Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation: Returned Labour and the State-Finance Nexus

234 Pages·2020·2.339 MB·English

by  Giulia Dal Maso

Risky Expertise in
Chinese Financialisation
Returned Labour and
the State-Finance Nexus
Giulia Dal Maso
Risky Expertise in Chinese Financialisation
Giulia Dal Maso
Risky Expertise
in Chinese
Financialisation
Returned Labour and the State-Finance Nexus
Giulia Dal Maso
Department of Cultural Heritage
University of Bologna
Bologna, Italy
ISBN 978-981-15-6823-7 ISBN 978-981-15-6824-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6824-4
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A
cknowledgements
In between the writing and publishing of this book, the whole world has
changed. In most recent years, many important works that I couldn’t
account for here have provided insightful analyses on the topic I address
in this book: financialisation and its increasing role in governing the com-
plexity of the ‘social.’ Globally, the long transforming wave triggered by
the great financial recession (2007–2009) and the subsequent austerity
intervention have reshuffled the terms through which we have been used
to conceive the boundaries between state and market, labour and leisure,
knowledge and expertise, to a point of normalisation. In this moment hit
by the COVID 19 pandemic, as the realm of the ‘social’ has decreased,
and spaces for actions and public debates are shrinking, financial capital is
taking root more than ever, acting as unique and ubiquitous legitimising
force. As demonstrated by recent top-down intervention, the ends of poli-
tics (whether attempting to address unemployment, climate change, pub-
lic health) are to be achieved through financial means and—no doubt this
is leaving little space for public debate. The object of this book, which
concerns how (financial) knowledge and labour are forged and articulated
within global financial accumulation, points to a new way of exploring and
critiquing the growing role of finance in governing the ‘social’ and how
this dynamic is at play in post-Socialist China. By seeking to transcend
from a moralising lens that unconditionally condemns the realm of money
as solely greedy and destructive, it considers its historical duality and plas-
ticity and argues that, by starting to think of finance as a process of knowl-
edge production, and thus human-made, social formation, it might be
time to rethink its use and potential in tandem with a radical critique of
v
vi ACkNOwLEDGEMENTS
knowledge that points to new forms of appropriation. This book does so
by starting from the underexplored context of authoritarian Chinese
financialisation and its everyday dimension. Through ethnographic
inquiry, the book shows how it is not only time to reconsider the relation-
ship between capital and labour, but also the emergence of new frictions
between the state and the financialised subjects it fosters.
This book is made possible thanks to the extraordinary intellectual sup-
port and encouragement of my thesis supervisors, Professor Brett Neilson
and Professor Ned Rossiter. They have been the best interlocutors I could
hope for. My gratitude also goes to Professor Sandro Mezzadra for his
intellectual generosity, guidance, and for having encouraged me many
times. It is thanks to him that my Chinese adventure started. I am grateful
to Giorgio Casacchia. His support has been essential both for the time of
my research fieldwork and for sustenance when writing. He has not only
shared his extensive knowledge of China with me but, on many occasions,
also used his ‘roman irony’ to downplay academic disciplinarisation and
defuse my anxiety.
A special mention to my friend Braulio (Lio) Flores who passed away
shortly after I left Shanghai. In the last few years the memories of our
time have been the most inspiring and joyful. Lio, you are very much
missed. In Shanghai, I thank Professor Li Yihai; Zhang Sen and Sun weidi
at the Shanghai Academy of Social Science; Professor wang Xiaoming;
Professor Xiao Ming; Xu Daoheng from the Shanghai University; woo
Jueren ‘Marcello,’ an incredible colleague and friend; Francesca Valsecchi;
Sara Ovidi; Luigi Zunarelli; and Jack Luo for their friendship and encour-
agement during my research. This book has also greatly benefitted from
the insightful comments of Stefano Chinellato, and support of my friends
Liv Hamilton, katie Hepworth, and Theo Clark in Sydney. I am also very
lucky to have benefitted from the special environment at the Institute for
Culture and Society where among others Shanthi Robertson has been
a very inspiring figure and from its PhD cohort. My special thanks to
my comrades Mithilesh kumar and Andrea Del Bono who began their
PhDs at the same time as me and to Ilia Antenucci, Tsvetelina Hristova,
Andrea Pollio, Oznur Sahin for their friendship. Big thanks to all the fioi
in Venice for always being there, like brothers and sisters. To my mum, an
extraordinary woman. Last but not least, to Matt for his love, enthusiasm,
and tenacity.
s A
tAtement of uthenticAtion
The work presented in this book is, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I
have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at
any institution. Sections of Chaps. 2, 6, and 7 have been previously pub-
lished in Dal Maso, Giulia 2019. “The Financial Crisis and a Crisis of
Expertise: A Chinese Genealogy of Neoliberalism,” Historical Materialism
27, no. 4: 67–98; Dal Maso, Giulia 2015. “The Financialisation Rush:
Responding to Precarious Labor and Social Security by Investing in the
Chinese Stock Market,” South Atlantic Quarterly 114, no. 1: 47–64; and
Dal Maso, Giulia 2020. “The Precarious Chinese Financial Ecology of
Expertise: Discontent in the Mix,” Journal of Cultural Economy, https://
doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2020.1751676
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Chapter Outlines 12
References 17
2 The Chinese Genealogy of Financial Expertise 21
The Financial Crisis and a Crisis of Expertise 21
The Disputed Landing of Foreign Expertise 27
China and the Neoliberal Order 33
From Aesthetics of Education to Aesthetics of Technocracy 36
References 42
3 Fostering Chinese Talents Abroad: The Paradox of the
Returnees (Haigui) 47
Introduction 47
Fostering Chinese Talent Abroad 49
A New Middle Class Governed “at a Distance” 53
The Credit/Debt Circuit: From Flexible Citizens to Flexible
Haigui 59
From Financial Education to Creative Destruction 63
References 70
4 Circuit of Expertise 75
A Consolatory Relationship 75
Finding a Job in Shanghai 78
ix
x CONTENTS
The Precondition of Circuits 85
What Financial Expertise? 100
References 103
5 Shanghai: The Returning City 109
A Sympathetic View 109
Shanghai Site of Translation and Historical Configuration 113
Shanghai as a Site of Social Re-engineering 124
Pudong as a Zone 131
References 138
6 The Financialisation Rush 143
The Fever 143
Investing as a Substitute for an Occupation 149
Organising the Chinese Stock Market 153
Distinctive Financialisation: The West and China Facing
Financial Crisis 155
The State, the Dahu and the Scattering Power of the Sanhu 162
Sanhu Financial Expertise 165
References 170
7 The Precarious Ecology of Chinese Financial Expertise 175
Ecology of Financial Expertise 175
From the Fall of the People’s State to the Rise of a Financialised
State 181
Financialisation of the New (Poor) Discontents 189
Money: A Social Intruder or Social Unifier? 197
References 206
Name Index 211
Subject Index 217
A
bbreviAtions
ACAA Australia China Alumni Association
CASS Chinese Academy of Social Science
CBRC China Banking Regulatory Commission
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CIC China Investment Corporation
CITIC China International Trust and Investment
Corporation
CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference
CSRC China Securities Regulatory Commission
GFC Global Financial Crisis
HFT High-Frequency Trading
IMF International Monetary Fund
MOE Ministry of Education
MOF Ministry of Finance
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development
SEZs Special Economic Zones
SMEs Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises
SOEs State-Owned Enterprises
UFwD United Front work Department of the
Central Committee of the Communist
Party of China
xi