Introduction: Is China moving to a more equitable development strategy?

Global opinion-leaders – some thinking they may need to find a way to beat it and others only wishing they could join it – are disposed these days to marvel at the miracle of China’s swift and sustained economic growth and the brisk pace of its march toward technical modernization. Closer observers of Chinese affairs however, and the Chinese people themselves, know another side to this success story. China’s recent stunning economic and technological developments have not benefited all of its people equally, and the Chinese social order has been marred by the appearance of increasingly stark divides between the country’s “haves” and its “have nots.”