China Today series

1. Greg Austin, Cyber Policy in China
2. Steven M. Goldstein, China and Taiwan
3. David S. G. Goodman, Class in Contemporary China
4. Stuart Harris, China's Foreign Policy
5. Elaine Jeffreys with Haiqing Yu, Sex in China
6. You Ji, China's Military Transformation
7. Michael Keane, Creative Industries in China
8. Joe C. B. Leung and Yuebin Xu, China's Social Welfare
9. Orna Naftali, Children in China
10. Pitman B. Potter, China's Legal System
11. Xuefei Ren, Urban China
12. Judith Shapiro, China's Environmental Challenges 2^nd Edition
13. Alvin Y. So and Yin-wah Chu, The Global Rise of China
14. Teresa Wright, Party and State in Post-Mao China
15. LiAnne Yu, Consumption in China
16. Xiaowei Zang, Ethnicity in China

Copyright © Alvin Y. So and Yin-wah Chu 2016

The right of Alvin Y. So and Yin-wah Chu to be identified as Authors of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2016 by Polity Press

Polity Press

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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

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Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-6473-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-6474-3 (pb)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

So, Alvin Y., 1953-

    The global rise of China / Alvin Y. So, Yin-wah Chu.

        pages    cm

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    ISBN 978-0-7456-6473-6 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-7456-6474-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)    1.  China–Economic policy–2000-    2.  China–Foreign economic relations.    3.  China–Foreign relations–1976-    I.  Chu, Yin-wah.    II.  Title.

    HC435.3.S587 2015

    337.51–dc23

            2015011705

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This book is dedicated to our teachers, colleagues, friends, and students in Hong Kong

We still remember vividly our first trips to China. Alvin visited in the early 1970s when the country first opened its door to foreign visitors at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. China was at that time a typical poor third world nation: the border city of Shenzhen had no building taller than four floors; restaurants closed at 8 p.m. The street light in the city was very dim and the stores closed very early, so there was not much city life after dark. Even when the stores were open, however, there was nothing for customers to buy except for some very simple necessities. A black-and-white TV, a refrigerator, or an electric fan was considered to be a luxury that few Chinese citizens could afford. No one owned a car, and everyone rode a bicycle or walked to work. Yin-wah's first visit was to her parents’ remote native village situated at the northern part of Guangdong province in the early 1980s. Everywhere there were lush paddy fields and, blessed with a hydropower dam located at the upper reach of the village's river, villagers got a free electricity supply, allowing them to turn on their lights after dark, which was a rare sight in the region. People were optimistic; an entrepreneurial teenage boy took the initiative to contract out pieces of grassland to herd geese.

When Alvin visited China again a few years ago, he never stopped being impressed by the drastic transformations over the last thirty years. High-rise buildings are everywhere, as are modern facilities like high-speed railways, modern airports, four-lane freeways, five-star hotels, fancy shopping malls, and office complexes. The cities have suddenly come alive: restaurants and shopping malls are packed with people in the evening, new buildings are everywhere, and bicycles have almost disappeared. The village visited by Yin-wah some thirty years ago has changed drastically, too. Newly constructed three- or four-story houses are everywhere, replacing the rundown huts built over the generations. Motorbikes and occasionally cars are used in the place of bicycles. Almost all the paddy fields are deserted, as the young men and women have gone to nearby towns or remote cities to take up jobs as factory workers, cooks, waiters and waitresses, cleaners, hairdressers, peddlers, tradesmen, among others.

It is amazing how fast the old China has disappeared and how quickly the new China is emerging. The change intrigues us. We have always been interested in studying the historical processes, policies, and institutions that have transformed China from a poor third world country to a modern nation and allowed it to rise as a global power.

We would therefore like to thank Jonathan Skerrett, our editor at Polity, who encouraged us to write a book telling the story of the rise of global China. This is meant to be a textbook for students and it seeks to provide a comprehensive introduction to China's remarkable economic development over the past forty years. We consider the complicated rise of China historically, the understanding of which traverses narrow disciplinary boundaries. Hence, differing from most prevailing texts, we examine the topic not only from a social, economic, and political angle, but also from a historical and global perspective.

In striving for an inter-disciplinary perspective on the rise of global China, we are deeply indebted to many outstanding researchers who have laid the groundwork, provided the crucial materials, and developed numerous insightful analyses on this topic. In particular, we want to acknowledge the contributions of Giovanni Arrighi, Berch Berberoglu, Martin Hart-Landsberg, Huang Yashing, Hung Ho-fung, Victor Lippit, Christopher McNally, Barry Naughton, Victor Nee, Jean Oi, Jamie Peck, Mark Selden, Judith Shapiro, Susan Shirk, Andrew Walder, Martin K. Whyte, David Zweig, and many others whom we have cited in our references section.

Finally, we want to note that this book project is truly a collaborative effort between the two of us. We devised the concept of “state neoliberalism” together. Each of us revised the other's first draft of a chapter a couple of times. Consequently, we both contributed equally to the conceptualization, drafting, and revision of this book.