Introduction

Abstract

China’s meteoric rise since the 1980s has many dimensions. Between 1978 and 2007 it achieved an average annual economic growth rate of 9.6 % (Zakaria 2008; Jacques 2012: 490) which, despite the recent slow-down, still far exceeds the OECD average. It has the largest capital reserves of any country (Anderlini 2010) and is now the second largest economy in the world by GDP. At the same time, it has achieved rapid improvement in living standards among its 1.3 billion population, lifting about 500 million people out of extreme poverty (UNDP 2016).