‘Invisible China: how the urban–rural divide threatens China’s rise’

Very recommendable! The tyranny and legacy of Mao Zedong, the world's most notorious and worst mass murderer, lives on thanks to the Communist Party of China!

"... [members of the rural population] seldom succeed, because most working-age men and many women have migrated to cities for employment, leaving their children to be brought up by their grandparents and educated in the local school. The parents return to the village annually for the Lunar New Year festival but play a minimal role in their children’s upbringing. It’s a sad and all too common story affecting more than 100 million Chinese households.

[the author] who has been studying rural China for four decades ... Invisible China, focuses on an issue that has received little attention, China’s vast, isolated and long-neglected rural population. As the authors see it, the rural challenge has ‘remained invisible for too long, not only to the outside world but also to many Chinese’. ...

China’s urban workforce, the driver of the country’s spectacular growth, comes mainly from rural areas. Basic skills were sufficient to move China quickly from poverty to middle-income status. ...

China’s household registration (hukou) system, which strictly separates the urban and rural populations, prevents rural migrants from settling in cities and getting a high-quality education for their children. The burden for educating China’s workforce falls on the country’s rural schools, which are generally of low quality.
As a result, China is teetering on the brink of the ‘middle-income trap’. Beating the trap is no mean feat. Of the 101 countries that were considered middle income in 1960, half a century later only 13 had become high income. The ‘graduates’ include Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the Asian ‘tigers’ (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) and a few Eastern European countries. Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand and many others failed to make the cut. ...
Mao Zedong established the hukou system in the 1950s and actually worked against the accumulation of human capital. ...
The urban–rural divide persists to this day. Over 60% of China’s population lives in cities, but only 36% has urban hukou. Other urban dwellers—over 300 million strong—work and live in a grey area. ..."

From the bookshelf: ‘Invisible China: how the urban–rural divide threatens China’s rise’ | The Strategist