The Market Economy And China

Documents the rise and fall of a market economy in China from 1000-1500. Since the economic liberalization of the 1980s, the Chinese economy has boomed and is poised to become the world’s largest market economy, a position traditional China held a millennium ago. William Guanglin Liu’s bold and fascinating book is the first to rely on quantitative methods to investigate the early market economy that existed in China, making use of rare market and population data produced by the Song dynasty in the eleventh century. A counterexample comes from the century around 1400 when the early Ming court deliberately turned agrarian society into a command economy system. This radical change not only shrank markets, but also caused a sharp decline in the living standards of common people. Liu’s landmark study of the rise and fall of a market economy highlights important issues for contemporary China at both the empirical and theoretical levels. William Guanglin Liu is Associate Professor of History at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In From Accelerated Accumulation to Socialist Market Economy in China, Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard and Koen Rutten examine China’s indigenous economic discourse and its relation to both economic policy-making and the overall trajectory of development from the First Five Year Plan in 1953 to 2016. In so doing, this volume demonstrates that although the form of the current economic system and its theoretical underpinnings bear scant resemblance to those of the planned economy, economic policy-making still relies on the principle of accelerated accumulation, which lay at the heart of the economic development project in the early years of the People’s Republic.

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.

This volume concerns several aspects of China's changing market based economy. These include commercial contract enforcement, corporate structures, competition law and other issues related to China's membership in the WTO. In the past two decades, the rapid integration of China's economy into the global marketplace has created obligations and expectations of non-discrimination and regulatory transparency in domestic markets. The Chinese government has responded by demanding better governance within major companies, market sectors and public administration generally. However, as the articles in this volume show, it has struggled to find a corporate structure capable of absorbing external equity investment and participation but still amenable to direct and indirect state guidance. It has also moved cautiously in creating legal controls over unfair competition. Moreover, the protection of state owned enterprises, which serve as vehicles for domestic economic, social and political policy, has been a recurring issue in China's WTO trade disputes.

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.

International interest in China is increasing. Not surprisingly, China-related news is hitting the headlines of leading international media. This is well grounded, given the fact that China is the largest developing country in the world with almost a quarter of the world's population. However, many reports on China are self-contradictory, which again reveals the complexities of a nation that has experienced dramatic change for over a century. For the outsider, it is virtually impossible to follow China's overriding trends of change without understanding its past and present. This book provides a chronological record of the major changes that have taken place in the Chinese economy over the past five decades.

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.