China’s Contained Resource Curse: How Minerals Shape State-Capital-Labor Relations 

As a country rich in mineral resources, China remains surprisingly overlooked in the ‘resource curse’ discourse. This is the first monograph on the socioeconomic and political impacts of mineral resources on contemporary China. This book takes a novel perspective on the resource curse by disaggregating society into three key actors, the state, capital, and labor. It tells nuanced stories about the distinctive effects of mineral resources on the state-capital-labor triad in China. Taking a subnational approach, this research zooms in on local situations and identifies clear causal channels through which mineral resources affect local development and governance as well as the welfare of local citizens. Characterizing mining industries as pro-capital and anti-labor, this research also highlights the redistributive roles that the state can play to address the unfair game. It reveals the Chinese state’s strategies to contain the resource curse and also pinpoints some pitfalls of the China model, which offer important policy implications for China and other resource-rich countries. 

More information: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009049757