ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals mainly with the Chinese approach to the first, narrower set of problems: China's state of rural backwardness and degeneration at the time of the Communist revolution; the path of accelerated rural reconstruction, practically without foreign help; the skillful use of indigenous factors and resource mobilization. During twenty-seven years of gradual but rapid independent and original evolution, the Chinese model of social and economic development has become ever more interesting. The Chinese model is based on the premise that, contrary to what most other development models predicate, agriculture and rural reconstruction are the keys to the global improvement of society. On her way, China has encountered problems and obstacles which are exemplary of those most nations of the Third World have to face in their struggle out of underdevelopment, inequality, and dependence and toward modernization and prosperity.
