Jacky Jin , Visiting Scholar ‘07

[NOTE: This is the second in a two-part Covering Asia series on China's middle class. See the first part here.]

The U.S. consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has declared that China’s middle-class will become the major owner of the country’s wealth in the next few decades. However, this economic capital can be used for different ends.

The first, given the popular link between wealth and political power, is for members of the middle class to utilize their favorable position to protect and preserve their economic interests. Another option is for them to demand democracy for the masses and play a key and positive role in the course of democratization.

According to traditional Chinese thought, wealthy merchants were disdained because they were considered unscrupulous, exploitative and greedy. That negative image of the successful businessman has changed. As a major beneficiary of China’s two decades of open-door policy, the middle class has raised its status.

Even though the CPC never publicly recognizes it as a social category, this newly affluent group has developed a increased self-consciousness. A great number of clubs and organizations catering to the middle class have sprung up in recent years. However, these places more often provide entertainment than opportunities for freedom of speech or spiritual exploration.

Under government censorship, newspapers and TV stations have to walk away from the term “middle class” and what’s worse, they seldom offer the middle class opportunities to exert an influence in public affairs. But a new market is emerging in the magazine sector.

According to the 2005 China Marketing and Media Study, the number of fashion magazine readers went up from 5.9 million in 2004 to 13.2 million in 2005. Based on a statistical report issued by Beijing Opening Strategy, an independent media market company, there are now around 20 million readers who are subscribers or regular buyers of fashion magazines, and 70% of them are middle class.

Consequently, fashion magazines are virtually insured to play a crucial role in shaping China’s middle class even as they foster an emerging self-consciousness based on self-perception, vision, democratic sensibility and social responsibility. In this context, middle class readers with intelligence and high social privileges will possibly become a decisive factor that threatens the prevailing political system.

I have kept my eye on middle class growth in the recent decade when booming fashion magazines have identified the middle class as their target readers. As the founder of three fashion magazines—Chic, Men’s Health, For Him Magazine–and the author of two books focused on the middle class, I pursued a detailed understanding of this emerging social phenomenon.

WTO regulations obligating China to level the investment playing field and admit foreign competitors have made fashion magazines’ development smooth. Of the more than 8,000 magazines being published around the country today, the 50 fashion magazines earn RMB4 billion (more than US$500 million) in annual revenue and contribute 20% of that revenue as taxpayers in the media sector.

That’s one reason why the CPC positively supports foreign fashion magazine licensing to illustrate its liberalization of the publishing industry. But it’s a tough job for the CPC to deal with this issue.

Readers disappointed with the flaccid mainstream media heavily censored by the CPC delight in glossy fashion magazines that allow access to a wider world and opportunity to explore much personal space. As the western lifestyle pours into China, readers are inevitably influenced by the inherent free spirit of fashion magazines.

And because fashion magazines are the form of print media least affected by censorship from GAPP (General Administration of Press & Publication), they have comparatively more chances for surviving and thus easily affecting the middle class.

Normally they pitch such topics as fashion trends, celebrities, lifestyles, films, books and sports and avoid the three sensitive areas of religion, politics and sexuality. They can be flexible in editing political materials because they don’t have to publish articles sometimes set forth in regulations issued by the GAPP or the Central Propaganda Department.

And while this seemingly mild form of print media occupies a marginal position, it still carries rich messages. On the whole, fashion magazines dramatically attack Mao’s class theory, which sought to eliminate class difference. To a certain degree, the rapidly expanding middle class weakens the CPC’s leading power.

The next question is, how will fashion magazines ultimately affect the middle class during China’s transition period. A related question is whether fashion magazines will fulfill the mission of not only fostering a middle class but bringing along a democratic country.

For now the pursuit of personal wealth and the need to protect profits make it difficult to gather together in public or argue for the interests of other social strata. But entrepreneurs are not only well educated, they are respected for their independent ideas and a determination to pursue their rights. They may emerge as a strong social force if they can find a forum or platform to express their ideas.

[The author is founding publisher of FHM China]