Introduction to the book “How China Develops: Investment, Finance, and Innovation”

      The book "How China Develops: Investment, Finance, and Innovation" by authors James Riedel, Jing Ji, and Jin Gao consists of eight chapters. It offers a general analysis of China's economy and the results achieved since 1978 in the fields of agriculture, industry, foreign trade, and finance. It also delves into the role of the financial sector—the key to growth—in financing investment and the necessary reforms needed to improve the functioning of banking institutions and financial markets.In studying China's growth and development process, economists face thorny theoretical and empirical problems, primarily stemming from years of implementing centralized planning and the government's tight control over industry, which tends to distort prices and misallocate resources. Furthermore, because China's national accounting system differs from the system used in most Western countries, it is difficult to obtain internationally comparable data, making a multi-dimensional reference perspective challenging. Despite these difficulties, the authors have attempted to systematize and analyze China's development process, providing a relatively comprehensive picture.