ABSTRACT
The rise of the local entrepreneur has clearly been a key feature of the rapid economic growth experienced by the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the last two decades. This reform era has been characterized by the decentralization of economic management, the increasing growth of the market sector of the economy and the restructuring of the state sector, as well as the increasing involvement of external economic influences in the development of the PRC's regional economies (White 1993; Naughton 1994; Keng 2001). Despite the confusing and complex variety of enterprises to be found in this post-socialist phase of development (Nee 1992), the result of all these influences has been to draw attention to the firm and the individual entrepreneur. That the entrepreneur had become central not only to economic but also political development was recognized in the middle of 2001 when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparently at President Jiang Zemin's behest, engaged in a relatively public discussion about the extent to which individual capitalists and entrepreneurs should be permitted to participate in its ranks (Pomfret 2001; Wo Lap Lam 2001; Xu Yufang 2001).
