In order to historicise and contextualise the financial and development landscapes that the three microcredit programmes have been embedded in, this chapter starts by outlining the historical development of rural finance and microcredit in the country since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. This is followed by a systematic review of the literature on rural financial services in China, which allows for the identification of the strengths and weaknesses in our

more »

... ent understanding of the nexus between financial services (and particularly microcredit), local development, and livelihoods in the Chinese countryside.