The Guangdong province is the forerunner of China's economic reform, it has developed rapidly in the last twenty years since opening up its economy to the outside world. This book covers the evolution of economic reform in Guangdong, its links to Hong Kong and other parts of China, and developmental strategies in different parts of Guangdong. The book analyses the many factors that have contributed to economic reform and covers topics such as development of land, human resources, the agricultural sector and industrialisation, and reforms of state-owned enterprises and township and village enterprises. Consisting of eleven essays written by government officials and executives from the Guangdong province of China, this book offers a unique insight into the economic development in Guangdong.
This book is a reflection of the current research that explores the mechanism, dynamics and evidence of the impact of human capital on economic development and social well-being in modern China. Composed of keynote speeches and selected papers from The 2005 International Conference of the Chinese Economists Society (www.china-ces.org), it tracks the latest understanding and empirical evidence of the relationships amongst health, education and economic development in China. The book presents a broad spectrum of study topics covering human capital and economic growth; demand, attainment and disparity in both education and health; and investing in human capital and the economic and social returns in China. Distinguished contributors include Robert Fogel, Michael Grossman, Daniel Hamermesh, Gregory Chow and Dean Jamison.
China is a powerful engine of the global economy and the country's rise is undoubtedly the outcome of its protracted campaign of designing and implementing national development strategies since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. This book reviews the transformation and innovation of China's economic development strategies, especially Deng Xiaoping's Three-Step strategy and Xi Jinping's internal and external strategies. By introducing the concept of strategic paradigm, it analyzes the theoretical basis of myriads of economic development strategies and predicts China's choice. With the evolutionary process and the outstanding problems in national development planning as the main thread, it discusses the improvement of the national planning system, specifically of the national overall planning system, the regional planning system, the interplay and conflict between regional planning. It also studies the reform of city-county planning system, major function-oriented zones (MFOZs) and planning legislation and institutionalization. It also attempts to put forward proposals to coordinate the interests of planning departments and make different types of planning at different administrative levels compatible.
Prior to the initiation of economic reforms and trade liberalization 36 years ago, China maintained policies that kept the economy very poor, stagnant, centrally-controlled, vastly inefficient, and relatively isolated from the global economy. Since opening up to foreign trade and investment and implementing free market reforms in 1979, China has been among the world's fastest-growing economies, with real annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaging nearly 10% through 2016. In recent years, China has emerged as a major global economic power. It is now the world's largest economy (on a purchasing power parity basis), manufacturer, merchandise trader, and holder of foreign exchange reserves.The global economic crisis that began in 2008 greatly affected China's economy. China's exports, imports, and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows declined, GDP growth slowed, and millions of Chinese workers reportedly lost their jobs. The Chinese government responded by implementing a $586 billion economic stimulus package and loosening monetary policies to increase bank lending. Such policies enabled China to effectively weather the effects of the sharp global fall in demand for Chinese products, but may have contributed to overcapacity in several industries and increased debt by Chinese firms and local government. China's economy has slowed in recent years. Real GDP growth has slowed in each of the past six years, dropping from 10.6% in 2010 to 6.7% in 2016, and is projected to slow to 5.7% by 2022.The Chinese government has attempted to steer the economy to a "new normal" of slower, but more stable and sustainable, economic growth. Yet, concerns have deepened in recent years over the health of the Chinese economy. On August 11, 2015, the Chinese government announced that the daily reference rate of the renminbi (RMB) would become more "market-oriented." Over the next three days, the RMB depreciated against the dollar and led to charges that China's goal was to boost exports to help stimulate the economy (which some suspect is in worse shape than indicated by official Chinese economic statistics). Concerns over the state of the Chinese economy appear to have often contributed to volatility in global stock indexes in recent years.The ability of China to maintain a rapidly growing economy in the long run will likely depend largely on the ability of the Chinese government to implement comprehensive economic reforms that more quickly hasten China's transition to a free market economy; rebalance the Chinese economy by making consumer demand, rather than exporting and fixed investment, the main engine of economic growth; boost productivity and innovation; address growing income disparities; and enhance environmental protection. The Chinese government has acknowledged that its current economic growth model needs to be altered and has announced several initiatives to address various economic challenges. In November 2013, the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenum of its 18th Party Congress, which outlined a number of broad policy reforms to boost competition and economic efficiency. For example, the communique stated that the market would now play a "decisive" role in allocating resources in the economy. At the same time, however, the communique emphasized the continued important role of the state sector in China's economy. In addition, many foreign firms have complained that the business climate in China has worsened in recent years. Thus, it remains unclear how committed the Chinese government is to implementing new comprehensive economic reforms.China's economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. This report provides background on China's economic rise; describes its current economic structure; identifies the challenges China faces to maintain economic growth; and discusses the challenges, opportunities, and implications of China's economic rise.
