Changping Li was honored by the Southern Weekend as the Person of the Year in 2000, China’s Man of Action in Agricultural Issues in 2006 and one of the Most Influential People of China’s 30 Years of Reform and Opening up. He is the founder and promoter of the “Built-in Finance” theory as well as the rural community development model based on this theory. He is a recognized expert in agricultural issues in China. He had been working in township-level governments for 17 years, having served as Party Secretary of four towns. In his letter to then Premier Zhu Rongji in March 2000, he exclaimed that “farmers’ life is really miserable; rural communities are really impoverished; agriculture is really dangerous”, which attracted the close attention of the central government towards agricultural issues. Subsequently in September he resigned to become a migrant worker in Guangdong and has since been advocating equal national treatment for farmers. Based on the “Built-in Finance” theory he developed creatively, he has been guiding the establishment of rural cooperatives, which allows cooperative members to collateralize their land and membership for credit and enables the capitalization and transaction of rural resources. This model has dramatically improved farmers’ income-generating capabilities and enhanced rural organizations’ service for its members. In September 2009, led by the Government of Pingqiao District of Xinyang, Henan, a similar model was piloted in the village of Haotang, which was honored by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as a Model Livable Eco-Village. Led by the CNRPD, similar models and targeted poverty alleviation initiatives have also been implemented nationwide, including in Beijing, Hubei, Henan, Guangdong, Inner Mongolia, Guizhou, Hunan, Shandong, Hebei and Sichuan. The experiment in Zhuhai has attracted the close attention of Vice Premier Wang Yang. Changping Li has authored a number of books, including I Tell the Truth to Premier, I Tell the Truth to the Public, Macro Climate, Again, I Tell the Truth to Premier and Finance-Based Rural Development.