ABSTRACT
With the opening of its door to global trade in the early 1970s, China's foreign trade began to develop rapidly. By the 1980s, following the basic reform of economic policies and institutions, the trade volume including many agricultural commodities expanded markedly. This paper begins with a brief historical perspective of China's foreign trade followed by an empirical review of the growth in trade of the 1980s particularly with reference to the Pacific Rim countries and also with respect to the agricultural trade policies of that period. The impact of the recent political unrest on agricultural production and trade is discussed before concluding with an outlook for agricultural trade with the Pacific Rim countries in the 1990.
