Zeitschriftenbeitrag von Philipp Köncke, Lucas Erlbacher und Stefan Schmalz
China's Property System in Transition: Tradition, Transformation, and the Realignment of Global Power Dynamics
Over the past few decades, China has emerged as a key geopolitical player. However, debates on property theory regarding this development have long remained relatively vague and imprecise. In contrast, the articles in this dossier paint a nuanced picture of a hybrid property regime in which state regulatory mechanisms, market-driven dynamics, social practices, and geopolitical strategies are closely intertwined. The various articles in this collection explore how property is being reorganized in China amid profound social transformations, global shifts in power, and ecological crises. This dossier approaches the topic of property in China from three perspectives.
First, the contributions gathered here focus on property as a social practice and a culturally embedded form of social order. They explore everyday forms of appropriation, negotiation, and the production of meaning. Through an examination of housing and land conditions, environmental practices, notions of prosperity, and death rituals, it becomes clear how property is produced and stabilized through social relationships, communal uses, and cultural practices.
Second, the articles show that the property regime within China has undergone a profound transformation over the past hundred years. This internal structural change challenges basic assumptions of Western theories of capitalism and ownership, as the institution of property exhibits historical and ideological specificities that are closely linked to the reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and the market. Using China as an example, this illustrates how market mechanisms, government regulation, and party-political control are forming a new kind of relation.
Third, the contributions illustrate that China’s rise as a global economic and technological power is increasingly best understood as a conflict over ownership, control, and the geopolitical order. Forms of ownership, industrial strategies, and technological infrastructures are increasingly becoming the subject of international power struggles. The central question is how the internationalization of Chinese party-state capitalism challenges existing forms of the global economic order and triggers new industrial, security, and geopolitical responses, particularly in the United States and Europe.