This chapter concentrates on the two critical phases of China’s economic boom, both based on initiatives from the grassroots of society. The first phase was the rural labor force moving into non-farming jobs, with the rise of rural industries (township and village enterprises), and the second was rural-to-urban migration, with rural migrants working on manufacturing production lines and in construction in cities. It demonstrates that China’s economic boom was largely a bottom-up process, led by initiatives of the population, in particular the rural population, who made up to 80 percent of the total population at the start of this process.