China’s Two-Class System: Urban and Rural

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Roots

To fully understand what I argue as the class distinction of the rural and the urban it is important to look at the roots of this separation and the history from the initial separation to the present. By looking at the history as it relates to the separation, it can be deducted that the urban people benefit from the hindrance of the rural population; A clear sign of Marxian class-system.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. From this time forward the changes in regional inequality match the phases of Chinese history remarkably well. The peaks of inequality in China have been associated with the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, and the current phase of openness and decentralization (Kanbur and Zhang 2005:88).

History of Communist Chinese can be divided into several phases: 1949–56 (revolution and land reform), 1957–61 (the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine), 1962–65 (post-famine recovery), 1966–78 (Cultural Revolution and transition to reform), 1979–84 (rural reform), and 1985–present (post-rural reform, decentralization, and opening up to trade and foreign direct investment). (Kanbur and Zhang 2005:90)

Inequality was relatively low and steady in the early first years of communist power when land reform was introduced. When the CCP took power, the country’s municipal units became part of a strictly hierarchal network. In the centralized CCP system, relations between the provinces and the state were organized on a vertical axis (Bergere 2010). This was the transition period. The CCP had just taken power. It was a time for the upcoming bourgeoisie to align with the new government power.

Inequality rose sharply during the Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine, reaching a peak ...

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Marx, Karl. Capital. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952. Print.

Ning, Yuemin. "Globalization and the Sustainable Development of Shanghai." Globalization and the Sustainability of Cities in the Asia Pacific Region. Ed. Fu-chen Lo and Peter Marcotullio. Tokyo: United Nations UP, 2001. 271-310. Print.

Peet, Richard. "Inequality And Poverty: A Marxist-Geographic Theory." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 65.4 (1975): 564-71. JSTOR. Web.

Peng, Kizhe. "Demographic Consequences of the Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces." Population and Development Review 13.4 (1987): 639-70. JSTOR. Web.

Sicular, Terry, Yue Ximing, Bjorn Gustafsson, and Li Shi. The Urban-Rural Gap and Income Inequality in China. UNU-WIDER, 2005.

Solinger, Dorothy, “China’s Transients and the State: a Form of Civil Society?” Politics & Society 21 (1993):98–103.

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