In Depth

China's rural promise

  • Published 28 May 2009

Conventional wisdom has it that the rural economy of China is either in terrible shape or, at best, becalmed. A study of long-range trends, however, yields a much more optimistic picture.

'Rural' China is a big and varied place. It incorporates the empty, rolling grasslands of Inner Mongolia and Tibet as well as bustling towns and villages that are still classified as 'rural', but look anything but. In the popular imagination, the rural economy is all about subsistence; a place where roughly 700m people eke out a living. This hardscrabble image has been reinforced in recent months by declining agricultural product prices and the news that some 20m migrant factory workers – a key source of cash remittances back to their villages – have lost their manufacturing jobs.

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