Reform And The Non-state Economy In China: The Political Economy Of Liberalization Strategies

Reform and the Non-State Economy in China Private and foreign economic sectors (termed non-state sectors in China) have been the main engine of China’s phenomenal economic growth. Built on rich data analyses, this book offers a fresh and in-depth explanation of how China’s pro-reform leaders successfully launched controversial policies to promote these dynamic sectors, managed leadership conflict, and ensured reform in the provinces and rapid growth in the nation. Hongyi Lai is a research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. His research covers China’s political economy and external policies. In addition to three co-edited and translated books and three book chapters, he has published over ten articles in scholarly journals, including Modern China, China Journal, The Third World Quarterly, Issues & Studies, Provincial China, American Asian Review, Asian Journal of Political Science, Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, and China Review. Praise for Reform and the Non-State Economy in China “Hongyi Lai adds to the now standard insights that China’s economic reform has succeeded by its decentralized and gradualist approach. He provides the crucial insight that Chinese leaders carefully chose, using criteria we can now identify, where to initiate reforms. Not all coastal provinces were first encouraged to experiment with reforms, nor were all sectors involved. By identifying and explaining how Deng and his associates chose their targets and sustained a reform-tolerating coalition at the top, Lai adds immeasurably to comparativists’ understanding of just how the ‘Chinese miracle’ was crafted. To all students who pursue the pressing moral question of how countries can be lifted rapidly out of poverty, Lai offers compelling and important new answers. Lai’s detailed, in-depth, and utterly convincing analysis of this crucial case supplies the complement to the great debates and theories of scholars like Easterly, Sachs, and Stiglitz.” —Ronald Rogowski, Interim Vice Provost, Director of the Center for International Relations, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles “How did China’s political leaders manage to introduce and sustain market reforms and opening? This study helps answer this important question by exploring the interconnections between economics and politics. It is a valuable contribution to the literature on China’s reforms.” —Susan L. Shirk, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego “Hongyi Lai has produced a wonderful study of China’s reform process, stressing the way in which leadership strategies and divisions shaped the growth of the economy. It was leadership, Lai argues, that led China out of the Maoist wilderness and into a period of sustained growth. Divisions within the leadership generated ups and downs in the course of reform, but ultimately it was Deng Xiaoping, who, in the course of adopting strategies to moderate this conflict, found a way to move forward incrementally, minimizing conservative opposition. This book is an important contribution to our understanding of the political economy reform.” —Joseph Fewsmith, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University Reform and the Non-State Economy in China The Political Economy of Liberalization Strategies Hongyi Lai REFORM AND THE NON-STATE ECONOMY IN CHINA © Hongyi Lai, 2006. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-1-4039-7418-1 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and represent