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a brake on the speed of economic advance.
Nonetheless conditions
are slowly being created in which sustained economic growth, albeit at an unspectacular rate and in a less than efficient manner, should be feasible. The prospects are as favourable as they have been for over twenty years.
16.
Economic readjustment has been severe. Even now we have the figures only for 1979 and we shall have to wait until 1981 before we get back to planning on a five year basis. A number of spectacular projects in heavy industry have been at least postponed. But the main lines of policy are unchanged and foreign trade will increase even during the readjustment phase. In the favoured sectors of development, e.g. energy, power generation, communications, the immediate prospects for competitive British exports are good, as they are in the longer term over a wider sector, including steel. Now that the Congress is over the excuse for inaction on the part of Chinese Ministries and Corporations has gone and the autumn should see the reopening of
It is slower negotiations with the prospect of firm contracts. going than some firms expected last year but realism on the part of the Chinese is only to be welcomed. The West has a large stake in the successful progress of China's modernisation with Western help; it would only be dangerous if the Chinese tried to go too fast, risking failure and a possible political backlash.
17.
Finally power. Deng's stock, at its peak in January, His weak point was probably slipped a little in March and April. not, I think, Vietnam, on the whole a popular and reasonably successful operation in Chinese eyes, but the way in which the democracy movement threatened to get out of hand, alarming not just the Maoists but the great mass of conservative-minded cadres. The need for economic retrenchment also played some part.
Deng
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9.
/bears
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