Central Policy and Provincial Responses

Abstract

Reforming the state planned economic system created a number of important challenges for the CCP elites. Chief among them was the need to replace old economic levers of control over the provinces with new mechanisms which reflected the decline in central planning functions. The failure to meet this challenge, and the continued reliance on old and now unsuitable control mechanisms goes a long way to explaining the nature and extent of centre-province conflict in the post-Mao era.