Normalizing Private Business in China.

Private business is among the many things that comprise the 'new normal' in Xi Jinping's China. Given the Communist Party's socialist transformation of the private sector in the 1950s and its concerted suppression of 'tails of capitalism' over the next 20 years, it was surprising that it began to legitimize private business in 1978. It did this to address a number of pressing social and economic problems. After a slow start, micro enterprises began to increase in numbers and scale, and the party passed several amendments to the state constitution and revised its ideological stance to make private business a normal and legitimate component of the economic field, and to recruit private entrepreneurs into the party. Nonetheless, the 'new' normal continues to evolve and China's new capitalists walk a vague line between acceptance and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]