| Summary/Abstract |
While "the second generation of the rich" (富二代 Fuerdai) has received plenty of attention and criticism in modern China, this article pays attention to the ways in which they are stepping up to play a key role in China's economy as they hit their 20s and 30s. We are particularly interested in the roles played by the Fuerdai in the process of industrial restructuring and the ways in which China's coastal clusters have been evolving with the formation of a new generation of entrepreneurs. This article examines a specific apparel cluster in Ningbo, China. It compares two types of enterprises through the lenses of three categories—political, functional, and cognitive lock-in—to understand the ways in which the Fuerdai is bringing new life into the local cluster. We show that the new-style enterprises, created by the succession of a new generation, often display more openness, and therefore features of cognitive, functional, and political lock-in may be broken.
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