Reflections on the Chinese Model of Development

Abstract

In pursuing socialist economic development, China's leaders have attempted to follow a path different from that followed in the Union. The has stressed value change above rapid industrialization, decentralization above centralization, and balanced growth above urban dominance. The question of the degree to which this model has become institutionalized in society, however, and the extent to which it will survive during the next decade, is problematic. In retrospect the model has apparently been rather limited in its actual application, while current developments appear to signal a movement in the direction of the model. Of the major socialist societies discussed in this volume, China is the exception, the one that differs most from the Soviet Marxist developmental norm. The Chinese, under the leadership of Chairman Mao, struggled for some time with this norm before staking a new course that ostensibly liberated China from her shackles.1 This Chinese model of existed briefly during the Great Leap Forward, faltered in the early nineteen sixties, then flourished during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The latter was the epitome of China's uniqueness. It was an event that eluded rational analysis by the most competent of scholars, solidified China's claim to be an aberration within the socialist world, and reinforced the Western world's view of China as mysterious, unfathomable, Asian, and unpredictable. From the events of 196671 there evolved a concept of development that captured our imagination with its simplicity and promise. The were going to develop without the chaos and disruption that had previously accompanied modernization throughout the rest of the world, capitalist or socialist. The Union had succumbed to the evils of industrialization and Westernization, but need it be so for the Chinese? Was it not possible that a third choice existed-neither Manchester nor Moscow? Was it not conceivable that mankind might modernize without passing through the fire and brimstone of massive urbanization, without a highly centralized command economy, and without ruthlessly subjecting the countryside to the rule of the cities? Could not modernization be more humane than it had in the past, be less focused on the high altar of rapid economic growth