The social capital for self-employment in transitional China

This chapter is to unearth the ways in which social and commercial networks, or guanxi, are built and used in trading antiques, especially ancient jade, among business people in China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. There is an old Chinese saying, ‘Buying gold in war time, while collecting antiques in prosperous era’. The rapid economic growth in Taiwan and Hong Kong after World War II has nurtured a wealthy upper and middle class that emerged in the 1980s, which has gradually learned to cultivate the traditional taste of collecting precious ancient jade so as to enrich its cultural capital. This ancient jade fever has not only occurred in Taiwan and Hong Kong but also is happening in China today. The fast-growing economic development of the past thirty years has nurtured a high-income upper and middle class to emerge in China. This class has the similar habitus to collect ancient jade, in a similar fashion to Taiwan and Hong Kong.