Shifting Central-Local Relations in Post-Reform China: Case Study of a Migrant Community in Beijing

Abstract

Previous debates on changing central-local relations in post-reform China imply the presence of diverse patterns of local governmental responses to central policies, demon-strating that post-reform interaction between central power and emerging local forces has not resulted in uniform patterns. Consequently, in order to evaluate the impact of economic reforms upon the reconfigurations of central-local relations in the post-Mao China, greater emphasis must be given to the ethnographic research on the changing patterns of interaction between central power and local forces. In line with this perspective, this paper explores the dynamic interactions between central power and local challenge in the newly created urban space of the "Zhejiangcun" (Zhejing Village), the largest migrant settlement in Beijing. The emergence of unofficial migrant communities has profoundly altered the central-local dynamics in major urban areas through the formation of alternative sources of income, networks, and authority for the new social forces as well as for local state officials. With both cultural capital based on kinship and native-place ties and economic capital based on increasing market penetration, a significant number of migrant groups have created their own "non-state space" in the post-reform city. Rather than the continuance of the monopolizing cental power, this entrenchment of non-state power and space by the migrant population gives birth to multiple local centers of power. Therefore this paper aims to examine how alternative forms of local power and authority have emerged to renegotiate the domination of central power, by exploring a highly contested renegotiation process in the Zhejiangcun where economic power, social space, and political alliance intersect to reconfigure the central-local relationship within the increase of market influences.