China S Transition To A Socialist Market Economy

Exploring China's transition to a socialist market economy, this book finds that the recent Chinese experience is unique and unprecedented. It seems plausible that the distinctive characteristics of China's market reform have been a result of correcting the big bang approach of Eastern European countries and unique conditions that China possesses. For instance, China is endowed with a relatively high level of skilled labor and a large workforce. Moreover, China has been experimenting with reform and profit-sharing for a number of years, especially in the coastal provinces. This book juxtaposes native Chinese experiences with those of academics in the U.S. It integrates the ideas of those living the experience in China with the perceptions of outside observers who might be able to offer constructive criticism. The book covers various topics, such as macroeconomic policy, reform within economic sectors, and strategies for sustainable development, while making sure that the reader will not find it difficult to follow the process of reform and the main impediments that China may face.

How China Became Capitalist details the extraordinary, and often unanticipated, journey that China has taken over the past thirty five years in transforming itself from a closed agrarian socialist economy to an indomitable economic force in the international arena. The authors revitalise the debate around the rise of the Chinese economy through the use of primary sources, persuasively arguing that the reforms implemented by the Chinese leaders did not represent a concerted attempt to create a capitalist economy, and that it was 'marginal revolutions' that introduced the market and entrepreneurship back to China. Lessons from the West were guided by the traditional Chinese principle of 'seeking truth from facts'. By turning to capitalism, China re-embraced her own cultural roots. How China Became Capitalist challenges received wisdom about the future of the Chinese economy, warning that while China has enormous potential for further growth, the future is clouded by the government's monopoly of ideas and power. Coase and Wang argue that the development of a market for ideas which has a long and revered tradition in China would be integral in bringing about the Chinese dream of social harmony.

The essays in this volume address the industrial, commercial, urban and regional reforms of China's planned economy during the 1980s. The emphasis is on the dominating institutional and bureaucratic presence of the state even as it sought to loosen the pre-1979 vertically structured centralised command system and to introduce some market principles to stimulate economic activity. The essays fall into four categories: theoretical and policy discussions and debates at the central leadership level; reform of the urban economy and of inter-regional relations; industrial and commercial reforms; and the rise and position of the new entrepreneurial class. Many of the essays draw on interviews with Chinese economic officials in the Central China city of Wuhan and therefore this is the only study that uses local data on actual operations of reforms from a Chinese city; the other sources are the Chinese press and Chinese official and scholarly journals. In each of the categories there are pieces from different points in the chronological process of reform. This study begins with the first theoretical discussions among China's economists and top political leaders in the late 1970s and concludes with experiments with bankruptcy and stock markets in the late 1980s. The countervailing heavy presence of the state at both the policy and the practical levels throughout the reform decade is its unifying theme.

This book is intended for policy-makers, academics and students of development studies, area studies, political economy, geography and political science. Three of the best global performers in terms of economic growth are authoritarian states led by communist parties. The ‘socialist market economy’ model employed in China, Vietnam and Laos performs better than the economic systems in countries at a similar level of income per capita on a wide range of development indicators, yet market reforms and governance failures have led to highly unequal societies and significant environmental problems. This book presents the first comparative study of development in these three countries. Written by country experts and scholars of development studies, it explores the ongoing quest for market versus state within their model, and the coherence of their development. Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

China's post-Mao economic reform continues to be carried out under the leadership of those committed to the philosophy of Deng Xiao Ping for building a modernized China. The main feature of the reform is to change a planned economy to a market economy -- the primary difference being the degree to which economic power is concentrated or decentralized. In other words, the success of changing from a planned to a market economy depends on transferring power from the central government to industrial enterprises.Yet China's economic system has three levels: the central government, the intermediate local governments, and the industrial enterprises. Scholars disagree over whether the central government's power is transferring to the intermediate local government level or to the enterprises as the reform intended. The major consideration in this book is to test whether economic decision-making power was transferred to industrial enterprises after 1978 as most Chinese scholars believe, or whether local governments instead gained some or all of the decision-making power as generally claimed by Western scholars.

20 years after the collapse of communism in Central Eastern European countries and 30 years after the start of market-oriented reforms in China, this book provides a framework for understanding the differing emphasis and sequencing of two reforms and explores in-depth these issues in the demise of communism and the triumph of the market economy.

Contains updated papers from an international conference held in Brisbane, Australia, centering on China's economic reforms and economic growth, regional issues and property rights in China, environmental issues and land use, and science and technology policies. Specific topics include China's market reforms and its new forms of scientific and business alliances, sustainable land use in the Three-Gorges area, and inter-village income inequality in China. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR