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Traveling Through China's Turbulent Spring
| Article
# : |
16615 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1989 |
8,533 Words |
| Author
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Roy F. Grow
Roy F. Grow is chair of the Political Science Department at
Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota and president of the
board of directors of the Midwest China Center. His book
Competing in China: Japanese and American Firms in a New
Market will be published in late 1988. |
Our new free enterprises and the new free market are too successful and now everyone is jealous. They want to destroy us.
--a small-factory manager, 1969
Factory manager Wang watched the flickering image of Premier Li Peng on the television screen. It was March 1989, and Premier Li was delivering his report on the Chinese economy to the three thousand delegates attending the National People's Congress--China's equivalent of the U.S. Congress.
Wang watched the premier's speech in a Beijing hotel lobby. The speech worried him. It was the major report given to the delegates; the Congress had been building toward Li's appearance for days. His topic was the Chinese economy, and he had spent nearly half a day outlining the problems that had tested the Chinese people in 1988 (inflation, corruption, lack of orderly planning) and describing a series of proposals that might correct some of the imbalances.
Wang managed a small factory outside Shenyang--China's Pittsburgh and Gary combined--in the southern part of what used to be called Manchuria. The factory was one of the myriad of small enterprises that had sprung up across China in the 1980s. Except for the fact that Wang's factory produced parts for consumer appliances, it was like many of the others: small, possessed of an energetic work force and entrepreneurial managers, and very profitable.
Premier Li's comments seemed to be directed straight at Wang. The premier suggested that many of the "new factories" had pushed the limits of reform too far and, as a result, their managers were undermining China's socialist revolution. " I am in trouble," Wang commented that night, "and the political tides might be running against people like me."
At a hotel on the other side of Beijing, accountant Zhen Bo had a different view of Li's speech. Zhen was a senior manager at Anshan Iron and Steel--China's giant complex in Liaoning Province. Zhen was in Beijing to attend a conference of a committee that was advisory to the National People's Congress.
Zhen nodded in agreement when the evening news showed Li Peng discussing the need "to tighten up economic control," and he almost applauded when the premier spoke of "the corruption surrounding some circles. "The economy was spinning out of control.
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