The Labors of Sisyphus by Joan Roland

Author:Joan Roland [Roland, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781315132853
Google: DXaAtAEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-01-15T04:33:12+00:00

6

Reform and Regionalism

Introduction

The reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping and his confreres transformed more than the economic environment of China. Around a core of state industries, a more liberalized and decentralized system of collective and private enterprises developed with impressive speed. Income and living standards rapidly increased. Foreign trade and investment integrated China into the global economy.

These results were expected by the reformers. But the economic reforms carried with them unintended effects that are transforming the nature of political power in China, with long-term implications that are, at best, uncertain. Among these unintended consequences is the growing phenomenon of difang zhuyi (regionalism or localism), which may well lead to the disintegration of the PRC).1 Beijing’s attenuating control over the constituent regions could mark the end of unified Communist rule and the final transformative phase of post-Mao reforms.

All of this is very tentative. In 1994, a study commissioned by the Pentagon estimated a fifty-fifty probability that China would break apart after the death of Deng Xiaoping.2 The plausibility of such a scenario turns on an understanding of “regionalism” and the available empirical evidence.

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