How Has the Chinese Economy Developed So Rapidly? The Concurrence of Five Paradoxical Coincidences

This article examines five surprising and historically contingent coincidences, pertaining separately to land, capital, labor, entrepreneurship, and technological innovation, whose concurrence and confluence go a long way toward explaining China's remarkable record of development in the past thirty-five years. They also reveal the roots of the problems that have accompanied that development: gross social inequality, a persistent and oppressive bureaucracy, and a drastic environmental crisis.