TNAG-2752-FCO40-3967-Organisation-for-Economic-Co-operation-and-Development-(OECD-1994 — Page 139

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OECD FUTURE STUDIES INFORMATION BASE

0355

CHINA'S REFORM AND OPEN-DOOR POLICIES: THE PACE PICKS UP

By Amako, Satoshi, in: Japan Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 2, PP. 134–154 (1992)

Social, economic, and political trends in China are reviewed and consequences for development are assessed. Although the reform process accelerated in the early 1990s, major problems remain unsolved. The floods in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces in 1991 (1 million ba of crops destroyed, 220 million people affected) revealed the need to invest in rural infrastructures. The switch to market mechanisms in industry is hampered by bottlenecks arising from lack of investment in large and medium-sized state firms because of deficits, frozen loans, and debt defaults. Chinese public security agencies estimate that there are problems of political and social stability in 14 out of 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, accounting for 60% of the country's land area and 43% of the population. The most serious problems are in Tibet, but the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is also facing an upsurge in anti-Han, anti-Beijing separatist movements, especially among the Muslim community, and crime is a growing problem everywhere. Widely differing conditions for development are contributing to growing economic, social, and political disparities among regions, and clashes are increasingly of a horizontal nature, i.e. region against region, rather than against central government. There is evidence of a North-South dichotomy within the country. More generally, greater mobility of people, goods, and capital is accompanied by increasing estrangement between society and state. Existing power mechanisms are under threat as society splinters into regions, classes, and strata, but the government is unlikely to shift away from reform.

GD: Country Studies; Economic Development

SD: Economic Reform; Regional Disparity; Investment; Rural Areas; Crime; Political Aspects;

Conflicts

GE: China

LO: OECD, SGE/AU, Paris, FR

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