Suchergebnisse

Evaluates successes and failures of Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's economic policies; focuses on inflation, privatization, the rise in unemployment, and effects of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis.

Is macroeconomic stability the Achilles heel of the Chinese economy? Recurrent bouts of inflationary disorder lead some observers to worry that the Chinese government is unable to control the economy. Macroeconomic difficulties show up in a pattern of repeated boom and bust cycles, in which each boom is accompanied by an acute inflationary phase and significant disruption. Moreover, since the reform era began, the peak annual inflation rate of each successive cycle has been higher than that of the preceding one. The most recent attempts to cool off the economy have only led to additional questions. An austerity policy was decreed at the end of June 1993, yet inflation actually accelerated in 1994, and it was not until mid-1995 that it dropped to the levels of mid-1993. The Chinese government was engaged in a quest for an economic "soft landing" for two years without a net reduction in the inflation rate!

The author addresses a few of the many issues relating to Chinese macroeconomic policy. After describing the basic conditions that structure China's macroeconomic problems, he shows that the retreat of the state from most spheres of the economy has not been accompanied by a similar reduction in state fixed investment. The enormous pressures on the banking system by shrinking state revenues and large state investment are examined. (DÜI-Sen)

Deng Xiaoping's economic legacy is overwhelmingly positive and quite secure-in this, it stands in contrast to his troubled and ambiguous political legacy. Of all of Deng's achievements, the transformation of China's economic system is the only one that is currently judged to have succeeded, and to have benefited large numbers of people. Deng presided over the Chinese government during a period of enormous economic change. Under his leadership, the government extricated itself from a legacy of massive economic problems and began a sustained programme of economic reform. Reforms transformed the economic system and initiated a period of explosive economic growth, bringing the country out of isolation and into the modem world economy.

B. Naughton believes that Deng Xiaoping's economic legacy is overwhelmingly positive and quite secure. Yet it is deeply paradoxical to credit Deng primarily with economic succcess, for he has never said anything original about economics or economic policy, and rarely displays any particular insight into the functioning of the economy. The author examines Deng's career since 1957 with particular stress on the post-1978 "era of Deng Xiaoping". (DÜI-Sen)

Between 1964 and 1971 China carried out a massive programme of investment in the remote regions of south-western and western China. This development programme – called "the Third Front" – envisaged the creation of a huge self-sufficient industrial base area to serve as a strategic reserve in the event of China being drawn into war. Reflecting its primarily military orientation, the programme was considered top secret for many years; recent Chinese articles have discussed the huge costs and legacy of problems associated with the programme, but these discussions have been oblique and anecdotal, and no systematic appraisal has ever been published.2 Since Chinese analysts have avoided discussion of the Third Front, western accounts of China's development have also given it inadequate emphasis, and it has not been incorporated into our understanding of China during the 1960s and 1970s. It is common to assume that the "Cultural Revolution decade" was dominated by domestic political conflict, and characterized by an economic system made dysfunctional by excessive politicization, fragmented control, and an emphasis on small-scale locally self-sufficient development. The Third Front, however, was a purposive, large-scale, centrally-directed programme of development carried out in response to a perceived external threat with the broad support of China's national leaders. Moreover, this programme was immensely costly, having a negative impact on China's economic development that was certainly more far-reaching than the disruption of the Cultural Revolution.