Learning How to Open the Door: A Reassessment of China's “Opening” Strategy

Abstract

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 characterize the relationship between Chinese elites and the peasantry. 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.