Book Review: Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers by Jennifer Pan

With growing income inequality, persistent social discontent, and a worsening global geopolitical environment, the Chinese state—one that vouches to carry on its socialist transformation, deliver rising living standards to its populace and ultimately revitalize the Chinese Communist Party in the new millennium under President Xi Jinping— faces a daunting challenge. While China is the world’s number two economy with a GDP of $15 trillion USD—two thirds the size of the U.S. GDP of $21 trillion USD (World Bank 2020)—after four decades of breathtaking economic growth, 600 million Chinese, 40 percent of its population, earn barely $150 USD a month (BBC 2021). This group lags far behind the ambitious poverty deduction targets set by the central government, posing a major concern for social and political stability. So, how does China care for its poor and distribute its social welfare? It is within this context that Jennifer Pan’s exceptionally researched book Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford University Press 2020) took place. This work focuses on Dibao, or Minimum Livelihood Guaranteed Scheme, which is “China’s only non-regressive social welfare program, and the largest unconditional cash transfer program in the world” (Pan 2020: 2). Contrary to conventional wisdom, Pan (2020) argues that Dibao, rather than efficiently addressing the widening income gap in China by delivering social assistance to those who need it the most, has been reshaped over time into “a tool of repression and surveillance” (p.13). Dibao, she shows, favors the “targeted populations” which include ex-prisoners, banned religious cults, suspected would-be protesters, and dissidents as the interaction between them and the system allows for continuing state surveillance of this population and creates relationship of dependency to preempt disorder, protests, and collective action. Further, Pan argues that this preferential treatment given to targeted populations could ironically create a backlash, resulting from anger over unfair distribution amongst deserving Dibao recipients. Book Review