Bulletin Autumn‧Winter 1996

China's Economic Reform and Development Programme A T o r t u o u s Pa t h f o r t he Ch i ne se E c o n o m y After the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, mainland China underwen t a fundamental change i n its political and economic system. The new system was based on Marxist-Leninist philosophy and its economic doctrines were borrowed f r om the former USSR and other communist countries in Eastern Europe. Needless to say, it was a new experiment for China, and its implementation was marked by serious economic setbacks and great social turmoil, particularly during the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). I t was not until 1979 that a new development mode appeared and an open door policy was adopted. The traumatic experience of the early years of development showe d that while the state machine could muster sufficient political force to launch economic drives and mass movements, such initiatives had easily gone to extremes and created havoc. In the more recent experiment, China has had to seek a suitable economic system for herself w i t h a more pragmatic approach, by trial and error. Goals o f t he P r o g r a mme I n 1986, the Chinese Economic Research Programme was set up at The Chinese University's Centre for Contemporary Asian Studies at the initiative of Prof. T.T. Hsueh in the Department of Economics. I t was the predecessor of the current China's Economic Reform and Development Programme at the Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies. The programme is a long-term research project to investigate the process, contents and results of China's economic reforms, to analyse the pattern of economic development, and to evaluate the various reform proposals and strategies. In the course of this, macroeconomic data can be built up to establish a set of development models and indicators for China. For the past 10 years, the programme has been striving towards the following goals ： 1. To systematically build u p economic data of the PRC using modern economic theories. These data are a prerequisite for a thoroug h quantitative study of the Chinese economy. 2. To analyse key issues facing the Chinese economy usin g mo d em econometric techniques and a quantitative economic approach. Findings are expected to serve as useful references for academics in both mainland China and the rest of the world. Chinese University Bulletin Autumn . Winter 1996 28