Economic Reforms in China

Abstract

The Chinese economic reforms and the Soviet (during Gorbachev) and Russian economic failures have attracted worldwide attention because a number of countries in the developing world and various Eastern European countries have been implementing the same type of economic reforms and structural adjustments, supported by international financial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF, and the EBRD. It is an important question as to what lessons we can learn from this. Although Yeltsin, immediately after the destruction of the old Soviet Union, implemented the structural adjustment program, commonly known as ‘shock therapy,’ it was Gorbachev who initiated the process and tried to build the necessary institutional structures. Similarly, although Deng in China is known as the architect of the Chinese reform process it was Mao Tse-tung himself who, after the failure of the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, initiated the reforms in agriculture and land ownership in China that later developed into the so-called Chinese-style reform process.