Between ‘Retreat’ and ‘Recentralisation’: China’s SOE Reform Conundrum

Abstract

State-owned enterprises (SOEs), a key constituent of China’s economy, are an important reference for analysing China’s evolving state-market relations. Market-oriented reforms introduced in the SOE sector over the past four decades have seen the Communist Party of China (CPC) loosen its control over SOEs, shedding a large number of loss-making enterprises, and significant restructuring of remaining enterprises, including by public listing. But these achievements still fall short of making Chinese SOEs ‘modern enterprises’, and they continue to be extensions of the Chinese Party-state. Using Party documents, speeches and policy announcements, this article explores key changes and continuities in China’s state-owned sector in the post-liberalisation era. It contends that the neoliberal turn in China’s economic transition cannot be understood in the radical separation of state and market configurations but that reform and restructuring of SOEs have to be situated in a political-institutional landscape where multiple interests compete over the formulation of economic policy.