Abstract
China’s reemergence has been the economic story of the twentieth century. This rise as well as the manner of its rise led by the state and its enterprises has invited much debate. This success has created a paradox given the mainstream economic narrative of inefficient state enterprises. In seeking an explanation, this chapter finds support from even Western scholars who argue for a strong role of the state in a mixed economy and from political economy arguments relating to the legitimacy of the ruling party. State enterprises’ continued role lies in their evolution from the traditional provision of social safety nets to that of supporting state strategy, the product of incremental reforms implemented over several decades. This introduction frames the discussion in later chapters.
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Notes
- 1.
Based on gross domestic product (GDP) by the World Bank, China was the second largest country in the world. The average annual GDP growth rate was 9.26% in five years from 2008 to 2012 (The World Bank, 2012).
- 2.
In Gordon Chang’s book The Coming Collapse of China (Chang, 2001), Chapter 3 was titled “State Enterprises Are Dying” and Chapter 7 “The State Attacks the Private Sector”.
- 3.
Hsu (2014) reported on fraud uncovered in 11 state enterprises by the National Audit Office, together with 35 cases of bribery and embezzlement in 2014.
- 4.
The “iron rice bowl” (铁饭碗) is a Chinese term that refers to guaranteed job security which state enterprises used to offer.
- 5.
The “Going Out” (走出去) strategy, announced in 1999, was a strategy to have Chinese enterprises investing overseas and internationalizing their operations.
- 6.
Kirk and Miller (1988) suggested a working definition of qualitative research that reflects these two principles. They defined it as “a particular tradition in social science that fundamentally depends on watching people in their own territory and interacting with them in their own language, on their own terms”.
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Li, R., Cheong, K.C. (2019). Introduction. In: China’s State Enterprises. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0176-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0176-6_1
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