ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical review of the current research on rural finance in China, identifying some of its strengths and weaknesses, and proposing fresh conceptual and methodological approaches that can be applied in future research. It highlights the central argument and the need to focus on the role that financial services play in the construction and diversification of livelihoods, and rural development in China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began restructuring the rural financial system and practice through the introduction of rural credit cooperatives (RCCs) in CCP-controlled areas before 1949. To understand the relationship between rural finance and socio-economic development, and the implications it has for rural livelihoods, it provides a historical overview of financial service development in rural China since the founding of the PRC. Microfinance in the global context has witnessed a significant shift from NPO-style loans aimed at tackling rural poverty and improving livelihoods towards market-oriented for-profit goals, known as the financial systems approach.
