Beneath the China Boom

For nearly four decades, China’s manufacturing boom has been powered by the labor of 287 million rural migrant workers, who travel seasonally between villages where they farm for subsistence and cities where they work. Yet recently local governments have moved away from manufacturing and toward urban expansion and construction as a development strategy. As a result, at least 88 million rural people to date have lost rights to village land. In Beneath the China Boom, Julia Chuang follows the trajectories of rural workers, who were once supported by a village welfare state and are now landless. This book provides a view of the undertow of China’s economic success, and the periodic crises—a rural fiscal crisis, a runaway urbanization—that it first created and now must resolve.

Timp de aproape patru decenii, boom-ul productiei din China a fost alimentat de forta de munca a 287 de milioane de lucratori migranti din mediul rural, care calatoresc sezonier intre satele unde cultiva pentru subzistenta si orasele in care lucreaza. Cu toate acestea, recent, guvernele locale s-au indepartat de productie si spre extinderea si constructia urbana ca strategie de dezvoltare.