Channels and Logistical Power: Making a ‘Perfect Market’ under Authoritarian Rule in China

This article probes the changing relation between commodity circulation and state power in China by focusing on Yiwu Market, which Xi Jinping has repeatedly praised as an exemplar for future development. In the state-owned and managed marketspace, government deregulated commercial transactions provide logistical services and impose strict social control to ensure an overarching order for transactions. Individual traders in the market efficiently establish in-person connections (channels) to achieve precise tailored matches between supply and demand, resulting in a nearly ‘perfect’ market condition. This has generated ‘logistical power’, namely government’s dominance over private actors through the facilitation of economic circulation without direct interference. Changes in logistical power may affect both economic life and state power in China.