Capitalism, Chinese Style

THE SOURCE: “China’s Changing Guanxi Capitalism: Private Entrepreneurs Between Leninist Control and Relentless Accumulation” by Christopher A. McNally, in Business and Politics, Aug. 2011.

China today has all the sober trappings of modern capitalism: contracts, corporations, and institutions enshrined in law. Yet guanxi, or relationships with kin or associates who are tapped for favors with the understanding of reciprocity, continue to play a large role in the business dealings of everyone from the humble dumpling vendor to the iPhone-wielding Shanghai executive. The most useful guanxi are with Communist Party officials, facilitating a “state-capital symbiosis” that has become a unique feature of Chinese capitalism, writes political scientist Christopher A. McNally of Chaminade University in Honolulu.

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