China has embarked on a major program to modernise agricultural and agribusiness structures with far reaching implications for rural development, international competitiveness / trade and food safety. There are, however, few studies that examine in detail how the modernisation program has proceeded, its’ sustainability and impacts. This paper aims to provide such as assessment through a series of integrated budget analyses of participants in the modern, high value beef chain. The paper concludes that rather than attempting to skip development phases by fast-tracking the development of modern structures in high-value agrifood chains, China should pursue a more incremental and facilitative approach based around developing structures in mid-value agrifood chains.