For instance, Lee and Selden highlight the trend of rural industrialization, driven by foreign capital, in providing the economic benefits to coastal areas and giving rise to an “emerging bureaucratic-business elite wedding regulatory power with capital, including Chinese private capital and international capital.” During the privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s, this elite directly benefited from the inflow of foreign capital, thanks to their privileged positions, while workers who once received limited protection from the state were now rendered redundant.