Informal Liberalization

Abstract

As the Chinese state, willingly or unwillingly, withdraws from people’s daily lives, Chinese society has acquired an ever-larger space for its own initiatives, and a trend towards informal liberalization has clearly gained momentum. Informal liberalization refers to an expansion, without full institutionalization, of the party’s zone of indifference as well as the relatively autonomous activities of the society. The trend of informal liberalization started at the dawn of reform in 1978 and has gained particularly strong momentum since the early 1990s, as freewheeling market forces and changing economic and social structures have driven society towards greater diversity and autonomy.