Golden youth : State, market, and China's second-generation private entrepreneurs

Abstract

This dissertation is a political study of China's second-generation private entrepreneurs. In the first two decades of the 21st century, as the first generation of business owners are approaching retirement age, their sons and daughters have been taking over the established businesses. By focusing on this emerging entrepreneurial group, this dissertation explores the latest development in China's state-business relations. Particularly, it seeks to tackle the following empirical questions: How do these young business successors interact with the state at the central and local levels? What factors shape their interactions with the state? How does the state manage these young business successors? And, have they contributed to the development of a new form of state-business relations under the socialist system?

Drawing upon intensive fieldwork in eastern China from 2016 to 2018, this dissertation presents a complex picture of China's second-generation entrepreneurs and their relations with the state. On the one hand, thanks to their greater wealth and better education, these young business successors have acquired more structural and ideological autonomy from the state than their predecessors. Valuing personal economic and social rights, they have established more horizontal links with their counterparts and engaged in various civic activities, such as social charities, environmental protection, and policy lobbying. On the other hand, they have not broken their clientelistic ties with the state. Like their predecessors, most of them still rely on their particular connections with government officials to advance business interests and refuse to do things which may offend the state.

There are two mechanisms for young entrepreneurs' dependence on the state. For one thing, as the Chinese state controls the country's strategic economic and political resources, second-generation entrepreneurs have strong incentives to establish and maintain good relations with the state, which largely determines the success or failure of their businesses. For another, aware of the importance of second-generation entrepreneurs to the country's economic and political stability, the Chinese state has been constantly adjusting its relations with them by using a sophisticated mix of governance techniques, including business training, ideological education, political co-optation, and restructuring of business associations. These two mechanisms contribute to the state's domination over emerging young business owners, preventing their potential political challenges and consolidating the existing state-business alliance.

By examining the political influence of second-generation entrepreneurs and the state's responses, this dissertation broadens our understanding of China's dynamic business politics as well as the changing nature of China's regime. It not only incorporates the new entrepreneurial group - thriving at the front edge of the private sector - into the scholarly discussion, but it also provides a comprehensive explanatory framework, from the perspectives of both the entrepreneurs and the state, to understand the changes and the persistence in China's state-business relations. This dissertation, therefore, can help us better evaluate the future development of China's business politics and the prospect of the regime's stability.