Economic and Political Reform In Post-Mao China

Abstract

The present paper will focus on the evolution of economic and political reform in the post-Mao era. It will be argued that although economic reforms were being introduced and implemented from 1979 onwards, the road toward basic systemic reform was blocked by the absence of a simultaneous change of the political system. That the issue of political reform has resurfaced in China Kjeld Erik Brsdsgaard now, ten years after Mao, may signify that economic and political reformers have joined forces and that major systemic changes are likely. A postscript has been added to the main body of the article in order to analyze the significance of the fall of General Secretary Hu Yaobang in January this year. It is based on a collection of CCP Central Documents (zhongfa) that have a restricted circulation in China and, in principle, are unavailable to Western analysts of Chinese politics.