Chinese Political Regime and the Rising Income Inequality in the Reform Era

This thesis probes the sharply rising income inequality in reform-era China under the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authoritarian regime. Accepting the premise that economic transition inevitably leads to the income inequality, my special focus in this thesis is to demonstrate how political factors contribute to the worsening income inequality in China.

This study shows that the skewed power structure generates the income inequality. I explore three factors pertaining to the political regime that lead to the widening income inequality in reform-era China, which are: first, the nature of Chinese political system, which includes: the CCP’s dominant position in party-state China; the cadre system – an effective way for the CCP’s control over Chinese society; the imbalanced power distribution among the legislative, executive, and judicial agencies. Second, the relationship between power abuse (including corruption) and income inequality, which includes: bureaucratic system, guanbenwei, guanxi, and their influences on power abuse; power abuse and corruption in the reform era. Third, the political causes of Chinese social stratification, which includes: Chinese social stratification evolution; lacking of workers’ union and the unequal treatment between cadres and workers when facing the SOEs’ reform; dual urban-rural system and the plight of the rural Chinese.

In the part of conclusion, I make a comparative study of income inequality between China and the transitional societies, i.e., the post-Communist countries. This study shows that the old Communist regimes account for the dramatically rising income inequalities, which reinforce my argument that the CCP’s authoritarian regime is responsible for the sharp income inequalities in the reform era.