ABSTRACT
The Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party in December 1978 marked the beginning of the economic reforms and the close of collectivism in the People’s Republic of China. With this, China had embarked on one of world history’s largest experiments in social engineering. The mere size of the country and its population (9.6 million km2 and almost 1.26 billion people in 2000) automatically imply a wide regional diversity in sociological, economic, political, ecological and ethnic terms. In addition, China’s rural development had to start from a weak resource base: the average amount of farmland per capita is only one-third of the world average, while its agrarian society features high hidden unemployment, low levels of education and healthcare, rural poverty, and large shortages in water and energy.
