ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s, the leadership of the People's Republic of China has been discussing and revising modernization goals and strategies for the year 2000 and beyond. In China, determining national strategy or direction involves deciding fundamental—moral and ideological—principles, not merely adopting a practical policy framework for problem solving. Under Deng Xiaoping's leadership, China has begun to break out of the economic and cultural stagnation created under the post-1949 Leninist party command system. People in China had become allergic to Maoist political campaigns and empty slogans that introduced socioeconomic models to be instantly and rigidly implanted everywhere regardless of applicability. Researchers suffered from the blinders of dogma, fear, and self-censorship; lost records and years of disuse of intellect; and ignorance of advances in social science outside China. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
