Deng Xiaoping and his reform policies

Sun Sheng Han () and Ning Yan ()

Chapter 6 in Institutions, Culture and the Chinese City, 2025, pp 113-136 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Chapter 6 discusses the institutional and cultural changes introduced by Deng Xiaoping, who emerged as the paramount leader following Mao's death. Deng sought to save the CCP from losing its power and collapsing after the Cultural Revolution. He partially altered the party culture by dismissing leadership worship and encouraging the Chinese people to adopt a pragmatic approach. While hesitant to implement political reforms, he ended lifelong leadership tenure, promoted young and capable leaders and sought to limit party interventions in governmental and enterprise affairs. He initiated economic reforms and an open policy grounded in his belief that China was in the initial stage of socialism. Deng supported the rural reforms led by impoverished farmers and encouraged the reform of state-owned enterprises using market mechanisms such as the responsibility system, financial incentives and non-egalitarian distribution principles. Urban housing reform was one of the early areas of reform aimed at halting the welfare housing supply. Deng abolished the command planning system and made the economic system more inclusive. The reform policies boosted productivity, but conservative members of the CCP were more concerned about the threats of inflation and the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern European socialist bloc that accompanied the reforms, so they wanted to halt the reform policies. However, Deng believed that any effort to stop the economic reforms would suffocate communist China. He toured Southern China to emphasise his message: China would reach a dead end without reform.

Keywords: Economic reform and open policies; Initial stage of socialism; Responsibility system; State-owned enterprises reforms; Urban housing reform; Deng's southern tour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035312429
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