History
The transition to a socialist market economy began in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping introduced his program of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". Initial reforms in decollectivising agriculture and allowing private businesses and foreign investment in the late 1970s and early 1980s later led to large-scale radical reforms, consisting of privatisation of the state sector, liberalisation of trade and prices, and dismantling the welfare state in the late 1990s. Since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms, China's GDP rose from some 150 billion USD to more than 1.6 trillion USD, with an annual increase of 9.4 percent. As of 2004, 50% of the remaining state-owned enterprises have been transformed into joint-stock companies.
The private sector's share of the GDP rose from less than 1% in 1978 to 70% by 2005, a figure that is still increasing. Due to the poor performance of traditional state enterprises in the market economy, China embarked on a massive restructuring program of corporatization. Under this scheme, the state retains ownership and control of large enterprises but the central government has little direct control over the operations of state-owned enterprises. Recently the Conservative Hu-Wen Administration rolled back many of Deng's reforms, leaving observers dubbing 2008 the "third anniversary of the end of reform.
Read more about this topic: Socialist Market Economy
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)