The Gradual Revolution: China's Economic Reform Movement (rand Studies Published With Transaction)

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Early Reform (1979 to 1984) The First Phase: Reforming China's Centrally Planned System Analyzing Reform Since the Mid-1980s The Second-Phase Reform: Moving ‘Toward the Market Conclusions References Index As the world watched the crumbling away of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the pro-democracy movement in China was dealt a severe blow in June of 1989. Also referred to as the June 4th Incident, the Tiananmen Square protest included students, intellectuals, and workers demanding democratic reforms and social change. To break up the escalating protest armed soldiers stormed the square killing close to two hundred demonstrators and injuring thousands more. Culture and Politics in China explores the events, trends, and tendencies that led to the student demonstrations.This volume objectively presents a wide range of information permitting readers a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that culminated on the events of June 4, 1989. Documents include eyewitness accounts by student leaders Chai Ling and Wu'er Kaixi, the speeches of Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shangkun justifying the use of force, analysis of the events by the Marxist theorist Su Shaozhi, the writings of young intellectuals Yan Jiaqi, Liu Xiaobo, and others. Selections include essays on the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the television documentary, the'Yellow River Elegy'which question the Chinese cultural tradition.Leading political scientists contribute to this volume. Lee presents an analysis of the role of Deng Xiaoping in the events at Tiananmen Square, and his views on the Chinese Communist party-state and the pro-democracy movement King Tsao, who was at the square, views the demonstrations as a form of civil disobedience and dissent against the party-state. He gives an eyewitness account and a contextual analysis of some of the events and underlying themes. Steven Mark, a journalist, presents an analysis of the various roles of both the Chinese and Western press, beginning with their role in shaping public opinion before the demonstrations and continuing as the media scrambled to cover China's biggest news story since the communist takeover in 1949. Those who

The uprising at Tiananmen Square may have been crushed politically, but it has had extraordinary consequences in opening up China to new varieties of economic experimentation. Nowhere has this fusion of political repression and economic opportunity been better captured than in Hui Wang's masterful study. And given the world wide and historic importance of China, this volume deserves most careful consideration. Given Wang's unique background as a former assistant director of the China National Economic Reform Institute (CNERI) in Beijing, and before that, as a board member of The Economic Daily in the capital city of China, he is able to provide the sort of firsthand account that deeply enriches this fundamental treatise on the transformation of the Chinese economy from a centrally planned to a market system. This book should prove to be especially timely as American investors and businessmen are pouring into China for new commercial ventures; while scholars are likewise coming to China in order to obtain information and experience to benefit other struggling formerly socialist economies. Wang makes no claim that present-day China is necessarily a model for the rest of Asia or Eastern Europe, but he does make plain that variations on the theme of a free market and a controlled polity are as much a part of "Leftist" as of "Rightist" regimes. As a result, this book should have appeal quite beyond undergraduate and graduate courses in modern China, and should extend to those political scientists and sociologists who take seriously fundamental themes of development.

Edited By Peter Li, Steven Mark, Marjorie H. Li. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 352-357) And Index.