term ‘entrepreneur’ in its ‘correct’ usage discussed among both scholars and policy advisors, but with different attributes such as ‘socialist’, ‘Chinese’, or simply speaking of ‘entrepreneurs’.
Figure 2: The Chinese Entrepreneur as a Discursive Category
Source: The authors.
Throughout the 1990s, the entrepreneurial stratum was labeled the ‘most valuable’ resource of the economy, which thus had to be supported and further developed by granting private entrepreneurs equal economic, political, and legal status within Chinese society. It was argued that intellectuals should be encouraged to become entrepreneurs, and the state sector should no longer be favored one-sidedly (Wei and Sun, 1994). It also became apparent that innovative or ‘scientific entrepreneurs’ would be needed (Zhao, 1998). Being an entrepreneur was qualified as an ‘honor’ (rongyaode), and operating a company was portrayed as a kind of ‘heroism’ (yingxiong zhuyi) (Yu Shaowen, 1994). As the ‘most valuable’ resource (Zhao, 1998), entrepreneurs were created in the course of China’s social transformation as a product of the market economy, which they then subsequently nurtured (Mi and Gao, 1997: 42–44). By the end of the 1990s, entrepreneurship was finally classified as a ‘profession’ and no longer had political overtones (Zhang and Liu, 1996; Li, 1999).
At the same time, the Chinese entrepreneur was treated as a culturally specific type. It was argued that this type was different from its Western counterpart through its ‘distinct Chinese qualities’ (Zhongguo tese) as a ‘reformer’ (gaigejia) and a ‘hero’ (yingxiong), working in the interests of society and for the benefit of its overall prosperity (Liu, 1997). This discussion was continued in the more recent discourse on the ‘Confucian entrepreneur’ (rushang, see Chapter 3). Other authors have declared, in an apologetic fashion, Chinese entrepreneurs to be ‘socialist’ as they contribute to the building up of a ‘material’ and ‘intellectual culture of Socialism’. In contrast to their Western counterparts, ‘socialist entrepreneurs’ fulfilled two central requirements: they were innovators (chuangxinzhe) and at the same time possessed ‘political qualities’, i.e. they supported the CCP and the socialist system (Yuan, 1997). They belonged after all to the ‘avantgarde of the economic revolution’ (Zhang and Liu, 1996) and were called to be patriots, to behave in a ‘morally superior’ way, display a ‘good ideology’ and a good working style, and to constantly improve themselves (Zhongguo qiyejia diaocha xitong, 1998).
Overall, the role and function of private entrepreneurs in China’s economic transformation had been seen as widely positive within domestic discourse, and at the end of the Hu–Wen era, their ‘profession’ was socially and politically accepted. Under Xi Jinping, the private sector was called important for further economic reform at various occasions, and domestic discourse focused on their potential as ‘innovators’ and drivers of high-tech development (see, e.g. Liu, 2017). Particularly larger private enterprises were praised as a ‘leading force’ in promoting corporate social responsibility and public charity (see, e.g. Cao, 2018). Nevertheless, in recent years, private entrepreneurs have had to face much criticism, too. The 2018 vaccine scandal which exposed the criminal behavior of a large private drug producer, Changchun Changsheng Biological Technology Co Ltd,67 various incidents on construction sites for which private firms were held responsible, and numerous corruption cases involving private entrepreneurs have together triggered a discussion on the future of the private sector in China.68 Being aware of the political danger caused by such negative reporting for the private sector, Pan Shiyi, a celebrity blogger and chairman of SOHO China company, one of the most prominent real estate developers in China, wrote on his Weibo blog that private entrepreneurs should not only strive for profit but must also be role models in Chinese society and be committed to the social well-being of their employees (Pan, 2018). In September 2018, Wu Xiaoping, a veteran financial entrepreneur, published a short essay on social media in which he made the following surprising claim:
in the progress of China’s great history of reform and opening up, the private economy has tentatively completed its important historical task to assist the public economy in making a developmental leap forward. In the next step, the private economy should not be expanded blindly, but in a completely new fashion become a more centralized, solidaric and extensive public–private mixed system, so that in the course of the new development of a society based on a socialist market economy a new gravity will steadily come to the fore.69
Put differently, China’s private sector economy should be phased out to the benefit of a mixed system in which the public sector would be leading. Although this statement was criticized by most netizens, it coincided with a mood among some leftist intellectuals and a popular undercurrent within certain sections of the population critical of private entrepreneurs’ wide association with corruption and unclean behavior. For years, scholars such as Zhou Xincheng (see, e.g. Zhou, 2018), the former head of the School of Marxism at Renmin University, or Chen Zhonghua, the Dean of the International Academy of Politics and Law, demanded the elimination of the private sector, which they saw as contrary to Marxist theory. On the other side, at the ‘Forum of 50 People’ (50 ren luntan), a meeting of influential economists and senior officials held in September 2018, a majority of participants strongly criticized the slogan ‘Let the state sector come in and the private sector withdraw’ (guojin mintui) and all demands of abolishing the private sector (An, 2018). Moreover, few of the respondents with whom we spoke after Wu’s essay had been published seemed particularly worried. Still, the debate caused uneasiness among many entrepreneurs that private sector policies might change during the coming years of the Xi Jinping era. Prominent figures such as Hu Deping (2018), the influential son of the late party general secretary Hu Yaobang, warned of tendencies to cut down private sector development. The government has since tried to reassure the country’s private entrepreneurs that this was not going to happen. A Renmin Ribao editorial reiterated that the private sector was indispensable to China’s development and modernizing process and that government policies would help to improve, not limit, it (Li Zheng, 2018). Premier Li Keqiang reassured attendees at the ‘Tianjin World Economic Forum’, also held in September 2018, that the private economy would be further promoted and that all obstacles to development should and would be removed from this crucial and promising sector of the Chinese economy (Li Yanli, 2018). Finally, Xi Jinping declared at the ‘Conference on Private Enterprises’ (Minying qiye zuotanhui) held in November 2018 that private entrepreneurs ‘can feel reassured’. Policies toward the private sector would not change, and the private economy would be further promoted and supported. Entrepreneurs are, as Xi argues, ‘our own people’ (women zijide ren) (Xi Jinping, 2018a, 2018b). In the weeks that followed, the problems of the private sector and possible solutions were widely discussed, and many party state organizations at the central and provincial level assiduously expressed their support and assistance to that sector.70
However, in his speech, Xi Jinping also emphasized that SOEs still are the main force (zhuti) in the Chinese economy (Xi Jinping, 2018a). The renowned economist Cheng Enfu from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences explicitly underlined this position in the Party’s daily Renmin Ribao (Cheng, 2018). Economist Sheng Hong thus interpreted the expression of political support of the private sector by Chinese leaders and the media as a ‘tranquilizer’ (dingxinwan) and ‘speech therapy’ (hualiao) and noted that Xi’s formula of entrepreneurs being ‘our own people’ would make the latter feel rather uneasy as they would not understand the meaning of this wording (Sheng, 2018).
Despite all reassurances by the Chinese leadership that private sector policies would not change, it was recently reported that listed private companies are forced to sell significant stakes to SOEs (Hancock, 2019). In fact, there is huge pressure on private enterprises to become part of investment companies (touzi gongsi), in which representatives of state authorities, SOEs, and private enterprises have shares. Membership in these companies facilitates access to public procurement contracts and access to bank loans (Li Gengnan, 2018). The same is true if SOEs invest in private enterprises (Lu, 2018).