Потребительские практики китайского среднего класса в контексте конфуцианских ценностей

Азия и Африка сегодня. 2026. № 9. С. 38–48.

Veselova L. S.

The article examines the consumer practices of China’s middle class in the context of the transformation of Confucian values under the influence of market reforms, urbanization, the expansion of the domestic market, and the state ideology of contemporary China. The focus is on how traditional norms of family responsibility retain their normative significance while being reinterpreted amid rising incomes, professional differentiation and the development of status-oriented consumption. Drawing on a comparative historical approach, analysis of scholarly literature, empirical studies, and statistical and analytical materials, the article demonstrates that middle-class consumption in China cannot be reduced to growing material demands or the adoption of Western consumerist patterns. Rather, it functions as a means of reproducing family strategies, maintaining social position, investing in children’s future, supporting elderly relatives, and expressing culturally embedded ideas of a proper and respectable life. The study concludes that the Confucian value matrix in contemporary China has not disappeared under market-oriented modernization but has adapted to new socio-economic conditions, combining with aspirations toward quality-oriented, status-conscious and increasingly individualized consumption. At the same time, this combination generates internal tensions between thrift and conspicuous consumption, collective obligations and personal self-realization, as well as moral restraint and competitive social display.

Keywords: образование, education, бережливость, статус, КНР, потребительские практики, status, "китайская мечта", Confucian values, конфуцианские ценности, frugality, Chinese Dream, China, urban middle class, consumer practices, городской средний класс