Emerging Middle Class and Civil Society in China in the Begining of the XXI Century

Significant research on Chinese civil society and its development has been carried out in recent years. Civil society studies are especially important because they help to understand the way Chinese society is going to change in the future and how will it influence the political and economic stability in China and the region. Previous research mostly explored specificities of Chinese civil society from the point of its relationship with the state. The purpose of this paper was to study Chinese civil society through the eyes of the middle class, which is the foundation of civil society. To accomplish this, we are planning to conduct a series of interviews with young representatives of the Chinese middle class, in order to outline their understanding of the concept of civil society. We expect interviewees to have a different understanding of civil society than we have in the West, and we expect those differences to be explained through specificities of middle-class formation in China.