ABSTRACT
Following the 10-year turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), the CPC has made a “focus shift” from “class struggle” to the economic development characterized by the “four modernizations” of industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology, and adopted market-oriented economic reform and an open-door policy. However, how can we understand the legacies of state socialism and the Chinese communist economy established after the communist takeover in 1949 in Mao’s China and how these legacies continue to influence the reforming Chinese economy? How can we understand the current Chinese economy and evaluate the considerable changes in post-Mao China? We need to define state socialism and examine key characteristics of its application in the Chinese economy, so as to establish a reference point from which the Chinese economy is transitioning, and evaluate economic changes in post-Mao China.
