Greg Chin's diss

[Jonathan Lassen <jlassen@clarku.edu>]

TITLE    	Building 'capitalism with China's characteristics': The political
economy of model joint ventures in the automotive industry
AUTHOR 	  	Chin, Gregory Thomas
DEGREE 	  	PhD
SCHOOL 	  	YORK UNIVERSITY (CANADA)
DATE 	  	2003
PAGES 	  	423
ADVISER 	Frolic, B. Michael
	
This thesis examines the nature of China's post-Mao societal transformation. The
central argument is that there has been a significant shift to capitalist social
relations of production in China 'model' joint venture sector. It is further
suggested that China's foreign-invested sectors more broadly operate according to
the logic of capitalist accumulation. The research for this study focuses on two
key Model joint ventures (JVs) in China's automotive industry: First Automotive
Works-Volkswagen and Beijing Jeep. In the Model JVs, the capitalist
transformation has involved fundamental structural changes in production and
accumulation, and in state-firm relations. Changes at both the levels of
production and the Chinese state have been linked to the transformative influence
of international capital. This capitalist transformation has also involved the
creation of Model JV-centred production networks which link the Model JVs
'downward' to local parts suppliers and ‘outward’ to foreign capital.
The thesis further shows that a hegemonic regime of labour control is integral to
the specific form of China's Model JV capitalism; and that a key stratum of
Chinese elite managers has emerged in the Model JVs as <italic>the</italic> main
agents of the capitalist transformation. In fostering the Model JVs, the Chinese
(Party-)state at both the central and local levels has enacted important policy
shifts, and has undergone functional changes which preconditioned the capitalist
transformation of these firms.