The Past, Present, and Future of Commercial Associations in China: Reflections on Theory and the Pathways of Practice

Since the 1980s, three paradigms have dominated the historical study of commercial associations—class analysis, modernization, and “public sphere”/“civil society”—but all three are imbued with and insist upon a binary opposition between state and society. These paradigms produce an understanding of commercial associations as part of a Western-style “bourgeois public sphere,” itself part of “civil society,” standing in opposition to the state. These misinterpretations were only strengthened by the complete state-ification of commercial associations in China after 1949. Studies of the history of commercial associations, trapped in this theoretical pitfall, cannot produce convincing historical research, even with abundant empirical data, nor can they provide experiential models for the development of contemporary commercial associations. Instead, if we focus on practice, we discover that modern commercial associations were part of a “third sphere,” an in-between space within the paradoxical institutional framework of China’s highly centralized government and minimalist administrative system. The semiformal governance mechanism operative within the third sphere reflected the close relationship and mutual shaping at work between the state and local society rather than a binary opposition between them. Applying these insights on the history of commercial associations to the practices of contemporary “commercial consultative associations” allows us to see that the semiformal administrative traditions embedded in the “third sphere” continue to quietly operate, which has immense significance for the future development of commercial associations in China.