Studies on Contemporary China – serie

Since the early 1980s, the People's Republic of China has been building legal institutions where no meaningful ones had existed before. This collection of essays by leading international scholars of Chinese law analyses the accomplishments of Chinese law reform and the problems that confront the Chinese leadership and the Chinese people in their struggle to define the role of law in China. Chinese economic reforms have led to a dramatic rate of economic growth, and have also made China the world's leader in attracting foreign capital. A sound legal system is not only essential for continued economic growth and foreign investment, but its future development will express and reflect the evolution of China's post-totalitarian political institutions.These essays focus on the changing Chinese conceptions of the role of law in shaping family relationships; the effectiveness of the courts in civil litigation; the operation of the criminal process; judicial decision-making; the evolution of a legislative process; the growth of a legal profession; the legal framework of foreign direct investment in China; and China's record as a member of the international community. An overview by the editor identifies the emerging functions performed in Chinese society by the new legal institutions and tries to analyse likely major influences on them in the near future, including, among other contradictory forces, increased consciousness of individual rights and a tenacious insistence by the Chinese Communist Party on maintaining its power.

China is particularly dependent upon her agricultural surplus for financing her ambitious industrialization programme, but the performance of the agricultural sector of the economy has been extremely unstable throughout the twentieth century. Professor Kueh provides a scholarly and authoritative account of this vital part of the Chinese economy during the period 1931-1990, based upon detailed statistical data and other sources of material.Professor Kueh has achieved a unique analysis of the interrelationships between natural, economic, and institutional factors, which lie at the heart of China's agricultural performance. He describes policy changes, technological advances, and natural factors such as climactic conditions, and distinguishes the effect of each factor in the varying level of agricultural production.The strength of this book lies not only in its collection and analysis of data but in the innovative methodological process used, including the construction of a `weather index', which will be invaluable not only for Chinese studies scholars but also for those wishing to undertake similar work for other countries.

This book brings together distinguished contributors to create an essential reference volume on the future of China in the 1990s. The editors and contributors identify the main trends in the economy, cover the important topics carefully and comprehensively, and provide thought-provoking analysis of the likely future directions for China's growth.

This book is an investigation into China's reform process during the period 1979 to 1987, with especial reference to the effect of the process on the industries (mostly manufacturing) that are still owned by the state. The data on which this book is based results from a large-scale study in which the authors collaborated with the Institute of Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. This was a survey of the managers of about 380 enterprises, documenting their responses to the new environment created by the reforms. The statistical information gained has been used as the basis for detailed econometric analysis.This book analyses, drawing on the authors' expertise in industrial economics, virtually every aspect of enterprise behaviour – production and costs, employment, profit margins and profitability, finance, investment decisions, and autonomy. It asks whether the reform programme was successful in the state-owned sectors, and concludes that the answer is a qualified `yes', and that in many respects the enterprises began in the eighties to behave like Western firms.Hay and Morris also construct a model of Chinese state-owned enterprise, and use it to simulate the results of further reform programmes. The authors conclude that state-ownership remains a major constraint on market-led behaviour and efficiency. They argue that the next stage of reform must be to transfer these large enterprises to share- rather than state-ownership.

This book is a remarkable attempt to understand and summarize the current and historical Sino-Japanese relationship: two countries bound by ties of history, culture, geography, and economic complementarity. Through this investigation, the contributors are also able to broaden our understanding of contemporary changes in international relations, and to consider the implications of changes in the Sino-Japanese relationship for the wider world. All contributors are well-known experts in their fields. This volume deals with the history of contact, the economic imperatives driving the links, the diplomatic and political manoeuvrings in which both countries indulge, and the antipathies that mean the Sino-Japanese `special relationship' is far from trouble-free. This book should become an invaluable reference work for academics and students.

Deng Xiaoping has been one of the late-twentieth century's preeminent statesmen. His impact will be felt well into the next century as China's economic reforms begin to have impressive effects, and China's international power grows. The life of Deng Xiaoping mirrors the history of China in the twentieth century - beginning with a rural upbringing, then militant revolutionary activities until the CCP seized power in 1949. By 1954 Deng was one of the inner circle of CCP leaders and although he endured six years of internal exile during the Cultural Revolution, by 1977 he had contended for ultimate political power in China. His actions since then have been devoted to deconstructing the Maoist state, introducing economic reforms while keeping a firm hold on the party-state political system, and building China's international and military stature.This volume analyses the effects of Deng Xiaoping's leadership on China, dealing with his role generally in foreign policy, in politics, in the economic system, in social reforms and in his relations with the military. It will be invaluable to students and readers requiring an evaluation of Deng that is both comprehensive and authoritative.

