Every year some 15 million Chinese officials are trained by teaching personnel numbering around 108,000 – a volume unmatched anywhere else in the world. There are over 4,500 official education and training institutions in China above the county level, including 3,100 party schools, 300 schools of administration, 400 cadre schools and 600 professional training centers. This book gives readers a rare insight into how China educates and trains its officials to run the most populous country and second biggest economy in the world.

Throughout the 93-year history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China’s cadre education and training can be divided into three stages, each lasting for about three decades:

The first stage (1921-1949) was from the establishment of the CPC to the founding of the PRC. Cadre education at that time was mainly focused on the teaching and dissemination of Marxist philosophy among party members and cadres.

The second stage (1949-1978) was from the founding of the PRC to before the start of reform and opening up when the CPC transformed from a revolutionary party into a governing party. A network of party schools emerged at central and regional levels making a solid basis for socialist nation building.

The third stage (1978-2014) was from the start of the reform and opening-up policy to the present. This new era of China’s official education is characterized by a more scientific approach with the aim of fostering a Marxist governing party that is learning-oriented, service-oriented and innovation oriented.

The urbanization rate in China soared from 29.4% in 1996 to 52.6% in 2012 following an upsurge in the construction of development zones, new urban districts and international metropolises.

China’s urbanization is one of the two major events that will affect the development of human society in the 21st century, according to Joseph Stiglitz, the acclaimed American Nobel prize-winning economist, the other being the next round of the US-led new technological revolution.

Urbanization, an inexorable trend of economic and social development, can act as a benchmark to gauge the economic and societal progress of a country. Since the founding of the PRC, and especially since the reform and opening-up process was launched in 1978, China has witnessed a marked upward spike in the size of its urban population. This trend has accelerated in recent decades, with small towns and cities emerging in large numbers. The authors of this textbook explore the evolution of the economy, society, ecology and culture associated with urbanization, to reveal the distinctive characteristics of urbanization in contemporary China. They examine the changes taking place in towns and cities since the start of reform and opening up, and investigate how the Chinese government has been working to establish an institutional framework to guarantee that urbanization develops in a sustainable way.

Imagine what it’s like to effectively organise and develop a political party with over 65 million (65m) members – that’s bigger than the total populations of many of the world’s most developed countries such as the UK (65m), France (64m), and Australia (24m).

Then imagine that, if the Communist Party of China (CPC) was a country, its population would rank as the 21st biggest in the world. In addition to developing and organising its 65m party members, it had to embed them among a population of 1.38bn people so that the party could lead and guide the world’s biggest population to develop from economic backwardness after years of war and destruction to become the 2nd largest economy in the world within nine decades.

Now, imagine what it takes to achieve that in terms of structure and organisation and you have a good grasp of the scale of the CPC’s achievement from its founding with just 50 members in 1921 until 2015 with some 65m members.

The Communist Party of China: the Past, Present and Future of Party Building gives a blow-by-blow and chapter-by-chapter account of how the CPC got from where it was in 1921 shortly after the founding of the party to where it is now.

China’s spectacular achievements in agriculture in recent decades – whereby it has succeeded in feeding some 20% of the world’s population with 9% of its arable land - have been somewhat overshadowed by the equally astonishing progress in urbanization with the latter grabbing more attention domestically and internationally.

China’s much-vaunted ‘reform and opening up’ started in the countryside in the late 1970s with the change from planned, centralised, collectivised agriculture in commune and brigade enterprises to the creation of town and village enterprises (TVEs) based on the household contract responsibility system which allowed Chinese farmers for the first time since the founding of the PRC to use land to grow their own crops and develop their own agribusinesses once they had fulfilled their quotas for the collective.

This was nothing short of a revolution in agriculture which transformed China’s agricultural economy from one characterized by perennial shortages to surpluses by 1998 – the turning point after 20 years of reforms. Since then, the reform and development of China’s agriculture has gone from strength to strength.

As the authors of this book document in great detail:

The per capita net income of Chinese farmers has trebled over the past decade from Rmb2,622 in 2003 to Rmb7,917 in 2012 - an annual increase of over Rmb540 (US$80);

The growth in per capita net income of farmers has been higher than the growth of per capita disposable income of urban residents over the same period – holding out hope for reducing the urban/rural income gap – one of China’s key long-term goals;

How China’s Yuan Longping - publicly acknowledged by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) back in 1982 as the world’s ‘father of hybrid rice’ - and his team developed a superior strain of hybrid rice enabling China to be self-reliant in rice consumption; Longping remains an active IRRI member to this day.

Shanghai was the economic center of the far east in the early 20th century, when it was known as the ‘Paris of the orient’. Decades of relative decline followed until the start of China’s reform and opening-up policy and the decision to develop Pudong. Since then, Shanghai has regained its status as the country’s leading industrial and commercial center, and emerged as a key city in the Asia-Pacific region.

Today, it is focusing on a four-pronged development approach with the target of becoming not only one of the world’s top financial centers by 2020 but also a global economic, trade and shipping hub. In 2015, Shanghai’s financial sector grew by 23%, contributing 16.2% to the city’s GDP. In shipping, it has supplanted Hong Kong and Singapore to become the busiest container port in the world with a total throughput of more than 37m TEUs in 2016.

