Difference between revisions of "Guanxi (China)"

In contemporary China, ''guanxi'' are deployed for a myriad of situations and needs: to get a job; to acquire a scarce commodity; to get a child into a good kindergarten or sought-after school; to get into a high-quality hospital; to get official approvals and permits to start up a business; to get a lighter sentence for crime; to avoid penalties for violating the birth control policy; to connect up to electricity, water, and gas for new buildings or residences; and so forth. Thus, ''guanxi'' are often used to skirt around the cumbersome bureaucracy, or to reach a government official, clerk, or person in charge of giving permission or making selections of the recipients of some desirable good or opportunity.   

In contemporary China, ''guanxi'' are deployed for a myriad of situations and needs: to get a job; to acquire a scarce commodity; to get a child into a good kindergarten or sought-after school; to get into a high-quality hospital; to get official approvals and permits to start up a business; to get a lighter sentence for crime; to avoid penalties for violating the birth control policy; to connect up to electricity, water, and gas for new buildings or residences; and so forth. Thus, ''guanxi'' are often used to skirt around the cumbersome bureaucracy, or to reach a government official, clerk, or person in charge of giving permission or making selections of the recipients of some desirable good or opportunity.   

In contemporary Chinese society, most people rely on the help of well-positioned friends, relatives, former classmates, persons from the same hometown, co-workers, and other connections to help them get through life. These are long-term relationships that already have built-in obligations for mutual help and reciprocity. If one needs the help of an influential person, but there is no prior relationship, then a new ''guanxi'' must be initiated and carefully cultivated.  Often the help of ''guanxi'' intermediaries are necessary to introduce one to a targeted person who may grant a favor. Once the introduction is made, one needs to cultivate the relationship over some time, with friendly visits or conversation, and gift-giving or a banquet, before a request can be made with decorum. Culturally, there must be a crucial temporal delay in-between the gift offering and the request or repayment. The offering of the gift, favor, or banquet must be couched in terms of friendship, rather than naked instrumentalism, so that sociality, affect, and utility co-exist as key components of ''guanxi''. Otherwise, without sociality or affect, the relationship would be considered a simple barter or bribery, which are culturally disparaged.

In contemporary Chinese society, most people rely on the help of well-positioned friends, relatives, former classmates, persons from the same hometown, co-workers, and other connections to help them get through life. These are long-term relationships that already have built-in obligations for mutual help and reciprocity. If one needs the help of an influential person, but there is no prior relationship, then a new ''guanxi'' must be initiated and carefully cultivated.  Often the help of ''guanxi'' intermediaries are necessary to introduce one to a targeted person who may grant a favor. Once the introduction is made, one needs to cultivate the relationship over some time, with friendly visits or conversation, and gift-giving or a banquet, before a request can be made with decorum. Culturally, there must be a crucial temporal delay in-between the gift offering and the request or repayment. The offering of the gift, favor, or banquet must be couched in terms of friendship, rather than naked instrumentalism, so that sociality, affect, and utility co-exist as key components of ''guanxi''. Otherwise, without sociality or affect, the relationship would be considered a simple barter or bribery, which are culturally disparaged.

Yunxiang Yan<ref>Yan, Yunxiang. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village.  Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 1996.</ref> has observed that existing scholarship places too much emphasis on instrumental ''guanxi'', whereas the bulk of Chinese ''guanxi'' have more affective resonance and are guided less by instrumental motivations. This is the case in some rural village contexts where the traditional emphasis on harmonious and affective social relations can still be found. However, given that ''guanxi'' was made to serve many functions of the missing market economy during the Maoist era of state command economy, one can also say that ''guanxi'' has become more instrumentalized in China, especially in urban areas. In the post-Mao era, instrumentalism has further increased with the logic of profit, and many rural areas have been penetrated by new market and industrializing forces, and there is mobility of rural people into urban areas. Thus, even rural ''guanxi'' have been greatly instrumentalized. When ''guanxi'' is instrumentalized, first, the emphasis shifts from the cultivation of affective social bonds to the object of exchange, the gift or favor given or received. Second, the intervening time between the presenting of the gift and the expected repayment is also shortened. Thus, highly instrumentalized ''guanxi'' move closer to bribery, and this process has become more frequent in post-Mao commercial society, with a resultant increase in bribery and official corruption.   

