Give Me 小康 Or Give Me Death!

Of China's population of roughly 1.3 billion, at least 700 million live in the country's rural areas and as such have not participated in the PRC's two decades of growth in any meaningful way (which is not to say that urbanites have necessarily held a winning lottery ticket). 小康 is a critical issue because the rates of China's growth and the distribution of its wealth have been markedly uneven. China's peasant farmers, for example, are squeezed ecologically and politically. Those lucky enough not to be pushed off "their" land by urbanization or desertification are often victimized by local bureaucrats. Chinese construction workers and miners have similar tales of woe.

While Mao Zedong's effusive praise of China's peasantry was largely lip service, he knew that the Chinese Revolution would not have succeeded without their support. The country's socio-political calculus has changed little since 1949 and the current leadership recognizes that rural-centered social upheaval could undo all of the Party's gains since 1989. "Inclusive growth" is the new mantra. Although rural development has been a stated goal for more than a decade, it is now tied to the country's overall economic objectives, as the developmental tactics of the last decade have been deemed "unsustainable".