Consumption in Postsocialist China

Material Culture

In 2002, the National People's Congress designated expansion of consumer demand as the nation's long-term strategic goal, and in 2004, the Central Economic Work Conference formally endorsed a transition to consumption-driven growth. By 2007, China was the world's top producer of cement, the top producer of carbon emissions, the top destination for inward foreign direct investment (FDI), and also the leading market for platinum jewelry and cell phones. By 2007, Li Ning, a three-time gold medalist at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles who had created his own line of signature sportswear that included a line of sports shoes endorsed by Shaquille O'Neal, was wealthier than Tiger Woods. An economy that for three decades (1949–1979) had been defined by the ideals of ascetic socialism had become a twenty-first-century pillar of global consumer capitalism. International luxury brands looked to Chinese consumers for future growth, as did such mass retailers such as Proctor & Gamble and Amway. By 2005, there was cell phone service in all but the most remote mountain villages, and 78 percent of rural households owned a cell phone.

In the final years of the Mao era (1949–1979), state-owned or collectively owned stores controlled retail sales, and customers were supplicants, often forced to accept shoddy goods and limited choices. Rural households relied almost entirely on family labor, local products, and recycled goods to clothe their families and furnish their homes. Few ever purchased anything beyond the limited items stocked by the commune marketing and supply co-op. By the turn of the twenty-first century, multinational retailers like Carrefour and Walmart had aggressively moved to dominate retail sales in markets far beyond the largest coastal cities, and by 2010, China had four of the largest ten shopping complexes in the world, including the two largest. However, the growth was not only in high-end commerce. Rather, as in the commercial revolution in Shanghai during the 1920s, expansion of the luxury market stimulated retail sales and innovation among low-cost domestic businesses. In coastal metropolises and small county towns, peddlers displaying wares on curbside tarps [Page 338]and handcarts crowded sidewalks within a few feet of upscale department stores.

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