ABSTRACT
The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China served to mark the starting point of China’s reforms, which have been continuing now for thirty years. That Plenary Session was held in December 1978. Over the past few decades, the greatest accomplishments of reform can be seen in three main respects. First, there is rapid and sustained economic growth. Between 1978 and 2007, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 9.8 percent. Second, there is the “switching of tracks” from a centralized planned-economy system toward a market-economy system. In the course of this, both composition of ownership and methods of allocating resources in the economy changed dramatically. Third, there is an increase in levels of income, against a backdrop of basic social stability and overall improvement in people’s lives. China went from being a low-income to a middle-income country, with concurrent changes in social structure.
