China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual
marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its
wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the
fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China's path. In the
first post-Mao decade, China's reformers were sharply divided. They
agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more
marketization-but struggled over how to go about it. Should China
destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or
should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market
creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes
behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly
described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia's economy
collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including
interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World
Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents,
the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a
path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the
crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of
state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens.
Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China's economic
model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.
