Note on the Sichuan Experiment

Abstract

Since Marxist-Leninist principles of economic organisation were introduced in the Soviet Union, in no country espousing these principles has there been wholesale reversion to private, decentralised management of economic resources and to the market-place more dramatic and rapid than in the recent economic reforms in Sichuan a Chinese province of nearly 100 million inhabitants on the upper Yangzi River. Some elements of these economic reforms have also been introduced selectively in other parts of the regionally fragmented Chinese economy. The outcome of this experiment will determine to a considerable extent the economic and political conduct of China over the next decades. Accounts in the press of the Sichuan experiment have so far been relatively few, and it has attracted relatively little attention in the west outside the China specialist field.1 This note is based on a visit to Sichuan in August 1981, personal interviews there with academics, planners and company managers, a few Chinese sources and data made available by the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences.2 This visit was my first exposure to China, to its economy and to the Sichuan experiment. The following firsthand observations, while not those of a specialist in China's economy, may help to fill some gaps.