China has been growing at over ten per cent annually since 1978, but this has
only come to very widespread notice in the past decade. This received wisdom
about China has been largely of two types, both of which more or less understand
China in the context of neoliberalism. The more business- or business
studies-oriented literature seems to argue that if China does not adapt the rule
of clear and distinct property and contract law in short, of Western
institutions its economy will stall. The second set of voices is more clearly
from the left, arguing that the Chinese economy, and city, is neo-liberal. For
them, China