Based on Party and state documents, Chinese newspaper reports and surveys, the Chinese and Western scholarly literature and the author's own fieldwork, this important study examines the private sector as a case study of the mechanics of reform in China, emphasizing the relationships among local officials, private businesses, and central policy. The book traces the growth of private business in China since 1978 and focuses on the interaction between private sector policy and other reforms and examines how this has affected China's political economy.

Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 Reviving Private Industry and Commerce; Chapter 3 Responses to the Private Sector Revival; Chapter 4 Overcoming Material Constraints; Chapter 5 Changes in the Private Sector; Chapter 6 The Private Sector and State Control; Chapter 7 Into the 1990s: Reassessing the Role of the Private Sector;

Susan Young is a visiting fellow at the Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen, where she is pursuing research on ownership and control issues in China's rural enterprises. She formerly taught Chinese language and studies at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, and has made frequent visits to Sichuan, where her fieldwork is based.