Learning How to Open the Door: Reassessme of China''s"Opening Strategy ⑧ Lawrence C. Reardon The China Quarterly, No. 155(Sep., 1998), 479-511. Stable URL: hup:/links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0305-7410%28199809290%3A155%3C479%3ALHTOTD%3E2.0.C0%3B2-L The China Quarterly is currently published by School of Oriental and African Studies. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms. html. jstor's terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles,and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/soas. html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. http: //www.jstor.org/ Sat May2211:12492004
Learning How to Open the Door: A Reassessment of China's"Opening"Strategy Lawrence C. Reardon Social scientists always have been fascinated by cyclic theories, which not only parsimoniously describe and explain the underlying dynamics of world events, but, for the more adventurous, offer the possibility of prediction. This fascination has been especially true in the China field, where Chinese scholars and practitioners have used cyclic theories to explain Chinese politics since the Early Han. Among contemporary Western academics, sociologists have used"compliance"cycles to char- acterize t the relationship between Chinese elites and the peasantry. 2 Western economists have focused on variations of Chinese business cycles, such as the demand for consumption goods or harvest failures, to analyse China's economic growth. Political scientists have looked at the impact of various business, reform and factional cycles on Chinese political development. Yet despite its enticing explanatory power, some Western scholars have adopted a healthy scepticism towards cyclic theory. In the mid- 1970s, Andrew Nathan criticized their derivative nature, which he believed reiterated the Chinese Manichean view of the struggle between capitalism and socialism. While Winckler did respond ably to Nathan's various ke advantage of the great variety of available policy d d four and a half decades o Chinese History: Cycles, Development, or Stagnation?(Boston: D. n in rural gical Reader on pp.410-438;see e Gunn and ic of China: critique,"the C 6. Winckler, "Policy oscillations in the People's Republic of China: a reply,"pp. 734-750 The China Quarterly, 1998
The China Quarterl Chinese policy change in heeding Nathans call to analyse the dynamic learning aspects of the Chinese policy process This article examines the development of three major foreign economi olicy initiatives formulated between 1979 and 1980- plan-oricnted export promotion policies, utilization of foreign finance capital (private and official capital inflows, direct foreign investment) and export process- ing zones. These pillars of China's initial"Opening Strategy"resulted from two decades of interaction with the global economy. Coalescing around an inwardly-oriented strategy of import substitution, certain Chinese elites learned how to harness the world capitalist marketplace to develop China. After the Third Plenum of 1978, this incremental learning initiated a gradual evolution towards a more outwardly-oriented development regime characteristic of the East Asian development model Cyclic Models, Incremental Learning and Opinion Group Approaches Nathan was most critical of the inflexible nature of the cyclic model Maoist polemicists often interpreted Chinese politics post-1949 as a zigzag "struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. Fearing that Western theories continued to impose this dialectic iew of the policy development process, Nathan argued for a learning model in which policy options were"so multiform and complex that the choices are really more than two, and might best be regarded as infinite. 8 In other words, Chinese clites have the ability to learn from thcir experiences, and are not caught in an unchanging loop of history et, there need not be an artificial separation between cyclic and lincar views of the Chinese policy process. The repetition of certain patterns and phases of the policy process does not preclude the evolutionary development of initiatives. While Chinese elites can learn from past successes and failures, their ability to implement progressive change can be interrupted by recurring policy patterns initiated by a change in the ruling elite coalition. Under such conditions, policy learning can occur over time. but at incremental One way to demonstrate this incremental process is to use the opinion translated from Hongar N.10(1973), cited in Nath an, "policy scillations PP. 731 8. Nathan, ibid. p 728 For a recent discussion of linear and cyclical process models, see Donald J Puchala 177-20 10. In contrast to organizational theorists such as James March, most of the recent foreign g has focused evel of analysis, starting with Robert Jervis, Perception and Mi International Princeton University Press, 1976), ch 6. For s ng a conceptual minefield International Organization, voL 48, No. 2(1994), pp. 279-312; as applied to the China urity field Pp: 27-61 I wcix policy in the 1980s and 1990s, "The China Journal, No 35 (1996) dissertation, University of Maryland, 1992)
