Lau China Institute Seminar: Reflections on twenty years of China’s minimum livelihood guarantee system

On the 26 November 1999 then Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs, Fan Baojun, announced that China had successfully achieved full implementation of the urban resident minimum livelihood guarantee system (MLG). In the twenty years since a rural version of the policy was implemented in 2007 and China’s social assistance system has continued to adjust to changing political, economic, and social developments. Throughout this period the research on the MLG has also developed with more research of the policy from a variety of different perspectives being conducted. In this talk I will discuss how social assistance has changed in the last twenty years, reflect on the conclusions drawn in the research, and relate this to policy developments in the last five years. I will argue that social assistance in China is still primarily a tool of the state where politics trumps policy. This helps to explain the slow pace of institutionalisation and why social assistance is still seen to fall short in addressing poverty and inequality in China.

Daniel R. Hammond is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Politics and Society at the University of Edinburgh. His research has primarily been on social assistance in contemporary China focusing in particular on the urban resident minimum livelihood guarantee system. This has included studies at both national and local level, including the recently published Politics and Policy in China's Social Assistance Reform: Providing for the Poor?