The Institutional Development of Employment Protection and the Perception of Western Concepts and Values in China

This research addresses a challenging issue, employment protection in China, including unemployment insurance, work accident insurance and the concept of co-determination. Although the ideology of Sino-communism seems to share some elective affinity with the comprehensive arrangements of labor protection in modern welfare capitalism, in reality, the mainstream economic elites of post-Mao China enthusiastically embraced neoliberal ideology in the 1980s and 1990s, maintaining a critical attitude towards employment protection policies through the lens of economic efficiency and productivity. However, since the millennium, the ruling elites of China have started to promote a certain version of an inclusive and social market economy, and Western ideas and discourses on employment protection have become prevalent. This paper outlines the institutional reforms, dynamics, mechanisms and constraints in the development of employment protection arrangements in China since the millennium. Further, emphasis is placed on the ideational level, with a special focus on domestic discussions, debates, discourses and interpretations of “co-determination” from several major Western nations including Germany, the Nordic countries, the Anglo-Saxon nations and Japan. Through the academic “barometer,” the future development of employment protection in China is discussed.