Neoliberalism, accumulation and public policies in China. Critical notes on the construction of a pension system

GUSTAVO SANTILLÁN

Shanghai

Congreso; 2nd Congress on Chinese Studies: Urban Society. Challenges for the present and future; 2010

Centro de Estudios Lu Xün

This work aims to relate the current reforms to the pension system within the People’s Republic of China, with the neolliberal agenda imposed by the World Bank (WB), centered on multipillar pension system design and capital markets development as main principles. For this purposes, we will make an account of recent reforms on pension system since 1986. Secondly, we will discuss the inherent principles behind these reforms, proposing an interpretation which leads to the relationship between pension reform and Economic Reform as a whole. We state the existence of a contradiction between the declared government objective toward the construction of an harmonious society, and multipillar design chosen on pension reform during the `90s, with WB advice. This contradiction could have been sustained through 30 years, since multipillar design lies on informal an familial support for old age, as a “fourth pillar”. This, in turn, leads to consider rural – urban migratory process as one important key for explaining the vitality of such support. However, the persistence of such contradiction might lead to further tensions, and it is already been influential on recent policy reorientations.