China S Centralized Industrial Order

This book is about the political economy of China’s industrial reform and the rise of a group of Chinese big businesses under the Communist Party and the central state’s control. It examines the origins, evolution and institutional configuration of this centralized system in governing the ‘commanding heights’ of the Chinese industrial economy. Shaped by persistent industrial policies to develop China’s ‘national champions’ enterprises, the core parts of China’s central industrial ministries and mono-bank system have been transformed into a ‘national team’ of giant modern business firms in industries such as oil, power generation, telecommunications, aerospace, aviation, nuclear, shipbuilding, mining, construction, automobile and banking. Through an adaptive process of learning, experimentation and restructuring, the bedrock of the authority relations and control mechanisms among the Party, government bureaucracy and firms has been consolidated rather than dismantled in the system’s transformation. This alternative view of China’s industrial reform presents a direct challenge to the neo-liberal transition model of China’s institutional development and the mainstream Western conceptions of Chinese big business.

This book is about the political economy of China’s industrial reform and the rise of a group of Chinese big businesses under the Communist Party and the central state’s control. It examines the origins, evolution and institutional configuration of this centralized system in governing the ‘commanding heights’ of the Chinese industrial economy. Shaped by persistent industrial policies to develop China’s ‘national champions’ enterprises, the core parts of China’s central industrial ministries and mono-bank system have been transformed into a ‘national team’ of giant modern business firms in industries such as oil, power generation, telecommunications, aerospace, aviation, nuclear, shipbuilding, mining, construction, automobile and banking. Through an adaptive process of learning, experimentation and restructuring, the bedrock of the authority relations and control mechanisms among the Party, government bureaucracy and firms has been consolidated rather than dismantled in the system’s transformation. This alternative view of China’s industrial reform presents a direct challenge to the neo-liberal transition model of China’s institutional development and the mainstream Western conceptions of Chinese big business.

This book analyses the industrial reform measures taken by the Chinese government during the decade 1985-95 and identifies the economic and political tensions and contradictions that state enterprise reform has presented to a leadership intent on maintaining its authoritative political position. Using government sources and interviews with economists and workers at one of China's largest state-owned enterprises (The Second Automobile/Dongfeng corporation ), Hannan concludes that the relationship between state policy and enterprise is a complex two-way process characterised by tensions resulting from conflicting priorities.

In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries.

The book examines China's role in the international division of labor: it analyzes the scale and scope of China's manufacture; the type and relative sophistication of its exports in the world market; and its position in the global value chain. It shows that China monopolizes industrial production by being the processing center of world.

The Chinese economy has been the subject of substantial research in recent years in the United States and abroad. Much has been made of significant strides toward industrial development since the Communist takeover. But it is impossible to understand what has been achieved unless one measures these gains against economic events in the pre-Communist period. This book offers a record of China's industrialization, with its comprehensive statistical analysis of the industrial growth of pre-Communist China.Industrial Development in Pre-Communist China covers the period from 1912 to 1949 and deals with all of China irrespective of changes in political boundaries. For purposes of this study, ""industrial production"" includes mining, metallurgy, manufacturing, and fuel and power; the construction industry is not included. Chang finds that the average annual rate of growth of the modern industrial sector during the pre-World War I period was about 8 or 9 percent, including Manchuria. During the period from 1928 to 1936, under the Nanking Government, political unification was achieved. Peace and order were maintained and the necessary foundations for economic transformation in the post-World War II period were established.At the time of its original publication in 1969, Chang's work represented an important first step toward a comprehensive, quantitative study of the history of China's industrialization and a benchmark against which the Communist achievement can be measured, this work forces reconsideration of widely held views on China's economic and industrial development. An important reference for the study of Chinese history and economics, especially for the Republican period, Chang's work is of continuing value to all Sinologists and to specialists in economic development and economic history.

In Varieties of State Regulation, Yukyung Yeo explores how, despite China’s increasing integration into the global market, the Chinese central party-state continues to oversee the most strategic sectors of its economy. Since the 1990s, as major state firms were spun off from the ministries that managed them under the central planning system, the nature of the state in governing the economy has been remarkably transformed into that of a regulator. Based on over a hundred interviews conducted with Chinese central and local officials, firms, scholars, journalists, and consultants, the book demonstrates that the form of central state control varies considerably across leading industrial sectors, depending on the dominant mode of state ownership, conception of control, and governing structure. By analyzing and comparing institutional dynamics across various sectors, Yeo explains variations in the pattern of China’s regulation of its economy. She contrasts the regulation of the automobile industry, a relatively decentralized sector, with the highly-centralized telecommunications industry, and demonstrates how China’s central party-state maintains regulatory authority over key local state-owned enterprises. Placing these findings in historical and comparative contexts, the book presents the evolution and current practice of state regulation in China and examines its compatibility with other contemporary government practices.

China's economic growth has been revolutionary, and is the foundation of its increasingly prominent role in world affairs. It is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America. Multinational companies make billions of dollars in profits in China each year, while traders around the world shudder at every gyration of the country's unruly stock markets. Perhaps paradoxically, its capitalist economy is governed by an authoritarian Communist Party that shows no sign of loosening its grip. China is frequently in the news, whether because of trade disputes, the challenges of its Belt and Road initiative for global infrastructure, or its increasing military strength. China's political and technological challenges, created by a country whose political system and values differ dramatically from most of the other major world economies, creates uncertainty and even fear. China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic and political story of the last three decades. Arthur Kroeber enhances our understanding of China's changes and their implications. Among the essential questions he answers are: How did China grow so fast for so long? Can it keep growing and still solve its problems of environmental damage, fast-rising debt and rampant corruption? How long can its vibrant economy co-exist with the repressive one-party state? How do China's changes affect the rest of the world? This thoroughly revised and updated second edition includes a comprehensive discussion of the origins and development of the US-China strategic rivalry, including Trump's trade war and the race for technological supremacy. It also explores the recent changes in China's political system, reflecting Xi Jinping's emergence as the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. It includes insights on changes in China's financial sector, covering the rise and fall of the shadow banking sector, and China's increasing integration with global financial markets. And it covers China's rapid technological development and the rise of its global Internet champions such as Alibaba and Tencent.