China's Rural Reform Over the Past Thirty Years

China’s whole process of reform was initiated in rural areas some thirty years ago. Tremendous accomplishments have been made in the countryside since that time, and rural areas have seen historic and monumental changes. Those changes were able to open the door to China’s “reform and opening up” process overall, for they provided the experimental evidence that a socialist market-economy system would work and should be established. They laid the foundation for sustained rapid growth of the national economy and served a pioneering function in building what is known as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”