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This article focuses on the impact that HIV/AIDS has on children in China and the social support provided to these children. The research finds that the consequences of HIV/AIDS are serious: the entire environment in which children develop is adversely affected by the disease. These negative socio‐economic effects are due not only to HIV/AIDS, but also to the social discrimination and exclusion experienced by affected communities and families. Local governments and societies have started to provide support to HIV/AIDS‐affected children and work to reduce the social exclusion they suffer. However, many challenges and problems still lie ahead.

This article focuses on a traditional system of protecting orphaned children in rural areas in Southern China. It examines the role of extended families in supporting orphans and the division of labour between the family and the state when it comes to financial and caring responsibilities in child protection. The research finds that orphans are effectively supported and protected by the traditional system of family care and protection. However, the traditional system faces challenges and financial difficulties in terms of bearing the costs of education and healthcare for orphaned children. To protect children adequately, intervention by the modern welfare state is urgently needed in China.

This study reports on a series of qualitative interviews with professionals in Shanghai, China who work with children. The interviews explored the awareness of child protection issues amongst a range of people who work with children, how they differentiate corporal punishment from maltreatment and what they would do in response to cases of child abuse. Shanghai has one of the most well developed child welfare systems in China, and compared to similar professionals in other cities, those in Shanghai had higher awareness and more training, but were nevertheless reluctant to intervene and did not feel well prepared to deal with cases of child abuse should they be encountered. However there are some indications that practice is improving, and examples of recent developments are provided.

The contributors to this special issue have listed a number of important references in the main articles presented. China's social policy transformation is a burgeoning research area and available literature becomes outdated quickly. The sources in this section identify the most relevant current and past information relating to social policy and human rights in China. Some publications in this section are in Chinese as noted.

The article will examine the latest development of China's urban social assistance reform. Under the impact of the dual processes of globalisation and the deepening market transition, China's social security reform is increasingly taking a new safety net approach to assist the urban poor, instead of relying mainly on social insurance provision. The minimum living security project for urban residents is one of the approaches supplementing social insurance in social protection. In 2002, about one-third of social security beneficiaries were supported by the newly developed social assistance project. The changing approach does not mean that the government is withdrawing from its responsibility for social insurance to the urban workers, but reflects the changing goals and means of social policies. This indicates that China's social welfare system is shifting towards a new residual welfare model.

This paper begins by describing the origins of a social security system that was based on a series of institutional splits that resulted in the development of a fragmented system characterized by inequity and incomplete coverage. The entitlements embedded in this system have proved difficult to revise in the light of changing circumstances and the pressures associated with economic transition, demographic change and the newly emerging problems of open unemployment and urban poverty. These developments, particularly the latter, are creating new demands on a system already struggling to adjust to structural problems of coverage and financial soundness. A series of extensive reforms in the areas of pensions and unemployment insurance and a rationalization of administrative arrangements and responsibilities have been introduced over the last two decades, but further reform seems inevitable as external pressures and policy priorities change. A key goal of the reform process has been to transfer responsibility for social security from enterprises to the state, but the system still suffers from a series of serious financial problems. Despite the extensive reforms that have already been introduced, these problems and the structural imbalances underlying them will require further action. The most important of these imbalances relate to the split between the nature and role of social security in the urban and rural sectors, the role of the commercial provision and its relationship with the state, and the extension of programmes aimed at poverty alleviation.