urban areas

  • Rural Hukou in rural areas

    • Way less social protection

• fenpei 分配

  • state assigned job

    • planned according to 5 years plan

  • Importance of Guanxi, connections in politics

Jiefangjun

• People’s Liberation Army

• Same as imperial, its a different social class

• army of CCP not of China

Grain

• Public grain - Gongliang

  • Transferred to state to be redistributed

• Private grain - Kouliang

  • Personal rations

Reforms on social structure

• liberalization made it possible to survive in urban cities without urban hukou

  • → renewed urban influx

• Hukou system was reformed to prevent urban collapse

  • 60% of pop is urban with 44% having an urban hukou

• 下海

  • Eroded the danwei system and people went into private markets and entrepeneurship

  • This led the be the real engine of the economy

  • Leading to the chinese middle class

• To make sure the system did not collapse the government started economic development programs for the countryside.

  • but china’s countryside is also becoming urbanized lmao

    • now 67% of pop is urban

    • 1999 this was 30%

education system now

• established in 1978

  • 9 years education

    • 6 years primary

    • 3 years secondary

  • But can be added:

    • 3 years kindergarten

    • 3 years higher secondary

  • Obligatory age is 6

• Higher education rise:

  • 1980 - 6%

  • 1996 - 20%

  • 2012 - 30%

  • 2021 - 57.8%

• Getting more and more expensive

R&D expenditures

• from 2% to 1/3

• 10% increase every year

  • necessary to avoid middle income trap

Social inequality

China’s GINI coeficient is on the rise:

• 0 → super equal

• 1 → very unequal

• China → 0.467

  • above 0.4 is considered prone to social unrest

The ethnic minorities are developing slowering and inequality rising undermining the ‘national’ party the CCP is supposed to be.

• making way for social unrest

Basically reforms have made inequality bigger, not only han - non han but also in han ethnic group as well.

Constitution 1982

citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration

Social unrests

1993: 8.700 incidents

2005: 87.000 last count

2010: 180 000 estimate

Internal security

• Budget is rising in all areas

  • Policing

    • even outside china

  • Cameras

Causes of social protests

• Disputes over land - 65%

• Ecological problems

• conflict on working conditions

• fiscal problems

• institutional failure to solve problems

• VERY RARELY dissatisfaction with government

Characteristics social protest in China

• Mostly small scale (last exception 2022)

  • but can be extremely violent still

• Decentralized and local

• Mostly just 1 group

  • Farmers

  • Taxi

  • Migrant workers

  • Simultaneous groups protest non existent

• protest is an attempt to compensate something lost

• emphasize on loyalty to CCP and PRC → want support from media to get attention of higher ups

→ social unrest is result of broken communication between people and government. NOT as reactionary.

Social unrest now

• increase is not the result of economic decline

• increase has little impact of legtimacy of ccp

• Nationalism is probably a much larger threat to the Party