Transforming China

At the end of the 1970s, China was a poor country with a huge population, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. The domestic economy was organized through direct administrative instructions and was isolated from the international economy. After a quarter of a century, China has been transformed beyond imagination. In the course of this transformation, Chinars"s policymakers have faced enormous challenges. The essays in this book address different aspects of those challenges. The ls"developmentrs" challenge involved devising policies that would raise the mass of the Chinese people out of poverty and avoid the disasters that had, in the worst cases, caused millions of deaths through famine. The ls"transitionrs" challenge involved, firstly, resolving the relationship between changes in the economic and political systems, and secondly, finding the correct sequence and nature of reforms necessary to improve economic performance. The ls"globalizationrs" challenge involved identifying the best way in which to integrate Chinars"s economic system with the international economy at a time of revolutionary change in the global business system. These essays seek both to enhance understanding of Chinars"s immense success in meeting these challenges in the past and to provide an indication of the challenges that still lie ahead. Chinars"s system reforms have been described as ls"groping for stones to cross the riverrs". The journey across the river is far from over, and the other bank is only dimly visible.

Peter Nolan is Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the Judge Institute of Management, Cambridge University, and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.