GLOBAL UNIVERSITY FOR SUSTAINABILITY BOOK SERIES Ten Crises The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949–2020) Wen Tiejun Global University for Sustainability Book Series Series Editors Lau Kin Chi, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China Sit Tsui, Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China, Southwest University, Chongqing, China 全球大学堂官网：https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/ 国仁全球大学堂：https://space.bilibili.com/679619486 微信公众号：Global U The book series aims to publish books and monographs drawing on the expertise of the Global U Founding Members by offering a succinct analysis of global crises affecting the ecological, social, political, and economic aspects, as well as to explore transformative visions and praxis for sustainability. Some books may be translated from their original language into English. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16706 Wen Tiejun Ten Crises The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949–2020) Wen Tiejun Beijing, China With Contrib. by Lau Kin Chi Sit Tsui Hong Kong, China Chongqing, China Global University for Sustainability Book Series ISBN 978-981-16-0454-6 ISBN 978-981-16-0455-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0455-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. 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Cover credit: Alex Linch shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Foreword This book is the first one of the Global University for Sustainability Book Series published with Palgrave Macmillan. Global University for Sustainability (Global U) is an international network of around 200 renowned scholars/activists, with a substan- tial number from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, apart from those from Europe and North America. They are academic scholars, peace activists, community workers, food producers, and rural reconstruction promoters, among others (please see https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/ founding-members/). The book series aims to publish books and mono- graphs drawing on the expertise of Global U Founding Members by offering a succinct analysis of global crises affecting the ecological, social, political, and economic aspects, as well as to explore transformative visions and praxis for sustainability. The three main categories falling under this series are: • General analysis (e.g., history of political economy of a country; issue of sustainability; issue of nuclear disasters); with a focus on China but not only on China. v vi Foreword • Biographies or autobiographies of eminent thinkers from around the world, especially from Asia, Africa and Latin America, connecting their personal trajectory to their thought and the larger context. • Analysis and interpretation of on-the-ground experiences highlighting how local communities negotiate with economic and other forces impacting on them and organize in alternative ways. Professor Wen Tiejun, the author of this book, has a wide reader- ship across official institutions, academics, mass media, and grassroots communities. Apart from being a well-known expert of agrarian issues and policy advisor, he is a scholar/activist who has initiated the rural reconstruction movement in contemporary China (2000—the present), particularly promoting agro-ecology, sustainability, and rural regenera- tion. He is deeply involved in defending the livelihoods of small peas- antry in his whole life. In 1968, when he was 17 years old, he was sent to mountain areas in Shanxi Province to work as a peasant. Then he worked as a truck driver for 2 years and later as service worker for 4 years. He entered university when he turned 28 years old. His world vision has been shaped by 11 years of working with and learning from peasants and workers. These grassroots experiences have great influence on his rural sustainability experiments and policy research. He is named by the media as an expert of sannong issues (three agrarian issues: peasant, village, and agriculture), who is “doing studies by foot”. He has delivered lectures and provided training programs to tens of thousands of students, peasants, peasant workers, and government officers. He has also delivered dozens of lectures and interviews overseas. Recently, Professor Wen won the award of FAO-China food hero (one of five winners) through online popular voting. One live-streamed lecture he delivered in August 2020 attracted 550,000 online watchers. Global U is organizing the English translation project of his biography: A Life with No Regrets: Life and Thought of Wen Tiejun, translated by Alice Chan. The book, Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949–2020), that presents itself to the readers here is a collective endeavour, the culmination of over 12 years of research, discussion, trans- lation, and writing. Soon after the 2008 global financial crisis, the project team headed by Professor Wen Tiejun and Professor Lau Kin Chi began Foreword vii a comparative study of the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries, which included empirical trips to a dozen countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, apart from Europe and North America, as well as many academic conferences and forums to discuss and debate the theme. In February 2011, a project on comparing Seven Emerging Countries, namely China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa and Turkey, was launched, which had the support of UNDP- China, Renmin University of China, Lingnan University, along with a couple of institutions. In December of the same year, the first South South Forum on Sustainability was organized, inviting most of the 100 participants from over 40 countries to one of the four 10-day field trips to different regions of China before or after the Forum which was held in Lingnan University in Hong Kong. (see https://our-global-u.org/ogu org/en/the-first-south-south-forum-on-sustainability/) The South South Forum on Sustainability has become an annual activity since 2016, and the Seventh Forum was convened in July 2020. The Global U, fermenting since 2008 and officially launched in 2015, has been the key institution coordinating these forums and research projects. Through the Global U network, Professor Wen and his team have continuously presented new insights and new findings on China’s development. In the comparative study of Seven Emerging Countries, we had a country research team for each country. For China, the core research team members were Professor Wen Tiejun, Professor Dong Xiaodan, Professor Lau Kin Chi, Professor Sit Tsui, and Dr. Erebus Wong. A basic framework and ample materials were taken from a project that Professor Wen Tiejun began in 1998–2000. At that time, he returned to research work in the Ministry of Agriculture after being transferred from his on-the-ground work to promote institutional changes in rural areas in China, and after the completion of his Ph.D. on “A Research on the Basic Economic System of Rural China”. He received a grant from the deputy director of a Chinese state-owned financial corporation to take up research and writing of the part on Economic History of a four-part “History of 20th Century China” project. After three years of research, the outline of the research report that he presented was considered inap- propriate for continuation and publication due to it being too frank and blunt as regards the presentation of this history. The entire project was viii Foreword shelved. A short paper on the findings of this project was published in the Chinese journal Dushu, no.