Privatization and its discontents--the evolving Chinese health care system.

For the first-time visitor, China is breathtaking — a land of extraordinary vitality, unimaginable size, and outlandish contrasts. Its cities hum with energy, purpose, and impenetrable traffic jams choking inadequate roadways. It is home to one quarter of the world’s population, and more and more of its 1.3 billion people have flocked into megalopolises (such as Shanghai, with more than 16 million people, and Beijing, with more than 13 million) that dwarf anything in the Western world. And while those cities sprout soaring, glass-shelled skyscrapers and business centers that make even London and Paris look modest, much of the rural population, which numbers 900 million, lives in poverty and desperation that are reminiscent of the world’s most forgotten regions. This complex reality reflects the enormous economic and political changes that are transforming China. Its gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at the extraordinary annual rate of 8 percent during the past 25 years, and its economy is now among the world’s largest and most rapidly expanding. 1