ABSTRACT
Reform of commercial policy in post-Mao China has produced conflict among senior leaders and between them and local officials. Within the central leadership, official China has disagreed over the extent to which the economy should be regulated by administrative means (central planning) or by economic means (market mechanisms). In the implementation of commercial policy, especially of the policy to encourage individual entrepreneurs to set up small businesses, central leaders have run into opposition from local officials. While these issues do not exhaust the range of controversies in the commercial policy arena, they do illustrate conflict within and between levels in the administrative hierarchy and conflict at both the policy formulation and implementation stages.
