Social Construction in Contemporary China

The following sections are included:

• Foreword
• Notes on Contributors
• Contents

The modernization and glorious revival of the Chinese nation have been the Chinese people’s great aspirations for more than a century. After three decades of exploring and development during the period of reform and opening-up, China has witnessed profound socio-economic changes. The “primary phase of socialism,” the “socialist market economy” and the “socialist harmonious society” are three innovations with Chinese characteristics both in theory and in practice. Progress in these three innovations has raised China’s development in civilization to new heights and levels. Along the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics — created in the light of reform and opening up, remarkable achievements have been made in China’s economy. New forms of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization have been moving speedily and China is experiencing a “real change that has never occurred in a thousand years.” However, many other areas pale in comparison to the tremendous economic achievements. The social sector especially appears to lag far behind in terms of unreasonable or untenable social structure, an imperfect social system yet to be reformed, conspicuous and frequent social contradictions and problems, pressure from living in a disharmonious and unstable society, etc. People are yearning for the prospects of living in a pleasant and blissful society with characteristics of fairness, justice and harmony…

The important cause of people’s welfare, well-being and livelihood forms the basis for social development and harmony in contemporary society. It occupies a crucial position in social construction. At present, the public is yearning for improvements in people’s well-being, and the Party and the government are paying greater attention to strengthening social construction and improving people’swell-being at the same time. In this chapter, the content and structure of people’s well-being shall be defined, and then the chapter describes the present situation and problems concerning people’s well-being in contemporary China, making in-depth analysis of the difficulties in working for the cause. Finally, suggestions for strategies for the improvement of people’s well-being in the new era are put forward.

Since its founding, China has undergone three phases of development, i.e. state building stage, economic construction stage and social construction stage. Social undertakings, whose importance are commonly recognized, constitute one of the most significant contents in the third phase. China has made great strides in the development of social undertakings. In the new historical turning point, the Chinese people’s material living standard has improved greatly, and their desire for all-round development and spiritual aspirations are getting much stronger. For a number of years, economic construction has been given top priority in China. As a result, the development of social undertakings has lagged far behind economic development. In the context of “more demand, less supply”, marketization has permeated various other aspects of social undertakings, including the marketization of public goods and services, which in turn include industrialization of education, marketization of healthcare and commercialization of housing. All these cause a series of problems including the difficulty in getting access to schooling, expensive medical fees and high housing prices, as well as bringing about social conflicts and contradictions which are matters of great concern. Therefore, social undertakings in the new period should be based on public expectations, giving full rein to members of society from different walks of life in the construction of social undertakings, so as to reform its system and raise its development level.

Since China began economic reform and opening up, policies have been implemented to open the country to the outside world and to create an economic system based on free competition. The pursuit of efficiency and market allocation has brought great economic development and prosperity. However, these policies have also widened the income gap between members of society, resulting in the Gini coefficient remaining high and even once breaking through the “International Warning Line”. Presently, China has changed from a nation with a relatively small income gap into one with some of the largest income inequality in the world. This has detonated a series of social problems—so much so that the calls for reform of the current income distribution system are growing louder. It is therefore of the utmost urgency to carry out such reform.

Community construction is an important part of social construction. The microscopic community construction is a starting point and key to macroscopic social construction, and it is also a fundamental project promoting social development. At present, our country is at a new historical turning point and transition period. Since the rapid developments focusing on economic construction for more than 30 years, the face of urban and rural communities has changed dramatically with the reform of the “unit” system (unit here refers to departments, offices, locations where a worker or employee works), the process of urbanization and a huge moving of population. Therefore, it has become necessary and even urgent to implement community construction. However, the current government-led community construction has not broken through the limitation on the thinking left behind from the period of planned economy, and this has caused much confusion. These unsolved problems will be the main aims for community construction in the future. As long as every urban-rural grassroots community is harmonious, the harmony of the whole society will become a reality. Undoubtedly, it is an important part of social modernization that China should construct a new brand of community based on diversification, vitality and public-oriented management.

The following sections are included:

• Section I. Emergence and Development of Modern Chinese Social Organizations
• Section II. Functions of Social Organizations in Social Construction
• Section III. Development Predicaments of Social Organizations in Modern China
• Section IV. Some Considerations on Enhancing the Development of Social Organizations

Three decades after the reform policies were introduced, China’s modernization has reached a new historical turning point. During this period, the discrepancies in development between the social and economic sectors sparked off many issues, including conflicts of interest and social anomie. Therefore, the urgent and major task of social construction is to strengthen and make innovations in social management.

Since the era of reform and opening up, China’s economic development has made remarkable achievements. China is narrowing its gap with medium-level developed countries in its process of modernization. At the same time, serious problems of social anomie have emerged in China. In promoting social modernization and social construction, what should we do to change a situation of social disorder and re-establish social norms? These are the problems of integration and order we have to resolve to speed up social construction.

The launching of social construction marks a new historical turning point in the modernization of China. From the perspective of China’s social reality, the central and breakthrough point in the present social construction process lies in speeding up the reform of the social system and establishing social institutions that meet the needs of China’s socialist market economy.

The following sections are included:

• Section I. Profound Changes in the Structure of China’s Social Strata Since the 21^st Century
• Section II. Important Changes in China’s Ten Social Strata Since the Beginning of the 21^st Century
• Section III. The Middle Class is Emerging at an Average Annual Growth Rate of 9 Million
• Section IV. Basic Characteristics of Structural Change in China’s Social Strata
• Section V. Improving the Structure of Social Strata by Social Construction

In this chapter, we will review the progress of social construction after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and summarize its characteristics from the perspective of the state, market and social relations.

The following section is included:

• Index