ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book talks about an alternative development model that can serve as the precursor to the new development model. The reality in China's case, that modernization does not mean simply making the choice of goals for development, observing and discarding where necessary, and of the means necessary to achieve them. There was also a growing awareness that the development model then current in China, which had as its chief aim the satisfaction of people's basic needs, had drawbacks. At the present time, over 90 per cent of Chinese people can feed and clothe themselves. In the mid 1970s, international aid organizations, third World governments and the International Labor Organization (ILO) continually promoted the basic needs agenda, citing impressive levels of average life expectancy, literacy and nutritional status in countries such as Cuba, Sri Lanka and China, to support their case.
