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A 'moderately prosperous society' with no Chinese individual left behind - that's the vision for China set out by Chinese President Xi Jinping in a number of important speeches in 2017. 'Moderate' prosperity may seem like a modest goal for a country with more billionaires (609 at last count) than the US. But the 'China Story' is a complex one. The China Story Yearbook 2017: Prosperity surveys the important events, pronouncements, and personalitites that defined 2017. It also presents a range of perspectives, from the global to the individual, the official to the unofficial, from mainland China to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Together, the stories present a richly textured portrait of a nation that in just forty years has lifted itself from universal poverty to (unequally distributed) wealth, changing itself and the world in the process.

1. Can prosperity be disentangled from growth? / Dominique Meda -- 2. A high-stakes shift : turning the tide from GDP to new prosperity indicators / Isabelle Cassiers and Geraldine Thiry -- 3. Towards a transcultural definition of prosperity : insights from the capability approach / Stephane Leyens -- 4. Consumerism and positive liberty / Jean De Munck -- 5. Prosperity in work / Thomas Perilleux and Julien Charles -- 6. Out of the laboratory into the field : the stakes riding on a paradigm change / Gaetan Vanloqueren and Philippe Baret -- 7. Environment, growth, and prosperity : possible models of integration / Tom Bauler and Edwin Zaccai -- 8. Prosperity and the crisis of politics / Laurent de Briey -- 9. Collective action and the redefinition of prosperity : on the democratic governance of the transition / Christian Arnsperger -- 10. Conclusion : who will redefine prosperity? / Robert Boyer, Isabelle Cassiers, and Isabelle Ferreras.

For most of humanity the third quarter of the century was a period of unprecedented prosperity. The world's output of goods and services, expanding 4 per cent or more annually, tripled in less than a generation. Growth seemed commonplace—and was soon built into consumer aspirations, corporate earnings projections, and government revenue expectations. Few stopped to calculate that if the 4 per cent rate of economic growth remained steady, there would be a fiftyfold expansion in just a century. And even fewer considered the pressure this would put on the earth's resources.