Chinese Foreign Policy offers an unprecedented survey of China's foreign relations since 1949. The contributors include leading historians, economists, and political scientists in the field of Chinese studies, as well as noteworthy international relations specialists. The principal purposes of the volume are to assess the variety of sources that give shape to Chinese foreign policy, and to trace four decades of Chinese interaction with the world. Individual chapters include consideration of the historical, perceptual, economic, and political sources of Chinese foreign policy; how the international strategic and technological systems impact on China and vice versa; China's evolving relations with the United States, the former Soviet Union, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia since the Chinese Communist Party came to power; patterns in China's co-operative and conflictual behaviour; how China negotiates; China's role in the international economy; and the relationship between international relations theory and the study of Chinese foreign policy. Studies of these subjects are retrospective, but they consider various scenarios for the future evolution of China's relations with the world community.Contributors: Wendy Frieman, Steven M. Goldstein, Carol Lee Hamrin, Harry Harding, Lillian Craig Harris, Harold C. Hinton, Samuel S. Kim, Wiliam C. Kirby, Paul H. Kreisberg, Steven I. Levine, Barry Naughton, James N. Rosenau, Madelyn C. Ross, Philip Snow, William T. Tow, Wang Jisi, Allen S. Whiting, Michael B. Yahuda, and the editors.

The key role of intellectuals in Mao's China has confounded Western scholars. Were they potential dissidents or actual servants of Chinese communism? The Chinese Communist Party could not have taken over China or governed it without a coalition of forces that included the intellectuals who articulated its goals and administered its complex bureaucracy. Deng Tuo (1912-66) - founding editor of People's Daily, accomplished traditional scholar, and critical commentator on political issues - has served as an example of this confusion. His life illustrates an experience of intellectual service in Mao's China that contributes to our understanding of the rise, successes, and major crises of Chinese Marxism in the twentieth century. It also introduces us to the world that produced the current generation of intellectual leaders in China. This biography is a social history of intellectuals as agents in China's socialist revolution. It places Deng Tuo's writings and ideas in rich context of his social experience as a member of the Communist bureaucracy and as an elite artist and aesthete. The tension between service to politics and service to culture was ultimately disastorous for Deng and for China's revolution: his ghost haunts the halls of power in Beijing today.

China's post-Mao economic reforms have generated and sustained economic growth, unprecedented rises in real income and living standards, and have transformed a long-time insular economy into a major trading nation. China now figures prominently in international policy debates about what is to be done to transform the stagnating economies of Eastern Europe. As a gradual rather than an abrupt transition to the market, with public industry protected rather than subject to privatization, China's reform path has confounded the widespread and deeply held belief that gradual reform and public ownership simply cannot work.The contributions to this volume draw out the policy and theoretical implications of China's transitional economy. They lay out the notable features of China's reform path, analyse the successes and failures of the reform, and discuss whether they can be sustained, or whether the uncertain leadership transition, growing potential for social instability, and continuing problems of unemployment, uprooted rural populations, deepening political corruption, and declining central power point to a future fraught with risk and instability.After an introduction and overview by the editor, the first two chapters ask whether China enjoyed advantages that may have made its reform path easier than those of Eastern European countries. The next four chapters examine various dimensions of China's economy: agricultural commerce, property rights, foreign trade, and macroeconomic stability. Two subsequent chapters examine the role of political institutions, and the final chapter, synthesising the lessons of China's reforms, critiques the dogmatism of some economic analysis and calls for greater institutional and historical realism.

This book is a comprehensive study on Japan's postwar relations with China up until the end of the 1970s, i.e. prior to Deng Xiaopin's reform and open-door policies. The study is particularly strong on the detailed account of Japan's deep economic involvement with China initiated by a complex group of pro-China Japanese. This is an important aspect of continuity in Sino-Japanese relations for three decades despite several profound fluctuations in political relations, the 1972 diplomatic normalization among others. The study also stands out in analytically placing this unique aspect of the postwar history of Sino-Japanese relations in an overall political context of Japanese diplomacy, depicting its structure as a combination of compliance, autonomy, and independence policy courses.

