Book Review: Models of the Chinese Economy (original) (raw)

China Information, 2003

Abstract

population checks is the appropriate mode of analysis, and argue for a methodology that instead identifies regional and historical differences in social organization. Lee and Wang focus on the implications of patrilineal ancestor worship and bureaucratic state autocracy, and trace these through attention to Chinese demographic data since 1700. This study carefully explores the social and historical context in which active control of the population has been exercised by kin and state structures long prior to recent birth planning policies, and it generates a wealth of new insights into these processes, including, for example, the impact of collectivization in the socialist era upon population control (and the resulting population explosion). The authors demonstrate sensitivity to issues of socioeconomic differences between households and patriarchy within households, but the nature of their demographic data do not allow them to go beyond identifying families or various forms of the state as loci of decision making. There is much that remains to be understood about the intrahousehold dynamics through which these critical decisions were made and the gendered power relations involved. While the arguments made here are primarily historical and sociological, they are based upon close analysis of a considerable amount of demographic data for China as a whole, and especially for the Qing imperial lineage and for Liaoning Province. The nature of the data and the scope of the argument have made this a macrosociological study. It is much to be hoped that it will be followed by microsociological studies of regional and historical variations that will allow further insight into the questions of control and agency so significantly raised here. The book is tightly constructed and the text itself is relatively brief, with more specifically demographic matters reserved primarily for the extensive notes and an appendix on Chinese population sources. This enables the book to address critical historical and social issues in a concentrated and widely accessible manner. Indeed, this important book is certain to be widely read in all fields of modem China studies.

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