ABSTRACT
The historical context has had an important influence on Chinese industrial reforms. Chinese industry was characterized by a wide range of firm sizes and technological levels in most industries. Despite the lack of overall guidelines and often haphazard implementation, there is an underlying “package” of industrial reforms, which fits together in terms of both logical interrelationships and actual implementation. By the mid-1980s, industrial reforms clearly had begun to move beyond the initial package, though like the measures mentioned above they also can be viewed as efforts to “complete” it. Enterprise reforms got off to a modest start in a few factories in Sichuan Province as early as October 1978. The goal is to try to ascertain the inherent tendencies in the evolving Chinese industrial system and their strength relative to other forces that may support or hinder reforms. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