China's Military in Transition is the most comprehensive study of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) ever published. Drawing upon a broad range of documentary sources and interviews, many of the world's leading specialists on the Chinese military provide in-depth and expert analyses of China's military modernization programme. This unprecedented volume covers many aspects of the PLA on the eve of the twenty-first century: party-army relations and the role of the PLA in domestic Chinese politics; the changing officer corps; the paramilitary People's Armed Police; troop reorganizations and the demobilization programme; the national security and defence policy decision-making processes; the military-industrial complex and defence industrial conversion; defence finance, budget, and training; weapons procurement; nuclear force modernization; threat perceptions; power projection capabilities; and the military balance in the Taiwan Strait.

Contemporary Taiwan is the most comprehensive and up-to-date study of the dynamic island republic available. Drawing on a broad range of documentary sources and on-site research, many of the world's leading specialists on Taiwanese affairs provide in-depth and expert analysis.This unique volume covers many aspects of Taiwan on the eve of the twenty-first century: the transition to and institutionalization of democracy; the domestic economy and foreign trade; social and cultural developments; science and technology; the environment; foreign relations and international status; relations with China; the history of the Republic of China; and Taiwan's modernization in comparative perspective.

This book, the result of a collaborative effort between scholars from Europe, Asia, and the US, argues that the central underlying theme of China's development trajectory in this century is `reconstruction' or jianshe, a keyword in twentieth-century Chinese political discourse. The impulse to reform and rebuild has erupted on a national scale every several years and include The May Fourth Movement, the Nanjing decade of 192737, The Yan'an reconsolidation and expansion of communism, the Great Leap Forward, the 1980 reforms, the Democracy Movement, and most recently, China's exploding economy. The contributions examine how a range of actorspolitical leaders, village reformers, government bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, women of child-bearing age, intellectuals, members of ethnic minorities, and local cadreshave reacted to these movements and transitions. They also highlight the importance of the state at the local and central level and discuss the prospects for the continuous search for a national identity balanced between powerful nationalist traditions and manifest cultural diversity. In examining these crucial aspects the contributors rely on new material in the form of original research and extensive fieldwork.

This book describes and explains the remarkably large rural-urban divide in economic well-being that exists in China. How did it come about? How is it maintained, in the face of equilibrating market forces? What are the implications for future efficiency and equity in the Chinese economy? The book is divided into five parts: Part 1 introduces the context and scope of the study; Parts 2 and 3 measure and explain the rural-urban divide in income, education, health, and housing, both historically and by means of a household survey; Part 4 analyses the intersectoral movement of factors, both capital flows and the migration of labour; Part 5 ties together the arguments of the work and sets the Chinese experience in the broader context of transition and development economics. The book uses the rigorous analysis and empirical methodology of modern economics. It is primarily aimed at a broad readership of development and transition economists, but China specialists will find much that is of interest.

China's struggle to develop it's legal system is helping to drive an `inadvertant transition' towards democratization in the future. Since Mao Zedong's death, the China Communist Party's (CCP) leaders have increasingly shifted to drafting most of their key policies as laws rather than Party edicts. The result has been a quiet but dramatic change in Chinese politics, recasting the relationship between the key lawmaking institutions: the Communist Party bureaucracy, the Cabinet (State Council), and China's legislaturethe National People's Congress (NPC). No longer a rubber stamp, NPC leaders and deputies, though still overwhelmingly members of the Communist Party, have become far more assertive and less disciplined in their dealings with other top Party and government leaders. Deputies now commonly stall, amend, block, and increasingly vote `no' on proposals approved by the Party Politburo and the Cabinet. China's NPC, like successful legislatures elsewhere, has also used its growing bureaucracy and subcommittees as institutional weapons to expand its influence over policy. The Politics of Lawmaking in China is the first book to examine all of the changing political institutions involved in lawmaking, and show how their evolution is reshaping Chinese politics. Drawing on internal documentation and interviews, it includes new information about how the CCP leadership attempts to guide the increasingly important process of lawmaking, and how this power has eroded greatly since 1978. Through detailed case studies, the book demonstrates how and why the top leadership is often forced to settle for far less than it wants in hammering out laws. Rather than encouraging the sort of anti-communist mass uprising from below that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989, this book argues that China's changes in lawmaking are contributing to a more quiet transition from within the Communist system.

