Dr. Ray Yep is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and Social Administration at City University Hong Kong.

'Yep's book is an interesting and enlightening study. It is full of fresh and fascinating analysis as well as hard data. It is recommended to the specialist interested in rural political economy in China and in its enterprise reforms.' - China Perspectives'This book makes a number of valuable contribtuions to the existing literature on rural industrialization and changing state-society relations in post-Mao China. More particularly, it addresses an important but hitherto largely neglected issue in the literature; the spectacular rise in influence of managers of collectively owned township and village enterprises and its consequences for the distribution of political and economic power in rural China.' - The China Journal

• Part 1 1. Introduction 2. Implications of Understanding Rural Transformation 3. Defining Key Terms 4. Chinese State Meets Social Scientists 5. Research Focus: State-Manager Relations In Rural China 6. Leaping Forward TVE Development in the 1990s 7. The Analytical Strategy 8. Contextualizing Zibo 8. Key Arguments 9. Structure of the Book Part 2 10. Continuities and Discontinuities of Rural Transformation 11. Changes in Institutional Setting 12. New Challenges for Rural Governance 13. Development of Rural Enterprises as a Response to Challenges 14. Institutional Legacies of Mao's Economy 15. Zibo on the Eve of Reform Part 3 16. The Rise of Enterprise Managers in Rural China 17. TVE Managers: Entrepreneurs Without Ownership 18. The Importance of Human Capital 19. TVE Managers on the Road to Political Power 20. Summary Part 4 21. Where Local Government Still Matters for Business Transaction 22. The Parochialism of TVE Development 23. General Infrastructureal Support of Local Government 24. Securing Capital Supply 25. Business Networking 26. A Different Universe for Key Enterprises 27. Summary Part 5 28. Accommodating Managers' Autonomy in Enterprise Operation 29. Motivating the Involvement of Local Government 30. Benchmarking Enterprise Performance 31. Allocating Enterprise Resources 32. Control of Staffing Decision 33. Summary Part 6 34. Evaluating Enterprise Reform: A Local Perspective 35. A Brief Review of Enterprise Reforms in Post-Mao China 36. Indecisiveness of the Central Government 37. Relevance for the Rural Economy 38. Calculations of the Enterprise Managers Part 7 39. Managers Chasing In: Shareholding Reform in Rural China 40. Shareholding Cooperative System: Background and Development 41. Dividing the Cake: A Balancing Act 42. Reform Intensification the Mid-1990s 43. Summary Part 8 43. Conclusion 44. History Matters 45. Towards a Synergistic Perspective 46. Vulnerability of Local Collaboration 47. Concluding Remarks