This book analyses China's historical experience of industrialization. It adopts a critical stance towards China's development strategy and proposes an alternative approach, outlining its main features. Due to the great importance and special problems of China's rural modernization, special attention is devoted to analysis of the rural sector. Many of China's rural socio-economic problems are similar to those encountered in other developing countries. It is intended that the book will increase understanding of China's socio-economic development as well as contributing to wider debates in the theory of economic development.Foreword - Preface - Acknowledgements - The Dual Economic Structure - China's Economic Development Strategy and Its Transformation - The Rural Economic System and Agricultural Modernization, 1949-78 - The Traditional Socialist Industrialization Strategy and Agricultural Modernization, 1949-78 - The Contract Farming System and Rural Modernization since 1979 - The Change in the Traditional Industrialization Strategy since 1979 - Growth of the Non-Farm Sector and Rural Modernization - Issues in the Analysis of the Rural Non-Farm Sector - Some Reflections on the Theory of Economic Development: An Analysis of the Commodity Economy in Wenzhou's Rural Areas - Conclusion - Notes - Index