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[S]tudies have revealed a high level of intergenerational transfer of class and social status, privileged and otherwise.

Decades of economic groth have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but privilege still flows from inherited party connections.

A China Threat – the fear of being taken over by China and the Chinese – has been an ever present in the politics of Australia since even before there was a Commonwealth of Australia. It was both a major cause of Federation in 1901 and a determinant of Australia's foreign policy thereafter. In the last 20 years, concerns about China have come to focus less on migration and more on economic integration and China's political influence. There are as always distinct paradoxes in the China Threat. It may be a useful vehicle for making a political point at election time but China has a place in the Australian economy that has led Australia's leaders to at least modify their resistance once in office. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

The middle class has emerged as a political phenomenon in China since 2002 through a state-sponsored discourse that sees it as a universal and universalising class. Although the evidence from other countries suggests that the growth of middle classes leads to regime change, this seems to be an unlikely outcome for China. In the first place, China's middle class discourse has uncertain sociological foundations. Secondly, where the middle classes are identifiable they still probably constitute no more than 12% of the population. Thirdly, China's middle classes have a very close relationship to the Party-state. Most of the professional and managerial middle classes are part of, or closely associated with, the Party-state; and the entrepreneurial middle class has either emerged from within the Party-state or has been incorporated into it. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

Although the People's Republic of China turns 60 in 2009, popular and to some extent academic perceptions of its political system remain over-determined by the experience of its first 30 years. The socio-economic impact of the policies of the last three decades is well recognised but not the context in which these have occurred. In particular, there is a tendency to differentiate sharply between dramatic economic growth and its consequences and the lack of political change. While it is clearly the case that the Chinese Communist Party remains in power it is equally as obvious that economic reform has had and been accompanied by major political change. Studies on the state in transition at local levels certainly suggest that change has been significant. Moreover, these local studies also indicate the need to further conceptualise understanding of the state in China. The state idea is rather too general a concept and too blunt an instrument for analysis compared to research that considers the state's values and ideology, the social base of political power, the structures and processes of the political system, the authoritative decision-makers, bureaucracy and administration, and the state's international interactions. (Pac Rev/GIGA)