China' Social Insurance in the Twentieth Century: A Global Historical Perspective (repost)

In "China s Social Insurance in the Twentieth Century," Aiqun Hu develops a framework of interactive diffusion of global models in examining the history of China s social insurance since the 1910s. The book covers both Nationalist- and Communist-controlled areas (1927-1949) and Taiwan (1949-present), surpassing the party divide. It argues that China s progression in social insurance resulted from diffusion of two global models (German capitalist and Soviet socialist social insurance) until the early 1990s. Thereafter, China s social insurance reforms were increasingly directed by the World Bank s neoliberal models, which also influenced Taiwan s pension reforms. During the entire process, however, global forces provided the basic intellectual framework, while national forces determined the timing and specifics of adopting the models."

Review
"Aiqun Hu s innovative and important study traces China s first century of social insurance. German origins and ILO propagation underlay the Chinese plans to insure the injured, old, sick, and unemployed but competing Chinese interests encountered the challenges of war, revolution, fiscal solvency, and the alternatives of the Soviet welfare state followed by neoliberal privatization. Dr. Hu s path-breaking study of socio-economic change is analytically comprehensive and technically superb. It sets a high standard for comparative analysis of large-scale social institutions in world-historical context." "Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh President, American Historical Association""