Learning How to Open the Door group approach, which focuses on the policy elites Weltanschauung Richard Lowenthal’ s seminal work on the“ Communist dilemma” argued that all communist systems are faced with a conflict between the com ing goals of modernization and utopianism. While adopting a linear argument that modernization advocates would eventually prevail, Lowen- thal did not totally exclude the possibility that the antinomy of develop- ment goals could produce cyclic changes of policies. Recently, several litical scientists have used variations of the opinion group approach to over evidence of such cycles during the pre-and post-Third Plenum When applying this incremental learning model to Chinas pre-1979 evelopment policy, it could be argued that Chinese elites uniformly agreed to pursue an inwardly-oriented development regime. The inter national market was not considered a partner in development, but a dangerous adversary whose influences on the domestic economy must be controlled and, in certain instances . eliminated. however. Chinese elites disagreed over which path of development would achieve self-reliance. Certain elites, including Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Li wannian and Bo Yibo(hereafter referred to as the post-GLF coalition), wanted to continue a"modernizing "strategy of import substitution(Is), whose imports of technology and equipment made an important contribu tion to Chinas overall economic development in the 1950s. Is develop- ment was a comprehensive strategy of importing foreign technology and knowledge to produce intermediate goods(petrochemicals, steel),pro- ducer(machincry) and consumer durables(automobiles, televisions, etc 11. Richard Lowenthal, Development vs utopia in communist pol Johnson(ed ) Change in Communist Systems(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970) P. 54. Also see Alexander Eckstcin, China's Economic Revolution(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977), Pp. 37-65; Skinner and Winckler, "Compliance succession in rura ommunist China, "p 412. For an updated version of the op Vol. 46. No. 1(1992), pp. 101-145. Because of its inclusive nature, this study does not adopt 12. According to Lowenthal, "throughout the history of these indigenous Communist cgimes a kind of natural alternation has occurred in which periods of revolutionary upheaval re followed by periods of consolidation and economic progress, and these in turn by new evolutionary upheavals, though the alternation does not seem regular enough to meaningfully described as cyclical. "See Lowenthal, Development vS utopia, "p. 54 13, Dorothy Solinger, Chinese Business Under Socialism(Berkeley: University of California, 1984), p. 298: Harry Harding, China's Second Revolution(Washington, DC rookings, 1987), pp. 83-84: Eric Harwit, Chinas Automobile Industry: Policies, Problems Ind Prospects(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), Pp. 15-42; Jude Howell, China Opens its Doors(Boulder, CO: Lynne Ricnner, 1993), pp 32-35; 252-59 Peiji,“G Chinas forcign trade development strategy"), in Wu Jikun(ed ) Duiwai maoyi fazhan ie(Foreign Trade Development Sti hubanshc, 1984), Pp. 26-36: Dwight H. Perkins, The central features of China's economi E Comparative Perspective( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), Pp. No 26(1988), pp. 627-28: Alexander Eckstein, Communist China's Economic Grow Foreign Trade, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), Pp. 117-130
482 The China Quarterly that normally would have been imported. Other elites, including Mao Zedong, Jiang Qing and Lin Biao, promoted a more utopian strategy of semi-autarchy, characterized by the cessation of all foreign trade and investment activities, except for very limited, government-mandated actions. Instead of an over-reliance on technology, bureaucracy and market incentives these elites embraced more normative measures to mobilize the people's sense of nationalism and communist ideals to achieve self-sufficiency. 7 The resulting dispute between the various opinion groups condemned China to a cycling within the inwardly-oriented development regime for nearly two decades. 8 Yet this did not prevent the Chinese elites wh promoted modernization from learning how to deal with the international marketplace On regaining power after 1971 and again after 1976, they reviewed and reimplemented many of the post-GLF foreign economic policies of the early 1960s. This article concludes that by the Third Plenum many elites supporting the modernization strategy had learne the limitations of an inwardly-oriented development regime; thus they proposed to experiment with several foreign economic policy initiatives indicative of an outwardly-oriented development regime 15. Bela balass alassa, The Pr of Industrial De s in Intemational Finance, No. 141(Princeton: Princeton University Press, formation on Chinas Is stratcgy, sce Nicolas Lardy, Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978-1990(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, World bank tgg world g5agg bince geverodks rcenand Chp inae washington, mv "n Harry Harding(ed ) China's Foreign Relations in the 1980s(New Haven: Yale University res,1984),pp.83-90 that"both the carlicr writings of Mao and the later writings between words and actions can be a wide one. "They recognize the"plausibility". to plicy of econo ign economic policy during the Cultural Revolution and the summer of 1976"was sentially a closed door policy. "Sce Samuel P, S Ho and Ralph w. Huenemann, Chi an recognize that various coalitions supl various philosophies, bureaucratic identit opalesce around a pinion. In hi ost-Glf period, Lieberthal acknowledges that Mao did not"fully share the goals and around Mao's“ faith in 甲 Forward and thac, spfi i ange and rectification. "See Kenneth Lieberth:=m University Press, 1987), pp 335-356, especially pp. 351-84( Cambridge: Cambridge Fairbank (eds ) The Cambridge History of China, Vol olicy, "pp. 291, 300-302: for further discussion on the antinomy of trategies during the pre-1978 period, see Lawrence C. Reardon, "T pp.281-30port processing zones, "Journal of Contemporary China, Vol 5, No. 13(1996). 19. Utopians"also engaged in"incremental learning. "See Lieberthal. "The Great Leap Forward, " pp. 354-55 20. Joseph Nye would define the incremental learning of the pre-1978 period as"simple mation merely to adapt the means, without altering any deeper goals in the ends-mean chain. The actor simply u he same goal. "The decision to embark on a more outwardly-oriented strategy would be