Drawing upon Marxian and regulation theory, this article seeks to identify key dynamics and contradictions of capitalist accumulation in China between 1995 and 2015 and to explain these in their institutional context. To this end, data from national accounts and input-output tables is re-mapped to estimate Marxian categories such as the rates of surplus value and profit. The article demonstrates how the transformation of the wage relation and an increase in the rate of surplus value lie at the core of a predominantly extensive accumulation regime that enabled rapid and uncoordinated growth facilitated by world market integration. In the wake of the global crisis, however, a confluence of contradictions has led to over-accumulation and a decline in profitability, clear symptoms of exhaustion of the accumulation regime that explain the current slowdown under the "New Normal." The underlying contradictions are rooted in the institutional context of the "Socialist Market Economy," but especially in the wage relation, which no longer supports sufficient increases in the rate of surplus value or a regular pace of accumulation.
Since the late 2000s, the Chinese government has been adopting active industrial policies to create a market for electric vehicles. While celebrated as a success nationally and internationally, a closer look reveals a mixed picture with market growth concentrated in only a few cities. On the basis of heterodox industrial policy literature, Chinese-language policy documents and interviews, we develop an analytical framework to empirically study electric vehicles deployment at the city-level, and to assess the achievements and obstacles of implementing industrial policies in this sector. We particularly stress the interrelatedness of policies governing the demand structure of the electric vehicles market and its main complementary sector, the charging infrastructure, which need to be aligned in the progressively more complex segments making up the electric vehicles market. Taking this industry as a case study, we contribute to the wider debate on the determinants of industrial policy effectiveness.
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