China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet,
gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without
leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This
book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped
China's path. In the first post-Mao decade, China's reformers were
sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic
system and move toward more marketization-but struggled over how to
go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system
through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the
planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical
record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on
an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope
and pace, whereas Russia's economy collapsed under shock therapy.
Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese
and international participants and World Bank officials as well as
insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the
debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual
reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the
1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market
relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall,
the book delivers an original perspective on China's economic model
and its continuing contestations from within and from without.