Policing Socialist Economic Order in China

Juan Wang, McGill University

While scholars highlight the rapid growth of private sector in China in the 1990s and 2000s, what has been neglected is the fact that, during the golden age of private investment, Chinese legal scholars also voiced strong support for criminalization as regulatory tools in the economy, and the police frequently joined initiatives to “rectify” “socialist economic order.” Drawing from the annual Chinese Communist Party Central Committee meeting records on economic affairs, Ministry of Public Security associated news and work reports, and reports from the business newspaper Caixin, this paper reveals the expansion of police operation in economic crimes at the peak of private investment. Authorized by the new 1996 Criminal Procedural Law, the police replaced the procuratorate as the main investigative force fighting economic crimes. Amid escalating social grievances since the 1990s and a mandate to “build a harmonious society,” the financially and politically strengthened police repeatedly targeted newly defined economic crimes. This paper invites reflections on the role of the criminal justice system in a "Socialist economic order."

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 43. Discourse, Governance, and Social Control in Modern China