This book by the renowned Chinese scholar Dr. Yinxing Hong provides the reader with a perceptive analysis of what has worked in China’s development model. Over the past 30 years, China has experienced a remarkable economic rise, but it now faces the challenge of switching the drivers of this economic growth, which have proven so successful. The path has not been an easy one, and many challenges lie ahead. However, the rise of the Chinese economy has been the most significant global development in recent years. Is there a specific Chinese model? How was the Chinese transition, from a Soviet-style economic structure to one that is more open to market influences and the global market, achieved? In 15 essays, Dr. Hong provides fascinating insights to these and other key questions. The essays cover the challenges involved in transition and how the market-oriented reforms progressed; what the consequences of the transition were for public goods provision and how China opened up its economic system. The essays in Part II address the remaining challenges facing rural areas trying to develop a more consumer-driven economic base, and how to effectively modify the model of economic development. This book provides a sound basis for policymakers and scholars alike, as well as anyone who wants to get an insider’s view of the progress and challenges faced by China’s economic development.
This book develops a human capital model to explain transformational growth within different stages of economic development, which will induce technological changes and consequently will require a change in human capital. China is a case study in transition and can provide useful lessons to other emerging economies.
Since the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, Wenzhou City of China's Zhejiang Province has witnessed large-scale institutional change and rapid economic development. This book studies the institutional change and economic development in Wenzhou since China's reform and opening-up. It concludes that the most important characteristic of Wenzhou model is that the city is the first to promote industrialization and urbanization by privatization and marketization in Zhejiang. As privatization and marketization reflect reform, and industrialization and urbanization represent development, Wenzhou model promotes development through economic reform. In the early years of the reform and opening-up, the people of Wenzhou boldly faced the constraints of traditional planned economy, bravely explored the market-oriented reform and opened up a new path to regional economic development. This book also contains the stories of the people of Wenzhou.
China’s dismantling of the Mao-era rural commune system and return to individual household farming under Deng Xiaoping has been seen as a successful turn away from a misguided social experiment and a rejection of the disastrous policies that produced widespread famine. In this revisionist study, Joshua Eisenman marshals previously inaccessible data to overturn this narrative, showing that the commune modernized agriculture, increased productivity, and spurred an agricultural green revolution that laid the foundation for China’s future rapid growth. Red China’s Green Revolution tells the story of the commune’s origins, evolution, and downfall, demonstrating its role in China’s economic ascendance. After 1970, the commune emerged as a hybrid institution, including both collective and private elements, with a high degree of local control over economic decision but almost no say over political ones. It had an integrated agricultural research and extension system that promoted agricultural modernization and collectively owned local enterprises and small factories that spread rural industrialization. The commune transmitted Mao’s collectivist ideology and enforced collective isolation so it could overwork and underpay its households. Eisenman argues that the commune was eliminated not because it was unproductive, but because it was politically undesirable: it was the post-Mao leadership led by Deng Xiaoping—not rural residents—who chose to abandon the commune in order to consolidate their control over China. Based on detailed and systematic national, provincial, and county-level data, as well as interviews with agricultural experts and former commune members, Red China’s Green Revolution is a comprehensive historical and social scientific analysis that fundamentally challenges our understanding of recent Chinese economic history.
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.
