Reform and the process of economic restructuring in rural China: a case study of Yuhang, Zhejiang

Chinese reforms initiated at the end of 1970s have brought a profound change to its rural economy. The rapid economic growth and restructuring over the last two decades spurs the interest of many scholars in studying the nature and process of change in rural China at different scales and from a variety of perspectives. Using Yuhang in Zhejiang Province as a case, this study reveals dynamic processes and operating mechanisms of rural economic changes at a local level, and the interweaving relationships among the state, local governments, and peasants under the reformed institutional framework of rural development. The political economy of decentralisation and liberalisation, local government initiatives, and spontaneous coping strategies of peasants have penetrated the entire process of economic growth and restructuring, as evidenced in the displacement of the agricultural sector and in the shift of the role played by township enterprises, villages enterprises, and household enterprises in Yuhang. The pattern of change unveiled in the case of Yuhang neither confirms nor denies entirely the experience of the Sunan, Wenzhou, or Zhujiang models studied extensively in the literature. What is involved in this restructuring process at the local level are the changing relations between peasants and the land, individuals and collectives, and peasant workers and rural enterprises.