ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the program and its subsequent revisions, and identifies difficulties already encountered. It aims to assess the probability that the industrial modernization program will achieve its goals. The program for China's industrial modernization, unfurled by Hua Kuo-feng in 1978, established Herculean goals. The entire program for the modernization of Chinese industry hinges on two factors: the expansion of productive capacity and the reform of industrial management and control systems. The modernization plan requires enormous amounts of capital. China's modernization program is dependent upon the acquisition of large amounts of foreign equipment, it necessarily follows that this equipment will require the services of large numbers of technicians, engineers, and managerial personnel. China's limited ability to finance and absorb foreign technology and the appearance of bottlenecks in energy, transportation, and raw material supplies have forced Chinese central planners to re-examine the entire modernization program.