Rwanda and China
This chapter reviews the contrasting experiences of Rwanda and China. It does so to show how an early-stage and late-stage capitalist transformation might reveal risk involved in developmentalism. Rwanda’s post-genocide government is analysed as early-developmentalist. Here the focus is on agricultural transformation. An analysis of Rwanda’s developmentalism focuses on the insecurity of the elite, the insecurities of the region, and the challenges of reconstruction. The Chinese case starts with the accession to power of the Chinese Communist Party. It looks at the violence of the Great Leap Forward and then the post-Mao period. It analyses the sources of growth in China since 1978, showing how the state’s legitimacy shifted from socialist nationalism to a growth obsession in which capitalist accumulation became the source of legitimacy. It emphasizes China’s massive nut incomplete progress in poverty reduction and transformation.