Is the battle against inflation in China now over? Can Zhu Rongji, the economic guru turned Chinese premier who has successfully reduced the skyrocketing inflation of the mid-1990s to a near zero level, while yet maintaining high economic growth through the new millennium, relax? These are the key questions raised by China's current economic transition towards a market-based system, and they both revolve around the institutional economics that is the focus of this volume. Dealing specifically with the giant state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Industrial Reform and Macroeconomic Instability in China unravels the intriguing dynamics between industrial deregulation and inflation, in the context of China's continuous search for sustained, stable economic growth without runaway inflation. This book is unique among western studies: it addresses the very core, but to date least reformed sector of the Chinese economy. SOEs have monopolized key industrial supplies, commanded the bulk of national investment, disctated much of the nation's credit and finance, and have been the single most important source of state budget revenue. Continually faced with enormous internal wage pressures, all attempts at marketization and price liberalization are inherently inflationary. Based upon an independently, specifically designed set of questionnaires administered to 300 large and medium-scale state industrial enterprises in six major industrial cities, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the first decade of the reforms of the 1980s. The findings are formulated as pointers for understanding the macroeconomic vicissitudes that occurred after the launching of the campaign to create a 'socialist market economy' in the early 1990s. This book will be of use to China analysts, students, and businessmen who are interested in learning about the progress made, the remaining obstacles that the state-owned enterprises face, and their inevitable impact on China's economic growth and stability.

Centre and Provinces: China 1978-93 goes beyond the dominant state capacity paradigm to argue for an interactive model to explain the political relations between the central and provincial governments in contemporary China. The uni-dimensional, centrist perspective of the state capacity paradigm has failed to adequately explain the coexistence of central and provincial power, and to anticipate circumstances of change. In this book a hybrid rational-choice cum institutional approach highlights the mutual power of both the Centre and the provinces. each party, the Centre or the provinces, imposes structural constraints upon the other. Power is not a zero-sum game. The cases of Shanghai and Guangdong, important resourceful provinces under very different central policy contexts, contrast possible interactions between central policy and provincial choice. Conflicts amidst a context of mutual dependence necessitate compromise on both sides, and qualitative changes to centreprovince relations as a result may well have long-term implications for wider political processes.

At the heart of China's remarkable economic growth is a new economic system, which has emerged out of radical reforms in virtually all areas of economic activity. Understanding this system is the key to understanding the Chinese economy. This book, the culmination of many years of research in Hong Kong and China, is a comprehensive account of these systemic reforms, as well as of their transferability to other economies in transition. The starting-point of Dr Chai's analysis is a careful examination of the structural elements of China's new economic system, focusing particularly on the decentralization of property rights in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. There follows a detailed analysis of changes in the functional elements of the system: its price and financial mechanism. An assessment of the open-door policy also considers the twin impact of the liberalization of China's foreign trade and foreign investment regimes. Finally, China: Transition to a Market Economy highlights the increasingly important role of the non-state sector in facilitating economic growth and structural transformation.

What does it mean to be Chinese? How did the major political events of the early 20th century affect the everyday lives of ordinary people in China? This book uses a wealth of new sources, including newspapers, memoirs, interviews, and photographs, to look at the political history of the period and to understand the ways in which politics intersected with the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people. To be a modern citizen of the Chinese republic meant repudiating much of the very ritual that had previously defined one as Chinese. As we follow the changes in everyday life, ranging from the unbinding of women's feet to the commemoration of the events of the a new republican history, we see the complex interactions between an ever more activist state and its new citizens.

In modern China, technocratic utopias go side by side with moral panics. The modernization process is seen as creating the `disorders' of criminality, sex, and modern youth culture. The official answer to disorder is an exemplary societyan educative and disciplinary society where `human quality' and model behaviour is advocated. Modern Chinese society, however, resists being reduced to the exemplary discipline of its social engineers, and strategies of `lying' and resisting control are routine. This pathbreaking study analyses traditional and modern Chinese beliefs about and reactions to education, discipline, human improvement, and social control. Although these reactions to modernity have a Chinese colouring, they are not exclusive to the Chinese culture. By describing the terra incognita of China, The Exemplary Society also describes something about ourselves.

This book testifies to the accomplishments of Republican studies during the 1980s and early 1990s. Reviewing many aspects of contemporary research, it covers the transition from the late Qing dynasty to the Republic; agricultural development from the mid-1890s to 1937; the political aspects of twentieth century Chinese urban history; the problems of capacity building for Republican era governments; political party organization, finance, and military matters; Shanghai's modernization process; the politics of the Kuomintang during the Nanjing decade and its relationship with fascism; and Republican-era diplomacy.

