Chinese people should be proud of China's economic achievements. In particular, China's modernisation project emerged from social, economic and political turmoil following the 10-year Cultural Revolution during which millions of Chinese people were physically and psychologically tortured or even killed. China's economic reforms were also initiated in a hard reality: a backward and poor China that had to feed a quarter of the world's population. Given these circumstances, China's economic success is a miracle in modern history.

Chinese leaders should, however, be ashamed of a high degree of capitalist exploitation and class suppression in the process of economic modernisation. Over the past three decades, China's economic growth has been achieved at the expense of the well-being of hundreds of thousands of members of deprived groups: poor rural residents are always worried about medical care and retirement; urban migrant workers have been excluded from accessing urban public services; many factory workers are working long hours in extremely hazardous work environments; farmers whose land was expropriated have not received proper compensation; and thousands of poor patients are unable to afford treatment. The commonly perceived ‘gradual economic reforms’ have actually brought about tremendous changes in welfare provisions and have rapidly destroyed China's socialist welfare system, leaving millions of poor people unprotected. There is obviously a gap between China's economic development and its social development.

This book is primarily concerned with the well-being of Chinese people. In the words of Chen Guojie (source: Rethinking resettlement, 20 September 2006, Toronto: Probe International, http://www.probeinternational.org/catalog/content_fullstory.php?contentId=2902), Senior Researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment: ‘I was an ordinary researcher who had simply said what I knew to be true, based on science’. Thus, we aim at systematically examining the well-being of Chinese people in the midst of China's economic reforms. It is hoped that our findings can contribute to the formulation of balanced, just and human-oriented social and economic policies in the future.

We are grateful to the Policy Oriented Social Sciences Research Group (POSS) of Nottingham Trent University for providing financial assistance for Dr Chan to gather key literature and conduct interviews in China. In particular, we express our gratitude to Professor Zheng, Mr Peng, Dr Han, Mr Sun, Miss Xie, Dr Gong, Miss Li and Dr Xiong for their hospitality and academic support for Dr Chan in Beijing.