Approaches to rural transformation

Following a Preface which contains a rationale for the book and provides acknowledgements, the opening chapter outlines some of the guiding principles of the ensuing analysis. It introduces the notion of transitions but discusses the Chinese characteristics that have produced a highly distinctive aspect to rural development. It is these characteristics that have transformed both urban and rural China since the opening-up of the economy from the late 1970s. For example, whilst embracing many aspects of the capitalist economy, there remains strong central government control of both economy and society through the activities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet there are also long-standing aspects of Chinese society that are still present, such as Guanxi, emphasising family, relatives, and extended family networks in many aspects of life. This has helped shape the transformation in a different way to equivalent transitions experienced in the West. So, conventional transition theory is hard to apply in the Chinese context. Instead, the book introduces relevant Chinese characteristics throughout while also using notions of trajectories and path dependence that originated in industrial geography but which have been utilised to help understand agricultural development. The chapter concludes with a diagram representing a schematic framework for the book.