ABSTRACT
China’s economic reforms that have taken place since the late 1970s have had profound and far-reaching effects on the Chinese economy, which are unprecedented in its economic history. This chapter reviews the background of economic reform inaugurated since the late 1970s and the emerging issues in different stages of reforms and development. The series of reforms was driven by the devastated economic conditions inherited from the pre-reform era and the political changes in the late 1970s. The chapter shows that China’s reform agenda can best be described as an ad hoc suite of crisis-and-response strategy, instead of a well thought-out reform plan. It describes the initial success of the first phase of economic reforms from 1978 to 1984, during which rural reforms brought spectacular growth in output and enhancement of living standard. The initial success of rural reform and the open-door policy motivated central leaders to kick off enterprise reform and price reform.
