ABSTRACT
Achieving a ‘well-off society’ requires not only securing the livelihoods and improving the lifestyles of urban residents, but also those of China’s 800 million or so who reside in the countryside who make up around 65 per cent of China’s population. In January 2003 at a national conference on rural areas, Hu Jintao noted that rural areas ‘face the most arduous tasks to realise the goal of building an overall well-off society’.
