This paper highlights contemporary China s long-term continuities with the historical EastAsian developmental path in relation to its post-1978 revival of market-economy traditions. Therevival of market economy traditions does not exemplify the unfolding of processes associatedwith the one-size-fits-all Washington Consensus. Rural land reforms were driven from belowand strongly influenced policy changes from above. Neither rural nor urban land use relationssuggest a more general unfolding of

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... liberal processes of capitalist accumulation bydispossession. Contemporary Chinese land relations reflect the effects of continuities withhistorical East Asian regional traditions more strongly than do some discontinuities andruptures that emerged in the conjuncture of the mid-1980s. These continuities remain moreimportant in understanding the future of the China-led East Asian region. Like the Ming andQing dynasties, China s Party-State is sharply focused on problems of governance. Retaininglegitimacy and recreating a welfare state to promote harmonious development rather thangrowth fetishism appears to characterize China s current trajectory.