ABSTRACT
This chapter examines major elements of the economic and political reforms in Central and Eastern Europe since the collapse of European communism to look for general lessons that could be of benefit to the reform process now under way in China. There are several dimensions to the relationship between politics and economics in the reform exercise. One is the role of the state in the transformation process and in the operation of the transformed economy. Experience throughout the European states of the former Soviet empire suggests that successful political reform is no less difficult than economic reform and that successful transformation depends on both. Both Russian and Chinese experience with economic reform thus far has underlined the importance of the state in the transformation process. For economic and political, not to mention geographic, reasons, neither the Latin American, the Asian "tiger" nor the Chinese alternative is a practical possibility for Eastern Europe.
