Doing Business in Rural China : University of Washington Press : 9780295993737 : 0295993731 : 01 Apr 2014 : Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804095 Longlisted for the 2009 ICAS Book Award Mountainous Liangshan Prefecture, on the southern border of Sichuan Province, is one of China's most remote regions. Although Liangshan's majority ethnic group, the Nuosu (now classified by the Chinese government as part of the Yi ethnic group) practiced a subsistence economy and were, by Chinese standards, extremely poor. Their traditional society was stratified into endogamous castes, the most powerful of which owned slaves. With the incorporation of Liangshan into China's new socialist society in the mid-twentieth century, the Nuosu were required to abolish slavery and what the Chinese government considered to be superstitious religious practices. When Han Chinese moved into the area, competing with Nuosu for limited resources and introducing new cultural and economic challenges, some Nuos