In the years that have gone by since 1979 when Mainland China began to implement her program of economic reform, many fundamental changes in the strategic deployment of her economic reconstruction have taken place.
This paper is an attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of Mainland China’s economic reconstruction strategies and their deployment. Attention is drawn to the following four specific issues:
(1) A more realistic economic reconstruction policy is envisaged, as opposed to the idealism of the past, with due regard being given to China’s vast land mass, large population, and present levels of poverty and underdevelopment. Mainland China’s more conservative attitude is reflected in such overall goals as her desire to eradicate poverty by the end of the century and to be on a par with developed countries within a further fifty years.
(2) Since 1977, due to a gradual thawing in relations with the United States, Japan and the Soviet Union, Mainland China has begun to adopt an open-door policy instead of one of economic isolation. On a strategic level, she has adopted a policy to “depend upon the east and relocate west”. This involves developing both the coastal areas and the interior regions.
(3) Mainland China still faces tough challenges in her economic reconstruction, not only in her coastal regions, but also to a growing extent in her cities and rural areas in the interior, as the open-door policy begins to take effect.
(4) As her economic reconstruction strategy is slowly implemented, Mainland China is confronted with countless additional problems. Faced with five prime bottlenecks, namely agriculture, transport, energy, education and technology, Mainland China is trying to reduce the pressure by attracting much-needed funds, technology and skills from overseas, in order to make her policies a success.
