The Dibao Recipients

After the Chinese leadership became cognizant of the negative social externalities of marketization--especially potential threats to its hallowed objectives of social stability and successful state enterprise reform--it initiated a novel welfare approach, the dibao, to handle the people most severely affected by economic restructuring. I review the state’s management of these people and the latter’s experiences. I argue that they are seen subliminally (if not explicitly) by the elite as a menace to officialdom’s modernization ambition. Hence, the dibao is structured so as to keep its targets quiet and out of view, now and into the future.