Social welfare and protection for economic growth and social stability — China’s experience

China’s Communist Party has directed the country’s welfare system to maintain party authority amidst changing political, social, and economic circumstances. Welfare during the years of central planning was comprehensively provided either directly by the state or through co-operatives with a clear rural-urban divide. Following the death of Mao Zedong, the Chinese economy was liberalised and capitalists began to be accepted as members of the Party. From the late 1970s until the early 2000s, welfare provisions from state and business enterprises gradually declined even as individuals began bearing ever-growing personal responsibility in social assistance. While welfare policy had, until the early 2000s, been used to increase economic efficiency, the many social problems that attended the Chinese model of development soon led Beijing to target welfare policy directly at social well-being. Consequently, more recent policy has sought to spread the benefits of economic growth more equitably.