ABSTRACT
By the early 1970s, Mao realized that China was too strategically isolated and vulnerable to confront both the USSR and the United States at the same time. As the Soviets were geographically close and were thus potentially the greater threat to China, Mao decided to seek an accommodation with the United States in order to confront the USSR. The worst period of confrontation between China and the United States finally ended when the US President Nixon visited China in 1972. After Mao’s passing and the purge of the ‘Gang of Four’ in 1976, the chaos of the Cultural Revolution subsided and China began to look outward again. The dynamism of the East Asian newly industrialized economies undoubtedly caused the Chinese leaders to have second thoughts about the capitalist development approach, and to reflect on China’s disappointing growth record since the first FYP and the problems associated with duplicating the Soviet model. At this development stage (1978-1993), the Chinese leaders’ attention was primarily on overall industrial restructuring. There were no specific promotion strategies
launched for the electronics industry. This chapter therefore discusses the major impacts of broadly applied restructuring policies that are relevant to the development of the electronics industry.
