Contributor(s): Professor Liu Wei | China has built a relatively well-off society by the end of the 20th century, transforming from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income one. In the first decade of the 21st century, China has further elevated itself to an upper-middle-income country. Based on these achievements, the country sets its new goals for economic development: a sustainable economic growth to double its scale, a high-income economy with a higher per capita GDP, a transformation in the economic structure and an overall modernisation. Since China took its baby-steps toward an upper-middle-income economy in 2010 at a time when the government began to retreat from its growth-stimulating policies against the 2008 financial crisis, new features of China’s economic imbalance have emerged. The country now faces two risks: great pressure from inflation and a lack of demand to drive up the economy. Professor Liu Wei is executive vice president of Peking University in charge of humanities and social sciences, continuous education, sports and technology transfer at the university. He got his bachelor, master and Ph.D. degrees in economics at Peking University. Before the current position, he served as dean of School of Economics, assistant president and vice president of Peking University. He is also the chief editor of the academic journal Economic Science. His research interests include economic theories of socialism in political economics, economic transition theories in institutional economics, industrial structure evolution in development economics, and enterprise ownership. He was appointed as chief expert in the projects “Research on the Development of China’s Market Economy” (2003) and “Research on China’s Monetary Policy and Transmission Mechanism” initiated by the Ministry of Education of China. He was also responsible for the key project “The Trend of China’s Mid-term and Long-term Economic Growth and Structure Changes” (2009) supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China. Professor Liu is also a member of the Theoretical Economics Section of the Disciplinary Appraisal Panels under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for Economics Teaching of the Ministry of Education of China and Vice Chair of Expert Committee on Discipline Development and Specialty Setup of the Ministry of Education of China. This lecture is available in both English and Chinese.