• International Area Studies Review
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.93-119
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• 2018

During the period from 2004 to 2013, the China's automobile consumer protection policy-making reflected interest articulation and aggregation among consumers, manufacturers, car dealership and repair companies. In particular, consumers has succeeded in articulating their interests in spite of their dispersed situation by making the efforts to present regulation's revision agenda through the China Consumers Association. And the car dealers put the right to blame the car manufacturers for unexpected vehicle defects into the final regulation through the China Automobile Distribution Association. Finally, due to the active interest articulation of automobile companies, policy making process was delayed or policies that were expected to benefit consumers were promoted to some extend. Therefore, it can be seen that there is a limit to define state-society relations in China simply as state corporatism, and rather it is more important to understand state-society relations in China as between state corporatism and societal corporatism including bottom-up interest articulations and aggregations and policy modification activities of various private or societal organizations.