ABSTRACT
Record-breaking grain harvests, relative stability in prices and wages, and balanced growth among sectors of the economy had given reformers considerable political capital to push their program farther and faster. Economic imbalances undermined the legitimacy of the reform program and opened up widespread questioning about its relative benefits and costs, not only in economic terms but also in social and political terms. The type of instability automatically increased political pressures for recentralizing administrative controls on the economy and threatened to produce a cycle that had become typical of Eastern European reform efforts. Zhao Ziyang was clearly using scientific expertise as a major political resource in an attempt to buttress his policy proposals against ideological and practical critiques.
