Conclusiones y aportes a los estudios sobre la relación entre violencia y migración

On top of their wide engagement in local governance and social policy, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC was a pioneer in introducing new business initiatives and putting them into practice. For example, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC was the first NCC in Tianjin to build up its own building - Zhejiang Merchants Building (zheshang dasha), and the first NCC to initiate to establish the commercial bank for Zhejiang merchants –Zheshang Bank (zheshang yinhang) (Interview with LX, officials in Tianjin ECO). Different from Guangdong NCC in promoting business cooperation between enterprises and local governments, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC focused on improving cohesion and cooperation among Zhejiang merchants in Tianjin, aiming to build up the increasingly influential “Zhejiang Merchant (Zheshang)” Brand. In the process of putting up with these business initiatives and realising these ideas, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC interacted with local government departments and district level government frequently, and influenced the local policy implementation.

One example of Tianjin Zhejiang NCC’s positive role in putting up new business initiatives was the experiment of establishing mutual-aid type of financial instituions within their membership enterprises. After the 2008 financial crisis, quite a number of small and medium-sized Zhejiang enterprises (SME) in Tianjin were hit with challenges in manufacturing and sales. Some of them faced the serious problem with corporate finance. In order to avoid the risk of funding strand breaks, these SMEs asked help from Tianjin Zhejiang NCC. Tianjin Zhejiang NCC had always been very good in responding membership enterprises’ requests, and organizing workshops or seminars on the issues that membership enterprises were struggling with. In this case, facing the requests from membership enterprises, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC initiated the establishment of microcredit financial institutions within NCCs to deal with enterprises’ financial problems. In 2010, a small cooperative financial institution – Tianjin Zheshang Financial Group was established within membership enterprises of Tianjin Zhejiang NCC. This small financial institution exclusively provided financial services to Zhejiang enterprises and entrepreneurs, with the mission of collectively responding to the challenges from external and international markets. The operation of this small financial institution was like this: when a membership enterprise encountered financial problems and needed to raise funds from this financial group, it needed to apply both at the Tianjin Zhejiang NCC and the Tianjin Zheshang Financial Group. Tianjin Zhejiang NCC was responsible for checking its member credit history and decided whether they wanted to be this enterprise’s guarantor in this lending relationship. The financial group could lend the funds only on condition that the Tianjin Zhejiang NCC was the guarantor. In this way, membership enterprises helped each other to survive in the most difficult time and minimized any risks through Tianjin Zhejiang NCC. This was one example of “doing big things by holding together”, as stated by the president of Tianjin Zhejiang NCC (Interview with LLG, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC).

Another example was the construction of Zhejiang Merchant Building (zheshang dasha) in the Binhai New Area. In this case, they negociated with local district government to get the central piece of land, and their plan for this area was integrated into the national plan for Binhai CBD area in Tianjin.

In the above two examples, Tianjin Zhejiang NCC sought support from the local government, especially their preferential policy in terms of tax rebate, infrastructure

service, etc., and demonstrated significant influence on the interaction with local states in relation to policy implementation.

6.7 Comparison and analysis

Tianjin Zhejiang NCC’s influence on the local policy process is much broader in policy areas and policy stages. Its policy engagement is not just limited within the business area, but expanded to a wide range of social policies, such as household registration and other social welfare issues. Besides, its influence in the local policy process is not constrained within the stage of local policy implementation, but extended to creating policy agendas and influencing policymakers’ decisions.

Among all the four types of NCCs, only this Decoupling NCC - Tianjin Zhejiang NCC has demonstrated the typical policy lobbying. Tianjin Zhejiang NCC has successfully influenced the local policymakers to sustain the controversial Blue Seal household registration policy in Tianjin. And it has interacted extensively with local government in local business policy implementation in terms of putting its new business initiatives into practice. This indicates that Tianjin Zhejiang NCC has been exerting influence on both local policymaking and policy implementation, and demonstrates the potential of Decoupling NCC to become a promising external actor in the local policy process. However, there are still great constraints on their independence and limits to their participation in certain policy area and stages.

6.8 Conclusion

Why do the Decoupling NCCs develop a strong lobbying capacity and exert influence? The reason can be explored in terms of their origins and networks. Decoupling NCCs focus on building both state and business networks. In the process of exerting their influence on the local policy process, their state network guarantees the channels for lobbying, and their business network guarantees the resources for lobbying. To be specific, Decoupling NCCs’ state links from “origin” and “network” secure the opportunities and multi-channels for them to access the local policy process and approach local policymakers. Moreover, their acquired strong business networks secure the biggest resource to be mobilized in the

lobbying process. This special mechanism can also be summarized as the main characteristic of Decoupling NCCs’ interaction with local states.

Chapter 7 Conclusion

The final chapter of this thesis will draw together the discussion and provide an answer to the question of what NCCs are, how they exert influence on the local policy process and what explains the variation of their influence. This chapter is set out as follows: First, it will briefly present NCCs’ emergence and development in China, and the variation of their development. Second, it will illustrate the main findings of this research by discussing how NCCs influence the Chinese local policy process and what explains the difference in NCCs’ lobbying outcomes. This will be followed by a discussion of the limitations of previous studies. Third, it will introduce other interesting points through the comparison of different types of NCCs. Then I will detail how my study of NCCs contributes to an understanding of NCCs’ lobbying in China and how it contributes to existing studies of external actors’ influence on the Chinese local policy process. Further, I will outline how my thesis contributes to the understanding of China’s local policy process. Finally, I will demonstrate the limitations of this research, and the thesis will finish with some final comments and suggestions on future research.