Book excerpt: With massive growth taking place in the real estate industry, how can China develop a free market and private ownership of land while still officially subscribing to Communist ideology? This study uses fieldwork interviews to establish how the Chinese real estate market operates in practice from both legal and business perspectives. It describes how the market functions, which laws are applicable and how they are applied, and how a nation can achieve dramatic economic growth so rapidly while its legal system is so unsettled. The book demonstrates how China is drawing on the world for ideas while retaining a domestic system that remains essentially Chinese, and how the recent revitalization of China's real estate market has confounded the predictions of many developments economists.