Fault Lines in China's Economic Terrain

The focus of this research is the potential adversities or fault lines (the terms are used synonymously) facing China's economy and affecting its prospects for sustaining high growth through the coming decade. Thus, we deliberately concentrate on what might go seriously awry in the economy and, in the process, slow or even reverse China's double-digit growth rates in the 1980s and high single-digit growth in the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century. This book is the product of a project jointly sponsored by the Office of Net Assessment in the Department of Defense and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Their sponsorship was based on a mutual understanding that their joint support would enable the work to be expanded beyond what would have been possible if funding were confined to one sponsor alone. The project was implemented through RAND's National Defense Research Institute (NDRI), a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unified commands, and the defense agencies. The book should be of interest and use to those in the policy community and the academic community concerned with China and with the economic and security environment in the Asia-Pacific region.