Bingzhe
Xu
12/11/2012
Draft
1
Policy “Reform and Opening up” in China
China
can be divided in two parts; one part that is Mao ruled from 1949 to 1976, another
part is from 1976 until now. China has a great change when a Policy was
implemented called “Reform and Opening up” in 1978. This paper will introduce
the background of this policy, what this policy process is, and what advantage
and disadvantage.
The background of Policy
The
Culture Revolution was launched by Mao in 1966, which want to exterminate
capitalism in China. Mao thinks it is still exists struggle classes in China
and some people want to walk in the “capitalist road”. This movement barely destroyed
Chinese economy and culture. China never made a little improvement during this
Culture Revolution. At that time, Mao’s personality cult is very serious; some important
nation leaders like Deng Xiaoping, Liu Shaoqi were defeated because of against
Mao.[1]
After Mao dead in
1976, Deng Xiaoping took power of China again. In 1978, China still had bad
economy and Chinese had low living standard level. Planning economy exists in
everywhere. Deng Xiaoping wanted to reform Chinese economy that market decides
everything. Although Mao’s death two years later, China still has strongly struggle
classes and market economy is a symbol of capitalism, people were worried about
if reforming is a good decision. After a national conference, National leader
made a common that we need to stop this struggle classes and personality cult. Developing
economy and let people had a good living standard important than other things.
Then, Chinese government made a policy called Reform and Opening up and this
policy is used until now.
Reform
The
first step reforming is agriculture. In 1981, government
made a policy called household-responsibility system, which means every farmer
be responsibility to some farm, farmers need to hand in a set number of crops
and others can be decided free by themselves, all profit and loss belong to
farmers, but the land still belong to nation. Before government made this
policy, in
1979 similar experiments began in Sichuan and Anhui provinces, both seeing
dramatic increases in agricultural productivity. Deng Xiaoping openly praised
these experiments in 1980, and the system has been adopted nationwide since
1981. [2] This policy encourages farmers plant some crops with high profit that
let farmers have high income and better lives.
Government also reform urban industry. In 1979, government set
up four special economy zones: ShenZhen, ZhuHai, ShangTou, and Xiamen. Deng
created a series of special economic zones for foreign investment that were
relatively free of the bureaucratic regulations and interventions that hampered
economic growth. These regions became engines of growth for the national
economy. [3] During planning economy, nation only permit state-owned industries
exist. Deng Xiaoping break it, he permit private business to operate. In
special economy zones, government gave local private business some benefit
policy and made they had high competitiveness. In addition, special economy
zones government use some policy to attract foreign investments. According to
this way, foreign enterprises use technology to switch market. In most areas,
it succeeds. In 1991, Shanghai was finally permitted to initiate economy. Now,
shanghai is a famous city in the world.
Opening
Government though agriculture and industry to reform
the domestic economy. Government has another way to increase economy. Foreign
investment was also liberalized upon Deng's ascension. Special Economic Zones
(SEZs) were created in the early 1980s to attract foreign capital by exempting
them from taxes and regulations. This experiment was successful and SEZs were
expanded to cover the whole Chinese coast. When this experience has a good result,
government tried to implement it in whole nation. The government reduced
tariffs and trade barriers like tariff rate falling from 56% to 15%. When China
joined the WTO, it agreed to considerably harsher conditions than other
developing countries. Trade has increased from under 10% of GDP to 64% of GDP
over the same period. China is considered the most open large country; By 2005,
China’s average statutory tariff on industrial products was 8.9 percent. [4]
Get and Lose
In
1990, China’s average per capita national income was around $350. Within a
decade, there was a threefold increase, taking the figure to $1,000. At the end
of 2008, the figure tripled yet again and China’s average per capita national
income reached another high of $3,000. From this data, we can find Chinese have
a better life. In 1970s, people get married had three big things, bicycle,
sewing machine, and watch; in 1980s, television, washing machine, and radio
instead of them. Today, car, house, and travelling are to be new three things.
During these years we can people living standard become better and better.
China
develops economy with high speed during 30 years, which make Chinese environment
damage seriously. In the past, government want to more GDP, they choose ignore the
environment issues. But now, pollution is a big problem in China. Air and water
pollution can be found in most cities. In the west, local government get income
from deforestation that let land desertificational. Depending on environmental
damage to get low-efficiency economy is become a big problem in China. Although
government is aware of seriousness of problems and try to adjust and improve the
economy development model, but these problem still exist.
When
China opens the door, technology, job opportunity, and competitiveness are
brought by foreign enterprises. Foreign cultures also come in China. Teenage accept
all the foreign cultures because of curiousness. They seldom distinguish which
is good or bad. Social has a little fickleness, people always like using money
to measure one thing. Some Chinese traditional culture and value were ignored
gradually by people.
Due
to this policy “Reform and Opening up” China becomes an important part in the
world. Every Chinese is benefit from this policy. This policy let China catch
up the step of world. However, China still faces some problem and challenge that
cannot be ignored.
Reference
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
[1]
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
[2]
[3] [4]
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