Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Harding, Harry

Titel

Forty Years of Reform and Opening: From the "Economic Miracle" to the Middle-Income Trap

Ist Teil von

• Issues and studies - Institute of International Relations, 2020-03, Vol.56 (1), p.1-5

Ort / Verlag

Taipei: National Chengchi University

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In 1978-79, China experienced two major turning points that had fundamental consequences for its future development. The Third Plenum of the Party's Central Committee endorsed the concept of "seeking truth from facts" and inaugurated the post-Mao era of "reform and opening." At almost exactly the same time, the United States and China established normal diplomatic relations, and moved quickly to the normalization of their economic relationship as well. The economic policies China implemented in the subsequent 40 years have achieved enormous success. China has achieved high and sustained rates of growth; it has lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty; China has become the world's largest trading economy and holds the world's largest pool of foreign exchange reserves. It is now the second largest source of outbound foreign direct investment, and may soon become the first, replacing the United States. This has often been called an "economic miracle," but that term is not entirely accurate or appropriate. A standard definition of "miracle" is "an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency." China's economic success has indeed been extraordinary and largely welcomed, but it need not be attributed to divine agency to explain it. The results are fully explicable by standard economic laws, including the benefits of allowing greater room for market forces and private ownership, mobilizing China's abundant supply of labor to produce for export, and encouraging incoming foreign investment to provide financial capital, more efficient production technology, brands, and marketing networks. As in many developing countries, these economic laws had previously been ignored or rejected in Maoist China, but under the reform and opening up they were enthusiastically embraced. China's performance therefore does not represent a defiance of "natural or scientific laws," but rather their acceptance.