AbstractUrban–rural harmonisation has risen to prominence in recent social security reform in China. This article offers an account of the changing welfare institutions and social citizenship configurations unfolded by this particular policy approach. As social activism gained substantial weight as part of the regional developmental strategies of local governments, harmonisation efforts have led to a boundary shift of social citizenship largely defined by the within–without criterion rather than the urban–rural divide. In places where urban–rural harmonisation takes hold, the pivotal criterion for claiming social benefits is the possession of local resident status, regardless of whether this status is urban or rural. The heterogeneity of regional social security developments resulting from social decentralisation also calls attention to the ‘variable geometry’ of institutional change, i.e. various social policy domains manifest diverse degrees of institutional dynamics towards harmonisation. In this light, urban–rural harmonisation is likely to trigger competitive solidarity in terms of regional competition and emulation in economic development and social provision, leading to regional disparities that will shape the future contours of social policy and social citizenship in China.

The rural pension policy in China is characterized by a high degree of instability. In the past  years since the introduction of pilot schemes in some regions, the state has been unable to establish a stable institutional framework for rural old-age security. This article seeks to integrate the theoretical insights from a growing body of international literature on the role of ideas in social policy reform in order to shed new light on the study of Chinese rural pension policy. I argue that the rise of the rural pension scheme and its eventual failure to make consistent progress towards a comprehensive system is directly related to conflicting ideas among bureaucrats with respect to what sort of welfare provision the rural elderly actually need. The fluctuations in this policy realm vividly illustrate the predominance of the policy idea that peasants could still rely on their land and family, supplemented by private commercial insurance, in their old age. Given this alleged self-reliance on the part of rural residents, the state is very reluctant to set up a comprehensive rural pension scheme. As a result, the old-age security of the peasants in rural China is standing on very thin ice, and the prospect for more active state involvement in the near future remains dim.

This article offers an account of the peculiar phenomenon of social policy learning in China, and illustrates the situations in which local policy learning can either facilitate, or constrain, the capacity of the central government to monitor social policy development. Based on analyses of the urban pension reform and the introduction of the Minimum Living Standard Scheme, the article concludes that local activism has become an eclectic tool for policy learning and diffusion leading to subnationalisation of social protection, which poses a challenge to the central government in its efforts of coherent social policy governance.

Previous studies of East Asian welfare regimes focus on similarities between social security schemes. In contrast, this paper explores cross-national variations in public–private pension mixes in six welfare states: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Our research echoes the pension policy analysis of international organisations but takes a step forward with emphasis on the historical and institutional characteristics of the respective pension systems. The analysis identifies three institutional patterns. First, the statist pension system (Taiwan and China) primarily relies on public pensions to provide old-age security, with private pensions playing a rather minor role. Second, in the dualist pension system (Japan and Korea) both public and private pensions work in parallel to ensure retirement income, though a clear security gap exists between workers in the formal and informal economies. Finally, the individualist pension system (Hong Kong and Singapore) is characterised by genuine fully funded individual accounts, emphasising citizens’ own responsibilities for ensuring old-age security. These three types of pension systems demonstrate distinct institutional characteristics and policy outcomes, illustrated by the juxtaposition of their institutional structures as well as by the comparison of key indicators collected from government reports and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics. The paper concludes with a theoretical reflection of East Asian pension policies and a diagnosis of the distinct challenges confronted by each of the various pension patterns.

Shi S‐J, Mok K‐H. Pension privatisation in Greater China: institutional patterns and policy outcomes This article examines rationales and processes for pension privatisation in Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China since the 1990s. It argues that the configurations of the public/private pension mix in the three cases are related to their respective political‐economic development. To achieve the reform of state‐owned enterprises and labour markets, mainland China's pension reforms have concentrated on the combination of social pooling and individual accounts. Taiwan's reforms have rectified the Labour Insurance scheme and established individual accounts in order to alleviate enterprises' financial burdens while facilitating labour force mobility. Hong Kong has strengthened its service industry in favour of financial market fluidity, corresponding to a pro‐market approach that prefers mandatory provident funds as the major pension scheme for workers. The diversification of pension privatisation manifests manifold institutional changes of old‐age security, and raises an essential governance issue for the regulation of funded pension provision to ensure adequate income for older people.