ABSTRACT
The objections boil down to the claim that China, being "Communist," is much more "authoritarian," "totalitarian," and "monolithic" than the rest of the Third World. This chapter examines with utmost detachment the history of political conflicts in the Chinese Communist party, beginning with a careful analysis of political actors' perceptions of the nature of their opponents and their own groups, and of the processes, rules and expected outcome of political struggle. The process of decision-making is much more complicated than the literature on the Third World may lead us to believe. The actual making of this decision stretched across two premierships and directly involved a number of cabinet ministers, technocrats, and even an economics professor, as well as external representatives from the United States and especially from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Almost all of the participants in the making of the devaluation decision concurred in their perception of the influence of external factors.
