Product Description As recently as two decades ago there was no distinct middle class in the People's Republic of China. Today, any meaningful discussion of China's economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class. Cheng Li, a Brookings scholar and noted expert on China, leads a team of experts in detailing the origins and characteristics of this dramatic change, assessing its current effects on Chinese society and discussing what it portends for the future. Cheng Li and his colleagues, diverse in discipline and national origin, examine the development and current state of the Chinese middle class from a variety of analytical perspectives. What is the Chinese middle class' educational and occupational makeup? Are its members united by a common identity of shared values, world views, and political visions? How does the Chinese middle class compare with its counterparts in other countries? More broadly, what are the implications of urban housing reforms, changes in social mobility, and increasingly heterogeneous social stratification in a country that once officially eschewed these types of distinctions? This volume's contributors shed light on these and many other issues pertaining to the rapid rise of a middle class in the world's most populous nation. Contributors include Jie Chen (Old Dominion University), Qin Chen (Hohai University), Deborah S. Davis (Yale University), Bruce J. Dickson (George Washington University), Geoffrey Gertz (Brookings), Han Sang-Jin (Seoul National University), Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (National Taiwan University), Homi Kharas (Brookings), Cheng Li (Brookings), Li Chunling (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Jin Lin (University of Maryland, College Park), Sida Liu (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Lu Hanlong (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), Joyce Yanyun Man (Peking University-Lincoln Center), Ethan Michelson (Indiana University-Bloomington), Luigi Tomba (Australian National University), Jianying Wang (University of Arkansas-Fayetteville), and Zhou Xiaohong (Nanjing University).

历史上，从未有这么多人在一两代人的时间内取得如此巨大的经济进步。 中国正在经历的从一个相对贫穷的发展中国家到中产国家的转型，一直是我们这个时代最为炫目的一出人生剧。从长远来看，在影响中国发展的多股力量中，没有一股力量会比中国中产阶级的迅速崛起和急速增长更有意义的了。 当然，中国中产阶级崛起的意义远远超出了经济学的范畴。本书重点考察过去20年间，由中国中产阶级产生和成长所带来的社会政治后果。其中心问题是：从现在到将来，中国中产阶级的崛起会对这个国家的社会结构和政治制度产生什么样的影响？ 作为第一部研究中国中产阶级的英文专著，本书各章的撰稿人以第一手的独创性研究为基础，提出了各种富有挑战性的观点，同时也为针对整体问题的每一种研究方式，提供了现有最好的资料。撰稿人们一致认为，一种新兴的社会经济力量已经深刻地改变了中国的社会分层和经济格局，同时也有迹象表明，中国的中产阶级有可能成为政治变革的关键性力量。