In the coming decades environmental issues will play an increasing role in China's economic development drive, internal politics, legal development, international relations, and regional development issues. While several books have appeared in the 1990s which describe tangible aspects of China's environmental degradation, this book concentrates its attention on management of China's environment within various contexts and represents the state of thinking on the subject by some of the world's key social scientists in this field. It contains an international perspective of environmental problems in China often lacking in books about the Chinese environment. Chapters discuss environmental degradation in Chinese history, organisation of China's environmental protection network, the legal framework for environmental protection, agricultural land issues, water issues, biodiversity, energy, pollution, public health, and business opportunities for foreign firms. While this book shows that there is lots of room for optimism, it also indicates that many environmental problems remain intractable and some are worsening.

This analysis of the political economy of growth in the era of Deng Xiaoping takes issue with the growth-accounting methodologies and market-centred explanations which characterize so much of the literature on transition-era China. By adopting an approach which echoes the pioneering work of Chalmers Johnson, Alice Amsden, and Robert Wade on other East Asian Economies, and which makes full use of the rich statistical materials that have become available since 1978, this book shows that Chinese growth was driven by a combination of state-led industrial policy and the favourable infrastructural legacies of the Maoist era. And in giving due weight to the sheer complexity of the growth process by looking in detail at the experience of four very different Chinese regions, it avoids over-simplistic macroeconomic generalization. Nevertheless, even this type of approach is inadequate, because it fails to explain why industrial policy has been so much more successful in China than in other countries. This book therefore goes beyond the 'development state' approach to argue that state autonomy in China reflected the remarkably equal distribution of income and wealth at the end of the 1970s and, paradoxically, the destruction of party structures and institutions during the Cultural Revolution. The policy implications are stark. The Chinese experience demonstrates that industrial policy and state spending on physical and social infrastructure can produce rich rewards; conversely, slavish reliance on foreign direct investment and trade are likely to limit the pace of growth. But attempts to replicate China's success in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia will fail because their governments will not resist rent-seeking by classes and interest groups. Moreover, as the state becomes weaker in the wake of the re-emergence of a powerful capitalist class, even Chinese growth may prove unsustainable.

This book analyses the decollectivization reform in China during the early 1980s in order to gauge the impact of post-Mao decentralization on central control and provincial discretion. The volume challenges the notion that the decision to decentralize administrative authority ipso facto produces local discretion properly keyed to local conditions. In fact, outcomes often differ from the intended goals.While, generally, local interests and central-local clientilistic networks determine the policy responses of the provinces, bureaucratic careerism also plays a crucial role. In the case of post-Mao decollectivization, national-level analyses suggest that a majority of provinces adopted household farming neither too quickly nor too slowly, since both 'pioneering' and 'resisting' entailed potentially enormous political risks. Once Beijing's preference appeared firmly fixed, however, they all quickly bandwagoned by popularizing the policy as swiftly as possible. Three detailed case studies of Anhui as a pioneer, Shandong as a bandwagoner, and Heilongjiang as a resister further highlight the evolutionary process in which provincial variations came to be replaced by uniform compliance imposed by Beijing.Theoretically, this study contends that the overall scope of local discretion is circumscribed by the dominant norms and incentive relations embedded in the implementation dynamics. Methodologically, the book employs a combination of aggregate analyses and comparative case studies. Empirically, on the basis of newly available materials (including classified documents) and interviews, it challenges the 'peasant-power' school which has somehow allowed local governments to evaporate in its descriptions of post-Mao decollectivization.

China's remarkable economic transition and capacity for dynamic growth has stunned the world. Throughout the period of economic reform, China has been moving towards the creation of a labour market. The scale of this transformation is unprecedented. New economic incentives, vast labour migration, draconian retrenchment of state workers, and sharply rising wage inequality are all characteristic of this unique transition.Drawing on more than a decade of survey-based research, the authors systematically document and analyse this important transformation. They use economic and sociological theory, institutional analysis and political economy to fully explain the causes, pressures, obstacles and consequences of the move towards a labour market in China. It is argued that much progress has been made towards the creation of a labour market but that the process is far from complete.

