Selective Responses to Child Maltreatment In China: Political, Economic, and Historical Perspectives

Background and Purpose:

Child protection has long been considered a core concern of the welfare state and a significant field of social work practice, as it reflects how societies define responsibility, vulnerability, and the boundaries of state intervention in family life. In many welfare systems, the recognition of child maltreatment constitutes a critical threshold, through which certain forms of family behavior, previously treated as private matters, are redefined as harmful to children and become public issues that justify state intervention.

However, in China, although the legal framework has gradually improved and policy discourse on children’s rights has increased, child protection remains limited at both institutional and professional levels. In most cases, the family is still constructed as the primary unit responsible for children’s welfare and discipline, while the state acts as a last-resort intervenor. As a result, child protection is institutionalized as a special response rather than a routine public responsibility, creating uncertainty in the identification, definition, and intervention of child maltreatment. Against this background, this paper examines the underlying logic of this pattern of selective responses.

Methods:

This study adopts a qualitative approach to examine how child maltreatment is defined and governed in China. The analysis draws on legal texts, policy documents, government reports, and historical materials, focusing on the historical construction of child maltreatment as a governance issue and the political, economic, and historical factors shaping its current pattern of selective intervention.

Findings:

The findings suggest that child maltreatment in China has not been fully constructed as a matter of public responsibility, but is governed through a pattern of selective responses. Although state power has expanded and the welfare system has become increasingly professionalized, this situation cannot be explained simply by a lack of policy attention. Rather, it reflects a historically and institutionally embedded structural logic.

Historically, the close relationship between Confucian philosophy and imperial political structures established a family-centered approach to governance. From the Republican period to the socialist era, legal reforms expanded the state’s legal authority to intervene in family affairs, but did not result in the development of a unified and specialized child protection system. In the current context, this pattern is maintained through institutional arrangements. Politically, high thresholds for risk identification and intervention, together with fragmented administrative responsibilities across multiple agencies, lead to responses that are mainly case-based and reactive, often focusing on highly visible incidents rather than routine prevention. Economically, a welfare system shaped by productivist principles and fiscal pragmatism directs resources toward areas with immediate and visible outcomes, placing child protection at a structural disadvantage.

Conclusion and Implications:

Using China as a case, this paper examines the limited and selective nature of state responses to child maltreatment. The findings contribute to comparative social work and welfare research by showing that the development of child protection systems is shaped not only by policy expansion, but also by deeper institutional arrangements that structure the relationship between the state and the family.