Is There a Chinese Middle Class? 12 comments
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People often ask me about the definition of the Chinese middle class. To me, it’s simple: the middle class are people who are neither poor nor rich, who have disposable incomes to consume, and who can follow their own dreams and pursue their own futures.
Yet there are many debates about the Chinese middle class. Some people say China has only the new rich and the very poor; others argue that the middle class is an American concept and it doesn’t apply to China.
To make things simple, here is a definition from China’s National Bureau of Statistics: the households with an annual income ranging from 60,000 yuan ($7,250) to 500,000 yuan ($62,500) should be categorized as middle class.
A research team led by Professor Zhou Xiaohong in Nanjing University further defined middle class occupations as: professionals in management and technology, civil servants, and entrepreneurs, with college or graduate school education.
If the “middle class” is an American concept, the Chinese are adopting it. With these two definitions, I believe the picture should be clearer about what the Chinese middle class would look like. They are consistent with my research and interviews with people in China.
I have to point out that there is even confusion about the term “middle class.” In an article “Myth of China’s new middle class,” the author argued the middle class in the West was evolved from bourgeoisie during the industrialization and “became more complex, producing managerial and professional classes,” and China's "new rich categories of entrepreneurs are quite unlike the 19th-century European bourgeoisie in the extent to which they have emerged from and retain close relationships with the established political system.”
I don’t understand why the “new rich” has anything to do with the “new middle class” here. To make things more complicated, people in China actually consider “bourgeoisie” (小资) to be lower than the middle class (中产). Furthermore, to separate the government from people is also a “Western way of thinking.” Notice the occupations of the Chinese middle class include “civil servants,” – that means “the government officials.”
The Chinese middle class will not be the same as the Western middle class. How are they different? What impact will they have? These are the “myths” my book is going to unveil. Please stay tuned.
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This article has 12 comments:
Please allow me to leave you with this comment. Someone once asked me to explain the difference between spam (his pejorative term) and an interesting article on a website? I answered an interesting article is thought-provoking.
Cheers
Moreover, I think you really misrepresent the author, Rowan Callick, and his source, David Goodman, who you link (cite?) and quote above. Goodman's point is just that the situation in China is different from that in the 19th century West. Goodman's point then seems to be the same as your’s, though you quote him, as if her were Callick, and in a way that makes it seem you are arguing against his thesis. This becomes apparent if one looks a a section of Callick's article that you did not quote:
"Goodman highlights 'the close associational links between the new entrepreneurs and the party-state; they are neither independent of nor excluded from the political establishment, which on the contrary seeks actively to incorporate them if there is no pre-existing relationship.'
This was the chief innovation of Jiang Zemin, who retired as leader five years ago.
He opened the doors for capitalists to join the party. "
But then again maybe you just wanted to 抛砖引玉. If that is the case, which I don't think I have provided any 玉 what you have produced here is certainly much more 砖 than 玉 like.
As for plugging her upcoming book, SA doesn't edit-out plugs as long as the article has some informative value. This is our experience and holds true for all contributors as long as the plug is upfront (obvious) and not misleading.
Perhaps the author can reply to some of the comments above and start a dialog. This would add some value.
CrossProfit
Officially, the goal is "middle or medium income stratum, or group". It never been called "middle class". The latter in English is more of a sociological definition, not purely defined by dollar figures in income. Helen Wang's use of the term "Chinese middle class" can be very misleading in our mine. The threshold of Chinese "medium income stratum", is lower than poverty line of the US in 2006. Our poverty line is ~$8,000 for family of 3 living in 48 contiguous states and it will be much higher in Alaska. In a previous writing, Helen Wang even brag about Chinese middle class is the same as American middle class in Bay area. It is highly misleading.
It is highly objectionable to translate "Chinese medium income stratum or group" into "Chinese middle class". This remind me of the day when Stalin and Mao declared their people enjoy the same "freedom" and "democracy" as in the West by corrupting the meaning of those English words.
To emphasize my point, a dental technician or secretary can have very high income, but they are not American middle class. Their works is to execute. They play little decision making role in their works. This is part of the sociologic definition of "American middle class".
The confusion is over whether "middle class" is a relative or absolute term, as I've seen it used both ways.
"Chinese Middle Class" is something which has not been well defined. It certainly is not the same as in American "MIddle Class".
Shilling makes a good distinction in this article:
www.forbes.com/2008/02...
"...we estimated that China's middle and upper classes amount to about 110 million. This indicates that only 8% of the total 1.4 billion population are middle class in terms of having measurable discretionary purchasing power. And despite their higher than average incomes, they accounted for only 25% of GDP in 2005."
The title of HW's post is a rhetorical question. Of course there is a Chinese middle class. But, where are they?
The purpose of constructive criticism is to help the author write better pieces in the future so we can all benefit. The piece didn't add a lot of value to me -- which may not be the case for you -- and thus the constructive feedback. I prefer thought provoking pieces and if the author can incorporate that into her future pieces, it will incentivize me to read her pieces and possibly buy her book or at least recommend her to people who would be interested. Or, stated differently, if this is the best she is doing then I have little incentive to read her up coming book much less recommend it.
Separately, as a matter of style, her conclusion or summary came across as a book-plugging piece. It really detracted from the article and unfortunately, that was the last thought she left me with -- plugging her book. It would have been better (at least for me) to leave the last thought as a means to summarize, better yet to synthetize, her key points. Again, this is a matter of style.
Any chance SA could put a disclaimer, i.e. as an adminstrative item, that this is a plug for a book so we can it out of the way and not detract from the article? Having it as the last line of an article is bad form (this is my opinion, of course).
Also, I agree with you that article was informative. However, I prefer thought-provoking to informative, and by thought-provoking, I agree with your concept of "it is up to the reader to either agree or disagree with the article."
Thank you.
Cheers.