1. I would like to thank the participants of the workshop held in conjunction with this volume at the Centro De Estudos Asiáticos, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal, for their helpful comments. Special thanks go to Scott Rozelle for his critical reading of an earlier draft of this paper. I also want to thank Cai Yongshun for research assistance.

2. Rozelle, Scott, Park, Albert, Benziger, Vincent and Ren, Changqing, “Targeted poverty investments and economic growth in China,” World Development, Vol. 26, No. 12 (12 1998) pp. 2137–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1998 (China Statistical Yearbook 1998), p. 345.Google Scholar

4. Nyberg, Albert and Rozelle, Scott, “Accelerating China's rural transformation,” World Bank Working Paper Series, Washington, D.C., forthcoming.Google Scholar

5. See, for example, articles in Walder, Andrew (ed.), China's Transitional Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

6. Nyberg, and Rozelle, , “Accelerating.”Google Scholar

7. See Nelson, Joan, “The politics of economic transformation: is Third World experience relevant in Eastern Europe?” World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 3 (04 1993), pp. 433–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Nyberg, and Rozelle, , “Accelerating.”Google Scholar

9. See, for example, Prosterman, Roy, Hanstad, Tim and Ping, Li, “Can China feed itself?” Scientific American, 11 1996, pp. 90–95.Google Scholar

10. See Office of Fixed Investigation Points in Pural China (Nongcun guding guancha dian bangongshi), “Dui dier lun tudi chengbao gongzuo de guancha fenxi” (“An observation and analysis of the second round of land contracting”), Jingji yanjiu cankao (Reference of Economic Research), No. 73 (1997), pp. 32–42Google Scholar; and Office of Fixed Investigation Points in Rural China, “Dangqian nongcun tudi chengbao jingying guanli de xianzhuang ji wenti” (“The current situation and problems of the management of land contracting in the countryside”), Nongcun jingji yanjiu cankao (A Reference for the Study of the Rural Economy), No. 5 (1998), pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

11. Kung and Liu, for example, note that some “villagers prefer short-term contracts … because off-farm employment remains unstable and farming therefore serves as the last resort should these more lucrative alternatives become suddenly unavailable.” James Kai-sing Kung and Shouying Liu, “Farmers' preferences regarding ownership and land tenure in post-Mao China: unexpected evidence from eight counties,” China Journal, No. 38 (07 1997), pp. 33–64.Google Scholar

12. Yongshun, Cai, “Peasant and farmland use in five Chinese villages,” M. Phil, thesis. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Division of Social Science, 1997.Google Scholar

13. See Xiwen, Chen, “Ba-wu nongye” (“Agriculture in the Eighth Five-Year Plan”) in Zhongguo nongye nianjian 1996 (China Agricultural Yearbook 1996), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

14. Kung, James, “Equal entitlement versus tenure security under a regime of collective property rights: peasants' preference for institutions in post-reform Chinese agriculture,” Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1995), pp. 82–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kung, and Liu, , “Farmers' preferences regarding ownership.”Google Scholar

15. Youqing, Gao, “Taiping xiang bufen nongmin weihe gandang hei hukou”Google Scholar (“Why were some peasants in Taiping town willing to have a black household registration”), Neican xuanbian (A Compilation of Selected Internal Materials), No. 21 (1998), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

16. Nan, Lu, “1980–1996 nian nongye shengchan chengben he nongye laodong shengchanlü wenti”Google Scholar (“Issues of agricultural costs and the rate of agricultural labour productivity between 1980 and 1996), Jiage lilun yu shijian (Theory and Practice of Price), No. 9 (1997), pp. 23–28.Google Scholar

17. Yelai, Chu, “Neimenggu xuduo nongmin qigen waichu dailai xin wenti”Google Scholar (“New problems arise because peasants leave land for off-farm work in Inner Mongolia”), Neican xuanbian, No. 27 (1998), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

18. The 135 million represents a 46% increase in jobs from 1990 alone. Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1997, p. 6.Google Scholar

19. See Solinger in this volume and Croll, Elisabeth J. and Ping, Huang, “Migration for and against agriculture in eight Chinese villages,” The China Quarterly, No. 149 (03 1997), pp. 128–146.Google Scholar

20. Zhaomu, Lin and Ning, Shao, Kua shiji de fazhan silu yanjiu (Research on Thoughts on Development at the Turn of the Century) (Beijing: Zhongguo jihua chubanshe, 1995), p. 59.Google Scholar

