ABSTRACT
Economists estimated that China’s exports of everything from coal to surgical gloves would increase by nine percent annually through 2,000. The opening of China had the greatest significance for its premier investors along the Pacific Rim: Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. The immediate result was unquestioned progress for China and, most importantly, its beleaguered peasants. China’s peasants eagerly embraced the new regime’s incongruous slogan: “To Get Rich is Glorious.” Deng’s bold experiments in economic reform also affected China’s cities and major industries, but the initiatives often met with less success and enthusiasm than in the countryside. China has to maintain the pace of economic growth and even import food. The Party’s Central Committee reaffirmed the importance of the special economic zones, de-emphasized a crackdown on the private sector, and stressed the importance of agricultural production. Farmers could pool their capital to buy tractors or other agricultural implements and they could hire up to two hundred employees.
