The Market and Social Trust in Modern China: Economic and Sociological Analysis

The article examines institutional trajectories of social trust formation in China. According to the Chinese model, the integration of technological innovations such as social credit and algorithmic governance has contributed to the transformation of informal trust (guanxi) into formal institutions. The cultural factor deepens the divergence: Confucian collectivism legitimizes vertical trust in China. Digital transformation poses new challenges: China balances between the effectiveness of big data and the risks of authoritarianism. Almost the entire methodological basis of Chinese sociological views was formed on the basis of anti-performative attitudes towards Western concepts of the market. Another important conclusion is the understanding that economic decisions are based not on the postulates of Western textbooks, but on practical knowledge and wisdom based on the unique cultural soil of the Chinese “society of acquaintances”, which suggests the creation of indigenized theories in the sociology of the market. Chinese society, which is rapidly developing a market economy, still continues the tradition of “familiar society”, and the way of thinking and behavior of “familiar people with relationships” dominates market behavior.