Reform and opening-up policies in China
After the death of Mao Zedong, an alteration in the economic system was introduced. Just as abolishing the people's communes, readmittance of family-oriented agriculture, and limited introduction of prices and markets initially outlined China's economic course to supplement the planned economy by stimulating production via natural market regulation, so now (since the 14th party congress) we hear about a socialist market economy with Chinese features.
Ideological foundations of reform in China
This change in economic policy was founded in and introduced by ideology, by way of reformulating the Principal Contradiction in Chinese society during 1978's third plenary session of the eleventh central committee of the CCP-namely, the contradiction between the growing material and cultural needs of the people and backward social production. The socialist market economy was manifested in the new Constitution of the CCP (18 October 1992) and its four modernizations: agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military. No reform was initiated for the purpose of introducing a market economy or democratic system in the western sense.
The leaders viewed themselves as being at the primary stage of socialism and wanted to reach the end phase more quickly. The opinion that these ideological axioms have degenerated to mere lip service boils down to the west's associating the word "reform" with the concept of democratization. It is nonetheless unmistakable that the economic opening-up had societal and political consequences that the Party had to deal with.
Results of reform and opening-up policies in China
Results of reform and opening-up policies Reform and opening-up policy effected a shift of not only the economic, but also the justice and political systems. Export-oriented growth policy and the intended support of foreign investment brought with it the need for stability of the law; that is, the CCP endeavored to reform economic law as well as the justice system-but instead of with the goal of better serving justice, with the idea of forming the law into a better tool. On a political level, reform led to a narrower integration of state officials and the economy, which also led to a great deal of corruption. In 1993 a large anticorruption campaign began, but with only moderate success. Corruption has become one of the most important concomitants in view of the economic shift
Mass campaigns in China
Another concomitant phenomenon is defending mass campaigns for the enforcement of control over the society and repression of adversaries. Mass campaigns, with few exceptions, have made way to new means of repression targeted at groups classified as enemies of the system, such as members of the democratic movement or religious groups like Falun Gong.
Political control in China
In maintaining much of its control over the political system in this manner, the Party has hat to accept that its ability enforcing political decisions on the provincial level has declined. The gulf in the standards of living among provinces, in particular among coastal and still underdeveloped western ones, has widened; provinces go more and more their own ways, developing their own markets and independent financial and taxation policies. Economic policy, therefore, has had the consequence of decentralizing administrative responsibilities.
The partisan permeation of non-governmental enterprise has dwindled like rural party organization at lower levels. The latter is expected to take on special significance as the standard of living increases and the economy turns from export-oriented growth to one focused on domestic demand.
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