Shanghai, the Pacesetter of China’s Reform and Opening Up provides a comprehensive overview of the historical, cultural and social characteristics of Shanghai, its national and global status, and its development before and after reform and opening up. It charts the transformation of Shanghai’s economy, and goes on to assess its pioneering national role in terms of social administration and cultural development. Lesser-known aspects of the city, including the ecological environment and administrative operations, are also analysed in depth. The book concludes with a look at the future development of Shanghai, the integration of the Yangtze River Delta and the vision to create a cosmopolitan city with the capability to allocate global resources.

Initiated in 1978, China’s reform and opening up is regarded as the greatest economic transformation in the country’s history. By changing the property ownership system and altering the structure of resource distribution, the Communist Party was able to reform its former planned economy and open up its closed economic system.

In the decades that have followed, China has pushed forward the reform of its economic, political, cultural, social and ecological systems. It has also intensified its economic interaction with other nations by relaxing, and even abolishing, many kinds of restrictive policies, in the process stimulating foreign trade and attracting huge amounts of overseas investment.

China is now entering a crucial phase that requires even more thorough reform, complete opening up and constant improvement of the socialist market economic system.

This book analyses the experiences and achievements of this process. It focuses on how the country enhanced the role of market forces in its economy, advanced opening up and set up a variety of development zones across the country. Lively and packed with case studies, China’s Reform and Opening Up gives a fascinating insight into how a relatively poor and backward country achieved such rapid development, and how it rose from being the world's 10th largest economy in 1978 to the second largest today.

Cadres (senior party or government officials) have played a significant role throughout Chinese history and particularly over the past century. They were instrumental in helping the Communist Party of China (CPC) come to power in 1949 and in implementing the reform and opening-up process that began in 1978. This elite group in Chinese society has been pivotal in enabling the CPC to bring about social and economic development.

The imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang dynasties was the world’s earliest recognized cadre selection system, and it has deeply influenced the formation of a civil service in the UK and other western countries. Since the establishment of the New China, the selection and appointment of cadres have undergone many changes designed to make the process more democratic, open and competitive.

This book provides a fascinating insight into how China’s leaders are chosen. It explains the basic standards, guiding principles and procedures that are used in the process, and details the examination and evaluation systems, along with the supervisory and disciplinary measures that are deployed. It gives readers a comprehensive and systematic understanding of how China’s leaders are selected and appointed.

Every year some 15 million Chinese officials are trained by teaching personnel numbering around 108,000 – a volume unmatched anywhere else in the world. There are over 4,500 official education and training institutions in China above the county level, including 3,100 party schools, 300 schools of administration, 400 cadre schools and 600 professional training centers. This book gives readers a rare insight into how China educates and trains its officials to run the most populous country and second biggest economy in the world.

Throughout the 93-year history of the Communist Party of China (CPC), China’s cadre education and training can be divided into three stages, each lasting for about three decades:

The first stage (1921-1949) was from the establishment of the CPC to the founding of the PRC. Cadre education at that time was mainly focused on the teaching and dissemination of Marxist philosophy among party members and cadres.

The second stage (1949-1978) was from the founding of the PRC to before the start of reform and opening up when the CPC transformed from a revolutionary party into a governing party. A network of party schools emerged at central and regional levels making a solid basis for socialist nation building.

The third stage (1978-2014) was from the start of the reform and opening-up policy to the present. This new era of China’s official education is characterized by a more scientific approach with the aim of fostering a Marxist governing party that is learning-oriented, service-oriented and innovation oriented.

The urbanization rate in China soared from 29.4% in 1996 to 52.6% in 2012 following an upsurge in the construction of development zones, new urban districts and international metropolises.

China’s urbanization is one of the two major events that will affect the development of human society in the 21st century, according to Joseph Stiglitz, the acclaimed American Nobel prize-winning economist, the other being the next round of the US-led new technological revolution.

Urbanization, an inexorable trend of economic and social development, can act as a benchmark to gauge the economic and societal progress of a country. Since the founding of the PRC, and especially since the reform and opening-up process was launched in 1978, China has witnessed a marked upward spike in the size of its urban population. This trend has accelerated in recent decades, with small towns and cities emerging in large numbers. The authors of this textbook explore the evolution of the economy, society, ecology and culture associated with urbanization, to reveal the distinctive characteristics of urbanization in contemporary China. They examine the changes taking place in towns and cities since the start of reform and opening up, and investigate how the Chinese government has been working to establish an institutional framework to guarantee that urbanization develops in a sustainable way.

Imagine what it’s like to effectively organise and develop a political party with over 65 million (65m) members – that’s bigger than the total populations of many of the world’s most developed countries such as the UK (65m), France (64m), and Australia (24m).

Then imagine that, if the Communist Party of China (CPC) was a country, its population would rank as the 21st biggest in the world. In addition to developing and organising its 65m party members, it had to embed them among a population of 1.38bn people so that the party could lead and guide the world’s biggest population to develop from economic backwardness after years of war and destruction to become the 2nd largest economy in the world within nine decades.

