Chasing a Phantom: A Re-evaluation of China’s “Trust Crisis”

A “trust crisis” has sparked public concern and driven state-led moral engineering in China. If China’s rapid development has indeed eroded social trust, it would challenge the optimistic theory of modernization and trust. This study draws on 11 probability survey samples from the Chinese World Values Survey and the China Family Panel Studies, collected between 1990 and 2020, to re-evaluate the development of trust. We do not find evidence of a decline in social trust. The levels of trust in “most people,” general trust in strangers, and particular trust in neighbors have been stable or have modestly increased over time. Examining associations between indicators of social trust and modernization reveals concurrent support for both optimistic and pessimistic theories of modernization and trust. We further demonstrate that survey items on trust in “most people” should be used with more caution in China. The central problem of social trust in China is that the supply of general trust has not kept pace with the rapidly growing demand for this valuable component of social capital.