Repressing with Social Assistance

This chapter shows how the distribution of Dibao to targeted populations enables repression—a concept the author calls repressive assistance, which she situates in the literature on repression and welfare. Dibao occurs in the context of re-education and facilitates repression by increasing interactions between the regime and the targets of repression, strengthening surveillance and trapping targets in relationships of obligation and dependence. Using data from a nationally representative survey and news announcements related to Dibao provision, this chapter shows that repressive assistance may not decrease contentious activity on average among targeted populations. However, repressive assistance is effective in deterring specific activities for individuals when they are closely managed and monitored and erases the delineation between repression and concessions.

Becoming a Digital Dictatorship

The conclusion considers how China’s pursuit of political order through preemptive control changes in a digital context of rapidly growing data, computing power, and advances in machine learning (e.g., deep learning, artificial intelligence / “AI”). Digital advances help the Chinese government collect more information about the entire population, and to do so in ways that are less detectable. However, new digital technologies do not alter China’s goal of preemptive control or the predictive surveillance that underpins this goal. Digital technologies will likely enable the government to identify more potential threats, but because digital technologies will not eliminate error altogether and because there is always a tradeoff between precision and recall in machine classification systems, the dramatic expansion of available information may expand the number of people trapped in programs of preemptive control.

Triggering Backlash

This chapter captures the backlash—increased protests and lower legitimacy—triggered by prioritizing Dibao for targeted populations. The survey of 100 neighborhoods shows that when targeted populations receive Dibao benefits, there is greater contention over Dibao distribution in the neighborhood. Those who are turned away from benefits are more likely to protest and bargain for Dibao. Using large-scale social media data and deep learning to extract unique, off-line collective action events, this chapter shows that welfare-related protests are higher among cities that have a higher level of Dibao provision to targeted populations than cities that have lower levels. Although local administrators are adept at defusing protests, and collective action remains small and localized, people are left resentful and embittered. Data from a nationally representative survey shows that cities with a higher level of Dibao provision to targeted populations have lower assessment of government capabilities, especially in welfare provision and public responsiveness, as well as lower levels of political trust and satisfaction.

Distributing Social Assistance to Preempt Disorder

This chapter discusses how Dibao is funded and shows the dual logic of Dibao distribution using a combination of qualitative fieldwork and a survey of 100 neighborhoods. The chapter focuses on the urban neighborhood, which plays a crucial role in the Dibao application process, as well as the surveillance and management of targeted populations, who are prioritized for Dibao. It provides background on the targeted population program, the functioning of neighborhood surveillance networks, and how heuristics are used to identify targeted populations. This chapter shows how Dibao administrators turn away many poor households who can participate in the labor market while at the same time actively helping able-bodied individuals get access to Dibao who are similarly poor but belong to targeted populations.

Reacting at the Threat of Disorder

This chapter describes an online field experiment conducted across 2,103 Chinese counties that establishes a causal linkage between the threat of disorder and government action in terms of responsiveness to Dibao applicants. Even extremely mild threats of collective action (social instability) prompted higher levels of government responsiveness to Dibao applicants than appeals based solely on economic hardship. The chapter shows how Dibao provision is not only shaped by economic considerations and suggests that individuals who are impoverished but capable of work may also be prioritized for Dibao.

Fixating on Political Order

This chapter provides background on the origins and evolution of Dibao, as well as basic information on the Dibao program and Dibao in the context of China’s other social welfare policies. The chapter traces the evolution of Dibao and illustrates its changing relationship with political order. Dibao originated as a solution to the problem of urban poverty, which the Chinese regime saw as motivating protest and unrest during economic liberalization. However, as the nature of social mobilization changed, so too did China’s conceptualization of political order and its strategy to pursue it. Instead of a means to achieve modernization, political order became an end in itself. The Dibao program evolved into a tool for controlling specific individuals deemed to pose a future threat to the Chinese regime.

Introduction

This chapter outlines the main argument and concepts of the book and introduces relevant literatures in Chinese politics, historical institutionalism, repression, surveillance, collective action, and government legitimacy. It shows how political order—what the Chinese government calls stability—became a central tenet of Communist Party rule. It introduces how seepage emerged, how it works, what its effects are, and how the seepage of political order into Dibao generates backlash.