21. Agricultural Investigation Group of the State Statistical Bureau, “Nongchanpin shengchan bodong dui nongmin shouru de yingxiang” (“The impact of fluctuations in agricultural production on peasant income”), Jingji gongzuozhe xuexi ziliao (Study Materials for Economic Workers), No. 31 (1998), pp. 6–18.Google Scholar

22. See Park, Albert, “Reforming state-market relations in rural China,” Economics of Transition, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1998), pp. 461–480CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sicular, Terry, “Establishing markets: the process of commercialization in agriculture,” in Walder, Andrew (ed.), Zouping in Transition: The Process of Reform in Rural North China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 115–157.Google Scholar

23. See “Liangshi liutong tizhi gaige de yuanze” (“Principles for reforming the grain circulation system”), Neican xuanbian, No. 22 (1998), pp. 7–11.Google Scholar

24. See Rozelle, Scott, “Grain marketing brief,” unpublished ms., 19 09 1998.Google Scholar

25. See, for example, O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang, “Selective policy implementation in rural China,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 31, No. 2 (01 1999), pp. 167–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. For an elaboration of points made in this section see Oi, Jean, Rural China Takes Off: Insiitutional Foundations of Economic Reform (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).Google Scholar

27. See Kung, James, “The evolution of property rights in village enterprises: the case of Wuxi county,” in Oi, Jean C. and Walder, Andrew G. (eds.), Property Rights and China's Economic Reforms (Stanford: Stanford University Press, forthcoming, 1999).Google Scholar

28. Vermeer, Eduard, “The development of the shareholding cooperative system: a property rights analysis,”Google Scholar in Oi, and Walder, , Property Rights and China's Economic Reforms.Google Scholar

29. Jianguang, Chen, “Dangqian xiangzhen qiye fazhan qingkuang ji duice jianyi”Google Scholar (“The current development of TVEs and some suggestions”), Jingii gongzuozhe xuexi ziliao, No. 27 (1998), pp. 36–47.Google Scholar

30. See Oi, Jean, “The evolution of local state corporatism,”Google Scholar in Walder, , Zouping in Transition, pp. 35–62.Google Scholar

31. See Wank, David, Commodifying Communism: Business, Trust, and Politics in a Chinese City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).Google Scholar

32. See Kung, , “The evolution of property rights in village enterprises.”Google Scholar

33. Oi, Jean, “The fate of the collective after the commune,” in Davis, Deborah and Vogel, Ezra (eds.), Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen: The Impact of Reform (Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990), pp. 15–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. See Oi, Jean, State and Peasant: The Political Economy of Village Government (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), ch. 5.Google Scholar

35. For a detailed discussion and examples, see Bernstein, Thomas, “Instability in rural China,” in Shambaugh, David (ed.), Is China Unstable? Assessing the Factors (Washington, D.C.: Sigur Center for Asian Studies, 07 1998), pp. 93–110.Google Scholar Also see O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang, “Villagers and popular resistance in contemporary China,” Modern China, Vol. 22, No. 1 (01 1996), pp. 28–61.Google Scholar

36. See Bernstein, , “Instability in rural China.”Google Scholar

37. O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang, “The politics of lodging complaints in rural China,” The China Quarterly, No. 143 (09 1995), pp. 756–783.Google Scholar Also O'Brien, Kevin, “Rightful resistance,” World Politics, Vol. 49, No. 1 (10 1996), pp. 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. See, for example, Qinglin, Wang and Wenke, Fan, “Jiaqiang nongcun jiceng dang zuzhi jianshe shi dangwuzhiji”Google Scholar (“Strengthening the construction of rural Party organization at the grass roots is a pressing task”), Hebei nongcun gongzuo (Hebet Rural Work), No. 12 (1994), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

39. See, for example, Guoqing, Zhang, Zhiyong, Fan, and Xinge, Yan, “Zhuazhu san ge huanjie, gaohao cunji ganbu guifanhua guanli”Google Scholar (“Seize the three links, manage the standards of village-level cadres well”), Hebei nongcun gongzuo, No. 5 (1994) p. 42.Google Scholar

40. On village elections and their role in village politics see Oi, Jean C. and Rozelle, Scott, “Elections and power: the locus of decision making in Chinese villages,”Google Scholar paper presented at the conference “Elections in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China: Does Limited Democracy Lead to Democracy?” Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 5–6 March 1999.

41. Ibid.