This volume examines the development of Guangdong, especially the Pearl River Delta, throughout the era of China's economic reforms and opening to the external world (from 1978 till now). It analyzes the evolution from a labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing base to a heavy-industry based economy, then to a high-tech manufacturing center cum regional business services center. This book focusses on the planning and development strategies of the Guangdong leadership and its local counterparts, their interactions with the central leadership, the learning and adaptation processes involved by stages, and the problems and challenges ahead. The author adopts a chronological approach, thus enabling the readers to study the development processes in detail, taking into consideration the benefits offered by as well as the crises in the domestic and international environment.