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China The Opening Up Policy and Reform in the Countryside
The first reforms to affect China's economy were instituted
between 1979 and 1984. The programs were systemic economic reforms
aimed at revising China's foreign economic relations and refocusing
the country's agricultural system. The desire to purchase foreign
equipment and technology needed for China's modernization led to a
policy of opening up to the outside world that would earn foreign
exchange through tourism, exports, and arms sales
(see Reform of the Economic System, Beginning in 1979
, ch. 5). The opening up
policy included sending large numbers of students abroad to acquire
special training and needed skills. The effect was to make China
more dependent on major sectors of the world economy and reverse
the Maoist commitment to the ideal of self-reliance. Not everyone
was satisfied with this radical departure. The conservative
reformers were especially apprehensive about the corrupting
cultural and ideological influences that they believed accompanied
foreign exposure and imports.
In China's rural areas, the economic reform program
decollectivized agriculture through a contract
responsibility system (see Glossary)
based on individual households
(see Rural Society
, ch. 3;
Agricultural Policies
, ch. 6). The
people's communes (see Glossary)
established under Mao were largely replaced
with a system of family-based farming. The rural reforms
successfully increased productivity, the amount of available arable
land, and peasant per capita income. All of these were major reform
achievements. Their success stimulated substantial support in the
countryside for the expansion and deepening of the reform agenda.
While the opening up policy and rural reform produced
significant benefits to the Chinese economy and won enthusiastic
support for the Deng reformers, they also generated substantial
problems and brought political opposition from conservative
leaders. The Maoist ideal of self-reliance still had proponents
among the leadership in the 1980s, and many were openly critical of
the expanding foreign influences, especially in such areas as the
special economic zones (see Glossary).
In rural areas, economic
reform led to inequalities among economic regions and appeared in
some instances to produce a new, potentially exploitative class of
rich peasants. The official press contained accounts of peasants
who carried the profit motive far beyond the intent of the reform
program, engaging in smuggling, embezzlement, and blatant displays
of newly acquired wealth. Thus, on the one hand, top leaders fully
supporting the reform agenda could show major successes as they
promoted further reform. On the other hand, those more concerned
with ideological continuity and social stability could identify
problems and areas of risk. The differing perceptions and responses
of these reformist and conservative groups produced considerable
tension in the political system.
Data as of July 1987
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