ENTREPRENEURS AND ELITE FORMATION IN RURAL CHINA

Towards the end of the 1980s the authorities increasingly were tightening institutional control over the private sector. The extent and effectiveness of these control measures will be discussed in this paper. Firstly, it discusses the social background of the entrepreneurs. It argues that individuals who could exert political authority have benefited greatly from their influence with the local state apparatus, especially in the first half of the 1980s, but that toward the end of the 1980s a new breed of entrepreneurs was emerging, increasingly comprised of younger technically trained people. Secondly, it discusses whether the larger entrepreneurs constitute a new elite in rural China. Field-study findings substantiate the view that institutional supervision functions both as a means of monitoring private enterprises and supporting them. The older entrepreneurs with standing as former cadres and Party members seem to be able to evade government control. But the group of younger entrepreneurs feel burdened and controlled by the public watch-dog organizations. -from Author