Corporate Social Responsibility in the Era of 'Common Prosperity': Analysing the Changing Governmentalities of GSR in the 'CPPZ' of Zhejiang

如果说中华人民共和国（PRC）在过去的一年里在构成企业与执政党国家之间管理关系的动态方面发生了巨大变化，那就太轻描淡写了。从蚂蚁金服突然取消备受期待的IPO（FT 2020）到国家要求中国外卖平台改善司机的工作条件（路透社2021），总体趋势似乎是越来越尖锐地主张企业需要将其活动与中国共产党的社会政治目标相结合。国家主席Xi近平于2021年8月在中央财经委员会会议上正式发起的“共同繁荣”运动（《求是》2021 a）是这些发展的象征。这场运动旨在通过税收改革、扶贫和“鼓励发展”等措施来解决中国不断加剧的财富不平等问题。企业通过企业社会责任（CSR）为社会做出更多贡献（求是2021 a）。虽然“共同繁荣”自邓小平创造以来一直是中共言论的一个特征（邓小平，1987年），但这场运动的发起在“正式将共同繁荣放在议程上”方面具有重要意义，类似于胡锦涛主席的“和谐社会”运动（求是，2021年a）。该活动的启动促使中国企业增加了企业社会责任活动，这些企业寻求与中国共产党议程保持一致，阿里巴巴，腾讯和拼多多等国家冠军承诺大量资金（155亿美元，150亿美元，和15亿美元）（彭博社2021年）。共同繁荣运动呼吁企业在实现中国共产党的社会主义目标方面发挥越来越多的协作作用。政治议程对中国的治理以及中国企业-政府-公民社会关系的动态有着深远的影响。我的研究将运用福柯的治理分析来理解共同繁荣运动是如何改变企业社会责任在中国独特的威权治理体系中的作用的，主要通过浙江企业社会责任活动的案例研究，被中国共产党宣布为“共同繁荣示范区”（求是2021 b）。

It would be an understatement to say that the People's Republic of China (PRC) has in the past year been marked by seismic shifts in the dynamics that constitute the governing relations between business and the ruling party-state. From the abrupt cancellation of Ant Finance's hotly anticipated IPO (FT 2020) to state demands that Chinese food delivery platforms improve driver's working conditions (Reuters 2021), the overall trend seems to be toward an increasingly strident assertion of the need for corporations to align their activities with the socio-political goals of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Emblematic of these developments is the 'common prosperity' campaign, formally launched by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs in August 2021 (Qiushi 2021a). The campaign aims to tackle China's spiralling wealth inequality through measures including tax reform, poverty alleviation, and 'encouraging... businesses to contribute more to society' through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) (Qiushi 2021a). While 'common prosperity' has been a feature of CPC rhetoric since being coined by Deng Xiaoping (Deng 1987), the campaign's launch is significant in 'formally placing common prosperity on the agenda', in a manner analogous to the 'harmonious society' campaign of Hu Jintao's presidency (Qiushi 2021a). The campaign's launch has prompted increased CSR activity among Chinese corporations seeking to signal alignment to the CPC agenda, with national champions such Alibaba, Tencent and Pinduoduo pledging large amounts ($15.5B, $15B, and $1.5B respectively) to CSR (Bloomberg 2021).The common prosperity campaign's call for for businesses to play an increasingly collaborative role in the delivery of the CPC's socio-political agenda has profound consequences for the governance of China and for the dynamics of Chinese business-government-civil society relations.My research will deploy the Foucauldian analytic of governmentality to understand how the common prosperity campaign is changing the role of CSR within China's distinctively authoritarian system of governance, primarily through a case study of CSR activity in Zhejiang, which has been declared a 'demonstration zone for common prosperity by the CPC (Qiushi 2021b).