From China Leadership Monitor No. 21:
As anyone who visits China’s modern cities knows, there is a growing middle class (as well as a wealthy class). But how big is this group, and what are the implications of its development? The answer to the first question, in particular, depends on how one defines
`middle class,’ and that is not as simple a question as it seems at first. `Middle class,’ as the term is usually used in China, refers as much to sociological characteristics as it does to income. It is precisely because the middle class is thought of in sociological terms that it carries a weight far greater than its numbers would suggest. But before looking at who makes up the middle class, it is useful to look first at who makes up the wealthy, for most studies of China’s middle class do not distinguish carefully between the wealthy and the middle classes. [Full Text]
Joseph Fewsmith is Director of East Asian Studies Program and Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Boston University. Other articles in this issue of China Leadership Monitor include: Election 2008 and the Future of Cross-Strait Relations by Alan D. Romberg, Make Talk Not War: Strategic U.S.-China Military-to-Military Exchanges in the First Half of 2007 by James Mulvenon, Strengthening the Center, and Premier Wen Jiabao by Barry Naughton, Hu Jintao and the PLA Brass by Alice L. Miller and The Leadership of China’s Four Major Cities: A Study of Municipal Party Standing Committees by Cheng Li.
