Seeking Balance: China strives to adapt social protection to the needs of a market economy by Ken Wills published by Finance & Development (12/2018).
“There was bound to come a time in China’s modern development—starting in 1949 with the founding of the cradle-to-grave welfare state—when the demands of the people for a better life outgrew the ability of the People’s Republic to deliver.
That time could be now.
China thrived during decades of near double-digit growth since Deng Xiaoping first experimented with local markets and untethered parts of the economy from state control in the 1980s and 1990s. The country’s rapid advance from developing nation to claim the No. 2 spot among the world’s largest economies spawned a massive middle class and hundreds of billionaires.
But growth was uneven, leaving yawning gaps between rich and poor, between prosperous coastal cities and neglected, largely rural, inland regions.
Along the way, China sought, with mixed results, to adapt services such as pensions and health care to the demands of an increasingly market-driven economy. Today, as the government of Xi Jinping struggles to reconcile the aspirations of the rising middle class with the needs of the millions who remain in poverty, it must also contend with the challenges of slowing growth.
In an October 2017 address at the Communist Party’s National Congress ahead of his second fiveyear term, Xi acknowledged that the government had essentially fallen short of people’s expectations. He set out to redefine how the Communist Party would provide for its citizens for decades to come…”
