Chinese Entrepreneurs Between Power and Dependency: Marginal Elites (Routledge Contemporary China Series)

This book examines the important elite group of newly rich private entrepreneurs who have contributed to lifting China from relative backwardness to an economic giant over the last four decades.Their rise coincides with the Chinese Communist Party's "reform and opening up" policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, which fundamentally transformed China's economic landscape and created unprecedented opportunities for private wealth accumulation. Drawing on extensive interviews and observations of more than forty entrepreneurs who rank among the one percent richest people in China (based on estimates from the renowned Hurun Report), the book offers rare insider perspectives on this influential yet understudied group.These voices reveal the complex realities of building private enterprise within an authoritarian political system, navigating the delicate balance between entrepreneurial ambition and state control.Placing their experiences into a bricolage of historical, social, and politica