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Introduction: China in a New Era
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14255 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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7 / 1988 |
579 Words |
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The five articles that follow are adapted and rewritten versions of papers that were delivered at the third international conference of the Professors World Peace Academy in Manila in August of 1987. This was the largest and most systematic conference ever held on China. The papers we selected for this July issue include discussions of comparative development as well as exclusively Chinese themes. For instance, Marion Levy's contrast of Japan and China points out the differences in social structure that led to the contrasting experiences of these two Asian giants. And Rolf Theen's paper on reform in two communist giants, China and the USSR, shows how difficult the idea of reform is for communist regimes and limns the similarities and differences between conceptions of reform in the two countries.
Our authors have good company in not seeing clearly where these reform efforts will eventuate. The leaders of the two nations disagree among themselves over the risks and costs of different strategies of reform. The one thing that is certain, or at least that few would dispute in either country, is that centralized planning has proved a failure and that at least some market practices must be adopted. But all reform measures entail risks that some members of the leadership fear greatly as threats to their positions and perquisites.
Roy Grow's paper shows how interstitial bureaucratic and administrative problems can introduce complexities, uncertainties, and conflicts even among those who support reform. Though there may be agreement in principle, implementing reform is often difficult in practice.
China has a number of advantages over the Soviet Union in approaching reform. The revolution itself has been around for thirty fewer years and there has been less time for vested interests to develop. Furthermore, the Cultural Revolution, unlike Stalin's mass purges--which destroyed people but not institutions--ravaged a number of important institutional structures, which might have served as a base for resistance to reform.
Unlike the case in the Soviet Union, the purgees are back in power in China, and they have learned from bitter experience. Although the Soviets may fear relative or absolute economic decline, they are nonetheless a great military power. The nationalistic Chinese, by contrast, know they are a Third World military power. Moreover, their security and their national pride rest on changing that condition as quickly as possible. This does not mean that the Chinese see no personal or institutional interests
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