ISSN : 0023-3900
This study explores the relationship between Korean-Chinese ethnicity and China’s post-socialist local development. To do this, it focuses on the experiences of the Korean-Chinese population of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture during the mid-1970s and 1980s. It describes how political rehabilitation after the Cultural Revolution, economic liberalization, and improvement in Sino-North Korea relations restored the local and transnational Koreanness of the Yanbian Koreans. Local and transnational Koreanness served as important determinants for Yanbian’s development. The study concludes that the restoration of minority ethnicity was directly connected to the early stages of China’s post-socialist local development.