Yunxiang Yan<ref>Yan, Yunxiang. The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village.  Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 1996.</ref> has observed that existing scholarship places too much emphasis on instrumental ''guanxi'', whereas the bulk of Chinese ''guanxi'' have more affective resonance and are guided less by instrumental motivations. This is the case in some rural village contexts where the traditional emphasis on harmonious and affective social relations can still be found. However, given that ''guanxi'' was made to serve many functions of the missing market economy during the Maoist era of state command economy, one can also say that ''guanxi'' has become more instrumentalized in China, especially in urban areas. In the post-Mao era, instrumentalism has further increased with the logic of profit, and many rural areas have been penetrated by new market and industrializing forces, and there is mobility of rural people into urban areas. Thus, even rural ''guanxi'' have been greatly instrumentalized. When ''guanxi'' is instrumentalized, first, the emphasis shifts from the cultivation of affective social bonds to the object of exchange, the gift or favor given or received. Second, the intervening time between the presenting of the gift and the expected repayment is also shortened. Thus, highly instrumentalized ''guanxi'' move closer to bribery, and this process has become more frequent in post-Mao commercial society, with a resultant increase in bribery and official corruption.   

There have been debates about whether the introduction of a market economy and a legal system in the post-Mao era, have resulted in a decline in the use of ''guanxi'' in China<ref>Gold, Thomas, Douglas Guthrie, and David Wank. Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.</ref><ref>Yang, Mayfair. “The Resilience of Guanxi and its New Deployments: A Critique of Some New Guanxi Scholarship” in China Quarterly, 2002, no. 170, pp. 459-476.</ref>. Most scholars agree that there are no signs that ''guanxi'' has declined overall, and ironically, its practice may have actually increased in certain domains. Although ''guanxi'' is no longer needed to purchase most goods that are now readily available in the stores bulging with consumer products, a vast arena of new needs and desires has opened up that still create a dependence on one’s ''guanxi'' network. Yanjie Bian and others have collected quantitative data in eight Chinese cities to show that in finding employment, the dependence on ''guanxi'' has actually increased steadily in the post-Mao era. Before 1979, when over 77% of jobs were allocated by the state, to after 2002, when 63% of jobs were obtained through market forces, Bian’s survey found that during this transition from a command to a full market economy, the reliance on ''guanxi'' networks to find jobs actually increased from 24% in 1979, to 45% in 2002 and thereafter<ref>Bian, Yanjie, et.al.  边燕杰等著 .《社会学网络与地位获得》。Social Networks and Status Attainment.  北京：社会科学文献出版社  Beijing:  Social Sciences Records Publishing Company, 2012. </ref>.  Evidently, the new market economy must still adapt itself to the existing political economic structures and culture of China.

There have been debates about whether the introduction of a market economy and a legal system in the post-Mao era, have resulted in a decline in the use of ''guanxi'' in China<ref>Gold, Thomas, Douglas Guthrie, and David Wank. Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.</ref><ref>Yang, Mayfair. “The Resilience of Guanxi and its New Deployments: A Critique of Some New Guanxi Scholarship” in China Quarterly, 2002, no. 170, pp. 459-476.</ref>. Most scholars agree that there are no signs that ''guanxi'' has declined overall, and ironically, its practice may have actually increased in certain domains. Although ''guanxi'' is no longer needed to purchase most goods that are now readily available in the stores bulging with consumer products, a vast arena of new needs and desires has opened up that still create a dependence on one’s ''guanxi'' network. Yanjie Bian and others have collected quantitative data in eight Chinese cities to show that in finding employment, the dependence on ''guanxi'' has actually increased steadily in the post-Mao era. Before 1979, when over 77% of jobs were allocated by the state, to after 2002, when 63% of jobs were obtained through market forces, Bian’s survey found that during this transition from a command to a full market economy, the reliance on ''guanxi'' networks to find jobs actually increased from 24% in 1979, to 45% in 2002 and thereafter<ref>Bian, Yanjie, et.al.  边燕杰等著 .《社会学网络与地位获得》。Social Networks and Status Attainment.  北京：社会科学文献出版社  Beijing:  Social Sciences Records Publishing Company, 2012. </ref>.  Evidently, the new market economy must still adapt itself to the existing political economic structures and culture of China.