Leading scholars in various fields give their views of development in the People's Republic of China since 1949, with emphasis on recent decades. After a broad overview of progress and setbacks, specific topics covered include national political reform, the Chinese Communist Party in power, the economy, rural reform, urban systems, the environment, foreign relations, the People's Liberation Army, the legal system, social welfare reform, intellectuals, art, and literature. Overall the volume presents a picture of the PRC that is not as healthy as optimists maintain nor in such a disastrous state as many pessimists have put forward. Increasingly, external developments will be shaping the pace of change in the People's Republic. The ability of the government to continue to respond in a measured fashion to change will be necessary if the PRC is to thrive in the twenty-first century.

During 1957 and 1958 Mao was seized by a vision that the Chinese economy could develop rapidly in leaps and bounds by relying on intuition and mass spontaneity. As a consequence, he single-handedly launched a colossal mobilization campaign called the Great Leap Forward, which featured many radical policy innovations, including the people's communes. This book is the first in-depth and original study of policy formulation and implementation during the Leap to link the roles of Mao, the central leaders, the ministries, and the province of Guangdong. Rejecting the theory that the Leap was an outcome of bureaucratic politics and competition, the study establishes beyond doubt the supreme and dominant position of Mao in initiating and commanding the Leap. Alfred L. Chan goes further than propounding a Mao-dominant model by documenting the strategic and tactical moves made by Mao in order to neutralize all opposition and to carry the day. He also discusses in detail the policy roles and input of other top leaders on whom the improvising Mao relied to feed his imagination and to flesh out his policies. In the chapters on the implementation of the Leap, Dr Chan explores how the ministries of Metallurgy and Agriculture were transformed from bureaucratic agencies into agents of mobilization, and how impossible targets forced them to keep up appearances by focussing on the rituals of mass mobilization. Similarly, other chapters on Guangdong show the simultaneously fervent, ritualistic, and desperate attempts to implement every hunch and intuition emanating from the centre. Exhaustive research using new material made available in the post-Mao era, as well as archives from the 1950s and 1960s, has yielded novel and original insights into the leader Mao, central decision-making, and policy implementation in the communist hierarchy.

The authoritarian Chinese regimes governing Taiwan, Mainland China, and Hong Kong allowed limited electoral competition during the last half century. In Taiwan that process evolved over more than three decades before leading to the formation of an opposition party under martial law in late September 1986 and the blossoming of full democracy in March 2000 when that opposition party replaced the ruling party. In Mainland China and Hong Kong, limited electoral competition has only evolved over the last fifteen years or so.This volume examines why and how limited electoral competition developed in Greater China. The editors use a typology and different concepts to analyse how the political centre in these three Chinese societies historically interacted with society and how different regime change took place. Their analysis attributes Taiwan's robust electoral competition under martial law to political breakthroughs in the political, ideological, economic, and organizational marketplaces.Without similar political breakthroughs in Mainland China and Hong Kong, their limited electoral processes are not likely to lead to the election of one or more opposition parties in Mainland China and the direct election of a Hong Kong governor and parliament. These two authoritarian regimes have adopted different institutions, or rules, to limit electoral competition. Moreover, different changes have been taking place in their political, ideological, economic, and organizational marketplaces than occurred in Taiwan. Therefore, whether these two Chinese societies can mimic the Taiwan democratization path remains problematic. Only the passage of time will reveal whether their limited electoral competitive processes can transform into full democracy.

Combining remarkable economic transition and dynamic growth, China may well have the most fascinating economy in the world. Over the period of economic reform China has moved from an administered labour system towards the creation of a labour market. The scale of this transformation, involving new economic incentives, vast labour migration, draconian retrenchment of state workers, and sharply rising wage inequality, is unprecedented in world history.The authors draw on more than a decade of their research to document and analyse this process. The book uses the rigorous analysis and empirical methodology of modern economics. Much of the evidence used is survey-based but a systematic approach is adopted: economic and sociological theory, institutional analysis and political economy are also used to explain the causes, pressures, obstacles and consequences of the move towards a labour market. It is argued that much progress has been made towards the creation of a labour market but that the process is far from complete. This is reflected in the growing importance of productivity to wages, on the one hand, and the growing wage segmentation across regions and firms, on the other. The underlying policy issue is the tension and trade-off between efficiency and equity objectives, stressed throughout the book.Because the subject is of such importance and general interest, the book is written for development economists, labour economists, and transition economists as well as for China specialists.