Now, imagine what it takes to achieve that in terms of structure and organisation and you have a good grasp of the scale of the CPC’s achievement from its founding with just 50 members in 1921 until 2015 with some 65m members.

The Communist Party of China: the Past, Present and Future of Party Building gives a blow-by-blow and chapter-by-chapter account of how the CPC got from where it was in 1921 shortly after the founding of the party to where it is now.

China’s spectacular achievements in agriculture in recent decades – whereby it has succeeded in feeding some 20% of the world’s population with 9% of its arable land - have been somewhat overshadowed by the equally astonishing progress in urbanization with the latter grabbing more attention domestically and internationally.

China’s much-vaunted ‘reform and opening up’ started in the countryside in the late 1970s with the change from planned, centralised, collectivised agriculture in commune and brigade enterprises to the creation of town and village enterprises (TVEs) based on the household contract responsibility system which allowed Chinese farmers for the first time since the founding of the PRC to use land to grow their own crops and develop their own agribusinesses once they had fulfilled their quotas for the collective.

This was nothing short of a revolution in agriculture which transformed China’s agricultural economy from one characterized by perennial shortages to surpluses by 1998 – the turning point after 20 years of reforms. Since then, the reform and development of China’s agriculture has gone from strength to strength.

As the authors of this book document in great detail:

The per capita net income of Chinese farmers has trebled over the past decade from Rmb2,622 in 2003 to Rmb7,917 in 2012 - an annual increase of over Rmb540 (US$80);

The growth in per capita net income of farmers has been higher than the growth of per capita disposable income of urban residents over the same period – holding out hope for reducing the urban/rural income gap – one of China’s key long-term goals;

How China’s Yuan Longping - publicly acknowledged by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) back in 1982 as the world’s ‘father of hybrid rice’ - and his team developed a superior strain of hybrid rice enabling China to be self-reliant in rice consumption; Longping remains an active IRRI member to this day.

Shanghai was the economic center of the far east in the early 20th century, when it was known as the ‘Paris of the orient’. Decades of relative decline followed until the start of China’s reform and opening-up policy and the decision to develop Pudong. Since then, Shanghai has regained its status as the country’s leading industrial and commercial center, and emerged as a key city in the Asia-Pacific region.

Today, it is focusing on a four-pronged development approach with the target of becoming not only one of the world’s top financial centers by 2020 but also a global economic, trade and shipping hub. In 2015, Shanghai’s financial sector grew by 23%, contributing 16.2% to the city’s GDP. In shipping, it has supplanted Hong Kong and Singapore to become the busiest container port in the world with a total throughput of more than 37m TEUs in 2016.

Shanghai, the Pacesetter of China’s Reform and Opening Up provides a comprehensive overview of the historical, cultural and social characteristics of Shanghai, its national and global status, and its development before and after reform and opening up. It charts the transformation of Shanghai’s economy, and goes on to assess its pioneering national role in terms of social administration and cultural development. Lesser-known aspects of the city, including the ecological environment and administrative operations, are also analysed in depth. The book concludes with a look at the future development of Shanghai, the integration of the Yangtze River Delta and the vision to create a cosmopolitan city with the capability to allocate global resources.

Initiated in 1978, China’s reform and opening up is regarded as the greatest economic transformation in the country’s history. By changing the property ownership system and altering the structure of resource distribution, the Communist Party was able to reform its former planned economy and open up its closed economic system.

In the decades that have followed, China has pushed forward the reform of its economic, political, cultural, social and ecological systems. It has also intensified its economic interaction with other nations by relaxing, and even abolishing, many kinds of restrictive policies, in the process stimulating foreign trade and attracting huge amounts of overseas investment.

China is now entering a crucial phase that requires even more thorough reform, complete opening up and constant improvement of the socialist market economic system.

This book analyses the experiences and achievements of this process. It focuses on how the country enhanced the role of market forces in its economy, advanced opening up and set up a variety of development zones across the country. Lively and packed with case studies, China’s Reform and Opening Up gives a fascinating insight into how a relatively poor and backward country achieved such rapid development, and how it rose from being the world's 10th largest economy in 1978 to the second largest today.

Cadres (senior party or government officials) have played a significant role throughout Chinese history and particularly over the past century. They were instrumental in helping the Communist Party of China (CPC) come to power in 1949 and in implementing the reform and opening-up process that began in 1978. This elite group in Chinese society has been pivotal in enabling the CPC to bring about social and economic development.

The imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang dynasties was the world’s earliest recognized cadre selection system, and it has deeply influenced the formation of a civil service in the UK and other western countries. Since the establishment of the New China, the selection and appointment of cadres have undergone many changes designed to make the process more democratic, open and competitive.

This book provides a fascinating insight into how China’s leaders are chosen. It explains the basic standards, guiding principles and procedures that are used in the process, and details the examination and evaluation systems, along with the supervisory and disciplinary measures that are deployed. It gives readers a comprehensive and systematic understanding of how China’s leaders are selected and appointed.