This is an extremely ambitious work and presents 99 diverse articles on China's economic development through time. The editors of the companion are all distinguished academics in their own right and have brought together work from over 100 subject specialists on China. As the editors point out at the start of the companion, the enormous variety of perspectives offered by contributors make it extremely difficult to concisely summarise the broad-ranging articles contained within. Instead of attempting to synthesise the articles within the companion, the editors provide a helpful introduction that outlines the main economic challenges and successes of the Chinese, as they embarked upon a major economic reform programme during the 1970s. Over the past 40 years, China's economic rise has been meteoric and over this period the Chinese have seen massive drops in illiteracy rates, a reduction in infant mortality and increases to life expectancy amongst the population. The editors highlight that Chinese international trade growth has been even more astounding than its GDP growth, stating that since 1980, China's trade volume has roughly doubled once every four year. China is also shown to be fast becoming a major player in foreign aid and the article from Deborah Bräutigam of Johns Hopkins University provides an interesting view of the history and development of the Chinese Economic Aid Strategy.
The companion highlights the incredible strides the Chinese have made towards poverty reduction, but it is balanced in also emphasising some of the negative aspects visible such as the continued deep-seated economic inequality between urban and rural Chinese. This economic inequality is covered in greater detail in the article from John Knight of Oxford University, who argues the Chinese Government would do well to focus on rapidly reducing inequality as a protection against social instability. Gender gaps, the provision of health services and educational inequalities are also analysed in some depth.
China is a massive country and the companion provides a unique insight into the wide variance of economic policy across a range of its internal provinces and highlights the increase there has been in provincial inequalities. Despite the overall increase in incomes, the costs of economic success have been heavy for some with environmental pollution problems and food safety scandals having a massive impact on citizens in many Chinese provinces. Kai-yuen Tsui of the Chinese University of Hong Kong provides an excellent and in-depth overview of regional divergence in China, outlining the historical forces and institutions that have shaped the entrenched coastal/inland and rural/urban inequalities that have been so resistant to any efforts to combat them.
The articles are clearly structured, well referenced and offer readers a selection of further reading should they wish to follow up or find out more on each topic under discussion. The articles are presented with consistent sub-numbering and descriptive sub-section headings, but it should be pointed out that navigation for the reader within the companion could have been greatly improved had these sub-sections heading been included in the index. The main index runs to 40 pages and the stylistic convention adopted has been to embolden major topics, authors and some figures, although it is not entirely clear why some authors have been emboldened and others not. Where authors are listed within the footnotes of a particular article, it appears they are often featured in the main index, but this convention is not applied systematically. It may be useful for the publishers to revisit the structure of the index in future editions and for the editors to outline the conventions they will adopt within future introductions.
I have no doubt that the companion and any future revised editions that follow, will fast become the go-to-work on Chinese economics; it is a fascinating work and a worthy addition to any reference library collection.
