China’s role in global affairs today continues to rise. This book provides an authoritative, comprehensive and detailed overview of contemporary economic developments in China. Key topics include agriculture; the market gradually replacing central planning; the global financial crisis; the reform of state-owned industrial enterprises; the non-state sectors; the ‘open-door’ policy (including the WTO, exchange rate policy, and inward and outward direct foreign investment); and China’s economic performance in general.
The book continues - and adds to – the overview of developments up to May 2006 which were covered in the author’s China: A Guide to Economic and Political Developments (2006), and is the companion volume to Political Developments in Contemporary China: A Guide (2010) - both published by Routledge.
Overview Agriculture: policy since 1945; general facts and figures; the Household Responsibility System (features, reforms, successes and failures); the hukou system; the World Trade Organization (WTO) The market gradually replacing central planning: prices; monetary policy and the banking system; a chronology of financial developments The reform of state industrial enterprises: the discarding of social functions (unemployment compensation and pensions, health and housing); early reforms; shareholding and privatization (including developments on the two stock exchanges); conglomerates; a chronology of developments in ownership policy and state enterprise reform; bankruptcy law; the new labour law; financing investment (the debate); trade union branches in enterprises; the role of the party in enterprises; the non-state, non-agricultural sectors: the private sector, foreign-invested enterprises and township-village enterprises (TVEs); the importance of these sectors as a proportion of industrial output; the private sector as a whole as a percentage of GDP; the private, non-agricultural sector as a percentage of GDP; the underground economy; TVEs The ‘open-door’ policy: foreign trade; growing importance and general aspects; the WTO; yuan convertibility and exchange rate policy; the Asian financial crisis; direct foreign investment (DFI): definition; volume and other indicators of importance; investment overseas by Chinese companies (outward/outbound direct foreign investment); China and Taiwan; the gradual opening up of sectors; developments in conditions affecting direct foreign investment; Special Economic Zones (SEZs) Economic performance: global significance; GDP (including the upward revision of 2004 GDP and a section devoted to purchasing-power parity (PPP) estimates of GDP) and GDP growth; manufacturing output; sources of growth; raw materials; poverty; inflation; unemployment; pollution; energy sources; the number of labour disputes; aid; education
Biography
Ian Jeffries is Honorary Professor in the Department of Economics in the School of Business and Economics at Swansea University, UK. He is the author of numerous books in the series, Guides to Economic and Political Developments in Asia, including volumes on North Korea, Vietnam, China and Mongolia.
Praise for Ian Jeffries' China: A Guide to Economic and Political Developments (2006):
"This book is highly useful not only to casual China watchers [...] but also to researchers and academics [...] an engrossing guide." – Marc Lanteigne, International Affairs
