Transforming Rural China

Over the last four decades, China has witnessed dramatic economic growth, transforming into an economic powerhouse with considerable consequences for its rural regions. In this timely book, Guy M. Robinson adeptly navigates the principal elements, key events and significant changes of the transformation of China’s countryside.

Chapters assess economic, social, and environmental aspects of China’s rural transformation, examining the central role of the Chinese Communist Party and government policies in shaping this change. Offering an interdisciplinary perspective, Robinson comprehensively explores the key events in the transition from a rural peasant society to a countryside that is a complex mosaic of ‘hollowed’ villages, ‘desakota’ peri-urban fringes, farming landscapes, tourist attractions, new villages, ‘left behind’ children and elderly, wholesale rural poverty alleviation, and degraded and newly restored ecosystems.

This book will prove to be an essential read for academics and students of geopolitics, human geography, environmental studies, economics and finance, and development studies focusing on China. It will also be an invigorating read for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Chinese and Asian studies.

Guy M. Robinson, Adjunct Professor, Department of Geography, Environment and Population, School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia; Senior Departmental Fellow, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, UK