Honors Theses
Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Public Policy Leadership
First Advisor
Christian Sellar
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis investigates the long-term evolution of legislation that contributed to the shift of China from a command economy to an economic powerhouse in the capitalist world economy. Few have discussed whether the concept of neoliberalization, defined as the process of adapting fiscal conservative and expert oriented policies, explains the longer-term trend of Chinese development. Therefore, this thesis sets out to make a determination whether China is evolving towards or away from the neoliberal model. To answer this question, this thesis analyzes two areas of legislation crucial in a free market: China's trade and labor laws since the 1970s. More precisely, this research explores, through the lens of legislation, whether a trend of convergence between Western, exemplified by the United States, and Chinese political economies exists, and how the trend itself has changed over time and why. Using interview data based on 15 interviews from foreign entrepreneurs who work in Shanghai or Suzhou, this thesis uses the entrepreneurs' perception of Chinese trade and labor to seek out reoccurring themes. Based on the information gathered from the literature on the Chinese development of wage and labor laws and the qualitative data in the interviews, this thesis found surprising similarities in Chinese and US policies, effects of those policies that were complementary, and a clear neoliberal direction in the 1980s-1990s in the United States and China. This thesis concludes, based on the policies implemented during the 2000s and 2010s, that this neoliberal direction shifts in both countries, and a different kind of model is taking shape in both China and the US that diverges from neoliberalism.
Recommended Citation
Hearn, Sarah Catherine, "The Evolution of Trade and Labor Laws in China" (2018). Honors Theses. 828.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/828
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