Contemporary China's Middle Class's Impact On Social Stability

In China, the middle class is not a new term, since the late1990s,China’s academia had already begun its extensive research. On onehand, the view that the middle class is the"stabilizer","safety valve" iswidely accepted for the positive role of universal concern thatwestern middle class has played in promoting the democratization ofthe state and social stability. On the another hand, new contradictionsand problems were brought about by the acceleration of China’smodernization process, the profound alteration of economic system,the profound redistribute of interest and the profound change ofconcepts.In the General Assembly to commemorate the80th anniversaryof the founding of the Communist Party of China, Jiang Ze min haspointed out that China’s social structure has changed significantlysince the reform and opening up. Subsequently, the report of the16thCPC National Congress clearly the appellation of "middle-incomegroups". Hence, academia has begun to actively explore therelationship between the middle class and social stability.This thesis studies further in the following three aspects: Firstly,how the country impacts China’s social structure and promotes theemergence and development of the middle class through institutionalarrangements after founded. Secondly, in a particular institutionalenvironment, how the action orientation and behavior the middleclass takes to expand their own interests and public interests, and howit affects the country’s institutional arrangements and social stability.Thirdly, is how the state adjusts and controls the social and publicinterests and impacts the middle class’s actions initiatively.Thus, the contemporary Chinese middle class’s impact on social stability is the research center of this thesis. The idea is: bycombing Chinese contemporary history, analyzes the impacts thatChina’s middle class has produced or may arise on social stability inChina, and on the basis of existing research results, analyzes thereasons and mechanisms for the middle class to affects social stability.Specific articles structural arrangements: the first part of this articleincludes: brief introduction of the brought up the issue of this article,the significance of the study, the core concept and research about themiddle class’s impacts on social stability. The second part includes:summary of the path of the generation and development of theChinese middle class methods of historical research and descriptionof different compacts on China’s social stability described in processof the contemporary China’s social change. The third part includes:summary of China’s middle class’s characteristics and analysis ofobjective and subjective reasons for the middle class to affect socialstability on the basis of institutional arrangements of China’sparticipation in politics. The fourth part includes: show of theintrinsic link among the national, institutional and social through thedescription of the middle class’s political participation, exploration ofthe mechanism of the middle class to affect social stability. The fifthpart includes: forecast of the prospects for the development of theChinese middle class, and how to promote the positive interactionbetween the corresponding countermeasures according to the law ofthe middle class’s self development and China’s national conditions.Through the study of the above aspects, the author believes that:China has its own unique patterns and characteristics in the process ofmodernization, the concept of the middle class, germinal path,characteristics, and the impact on China’s social stability also has itsown particularity.The emergence and development of China’s middle class is closely related with the state, and the whole process iscoincides with the country’s reform and opening up process. TheChinese middle class has a relatively small scale and ismulti-ideological. The Chinese also has more rational andconservative political attitudes in general, internally differentiatedand combination, and is full of contradiction, heterogeneity andcomplexity, only a scattered collection have not yet become a self-asthe class. And the interests and needs、the political attitudes andaction orientation of the middle class is changing, reaction at differenttimes for different events is different. Therefore, to maintain socialstability is not inherent qualities of the middle class. Whether or notthe middle class will have a stable function on social order dependson the interaction between the state and the middle class, as well asthe status of the country’s adjustment of the interests and institutionalarrangements.