Being Middle Class In China

Many studies of the Chinese middle class focus on defining it and viewing its significance for economic development and its potential for sociopolitical modernisation. This book goes beyond such objective approaches and considers middle class people’s subjective understanding and diverse experiences of class. Based on extensive original research including social surveys and detailed interviews, the book explores who the middle class think they are, what they think about a wide range of socioeconomic and sociopolitical issues, and why they think as they do. It examines attitudes towards the welfare state, social inequality, nationalism, relations with foreign countries and opinions on many social controversies, thereby portraying middle class people as more than simply luxury consumers and potential agents of democracy. The book concludes that a clear class identity and political consciousness have yet to emerge, but that middle class attitudes are best characterised as searching for a balance between old and new, the traditional and the foreign, the principled and the pragmatic.

The United States may be headed toward a disastrous conflict with China unless Washington updates its understanding of contemporary Chinese society After four decades of engagement, the United States and China now appear to be locked on a collision course that has already fomented a trade war, seems likely to produce a new cold war, and could even result in dangerous military conflict. The current deterioration of the bilateral relationship is the culmination of years of disputes, disillusionment, disappointment, and distrust between the two countries. Washington has legitimate concerns about Beijing's excessive domestic political control and aggressive foreign policy stances, just as Chinese leaders believe the United States still has futile designs on blocking their country's inevitable rise to great-power status. Cheng Li's Middle Class Shanghai argues that American policymakers must not lose sight of the expansive dynamism and diversity in present-day China. The caricature of the PRC as a monolithic Communist apparatus set on exporting its ideology and development model is simplistic and misguided. Drawing on empirical research in the realms of higher education, avant-garde art, architecture, and law, this unique study highlights the strong, constructive impact of bilateral exchanges. Combining eclectic human stories with striking new data analysis, this book addresses the possibility that the development of China's class structure and cosmopolitan culture—exemplified and led by Shanghai—could provide a force for reshaping U.S.-China engagement. Both countries should build upon the deep cultural and educational exchanges that have bound them together for decades. The author concludes that U.S. policymakers should neither underestimate the role and strength of the Chinese middle class, nor ostracize or alienate this force with policies that push it toward jingoistic nationalism to the detriment of both countries and the global community. With its unique focus, this book will enlighten policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and anyone interested in China and its increasingly fraught relations with the United States.

Decades ago, there was no distinct middle class in the People's Republic of China. Any meaningful discussion of China's economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class. This book details the origins and characteristics of this dramatic change.

This book analyses the making of the Chinese middle class that started in the 1990s using a constructivist approach. With the development of the Chinese economy, a new group of middle wage earners appeared. Chinese social scientists and state institutions promoted the idea that China needs a middle class to achieve modernization. Middle class members are defined—and define themselves—as good consumers, educated people, politically engaged but reasonable citizens. As such, the making of the middle class is the result of three convergent phenomena: an attempt to define the middle class, a process of civilization, and the development of protest movements. The making of the Chinese middle class, Rocca argues, is a way to end the stalemate that modern Chinese society is facing, in particular the necessity to democratize without introducing an election system.

Based on interviews with entrepreneurs, professionals and regional party cadres' from a range of age groups, this book argues that Western class categories do not directly apply to China and that the Chinese new middle class is distinguished more by socio-cultural than by economic factors.

This key new book gathers together the latest research results from renowned Chinese scholars who have comprehensively examined the formation of China's middle class. The coverage takes in key background issues, socioeconomic status and sociopolitical functions, the definition, values, social attitudes, income and consumption characteristics of China's rapidly expanding middle class.

This book is a collection of empirical studies on China’s middle class from top-ranking Chinese sociologists, discussing this newly identified social stratum with regard to the basic concept and scope of the group, its functions, formation, identity, consumption, behavior patterns and value system. As the first study of its kind, the analysis of most chapters is based on a rich body of empirical data gathered from rigorous large-scale surveys designed specifically for the Chinese middle class across megacities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The book traces the complex and dynamic formation process of China’s middle class from different perspectives while dealing with issues of social concern such as “rigid social stratification”. The findings shed light on the underlying logic of structural change in Chinese society over several recent decades, with significant policy implications. The book will attract sociologists, students and policymakers interested in social structure, social transformation and middle-income groups in China.

This book portrays the middle class in contemporary China with plain language and precise professional knowledge in an all-round, broad and responsible way from the perspectives of income, property, profession, education, consumption, investment, physiological and behavioral characteristics, history and development. It gives, in a logical order, the reasons for stimulating the rise of the middle class in contemporary China. It emphatically describes what the middle class is and what the middle class in contemporary China looks like. It also analyzes whether the middle class can rise in China and sheds light on the basic thinking, medium and long-term goals, main measures and current work priorities for achieving full rise of the middle class in contemporary China. As China becomes the world's largest economy, the new middle class will be the Chinese people facing the world; as such, this book will be of interest to sociologists, sinologists, political scientists, and economists.