New entrepreneurs in reform China: Economic growth and social change in Taiyuan, Shanxi

Abstract

The People's Republic of China (PRC) is currently on the very borders of social and economic change as new technologies, economic integration with external markets, and politically motivated drives for openness combine to transform its political economy. However, within China, the impact of these changes is by no means uniform or homogeneous because of its size and varied social ecology. Indeed, much of northern and inland China is unlike those few areas in the south and east where producer services have begun to have a substantial impact. Shanxi Province in China's northern interior has more in common with most of China than Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and even Fujian Province. In Shanxi, producer services only just began to emerge during the mid-1990s, and their development, like much of that generally to be found in China's reform era, emphasized the links with the establishment. This chapter explores the emergence of producer services linked with the heavy industry sector of Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi Province. In particular, the question will be raised whether the new professions provide an avenue for social mobility to people unconnected to the party-state or, instead, benefit established party cadres. There are new opportunities, and even new economy opportunities. Where the former lead to new enterprises, the latter result in new professions, more properly the focus of this volume. The centrality of the party-state being a key characteristic, one may expect that both new entrepreneurs and new economic activities emerge from within the party-state or are absorbed by it.