POL SCI 140L Lecture Notes - Lecture 36: Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, Graham T. Allison
26 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Politics of Economic Reform
April 23, 2018
State-Owned Enterprises and subsidization by regime
Employed 10s of millions of laborers
Chance in policy under Jiang Zemin
→ lots of people lost jobs and benefits that came with loss of 16 mil. manufacturing jobs
He hadn’t looked at negative externalities
In 2002, Jiang was succeeded by Hu Jintao who adopts more populist policies
Deng’s norm of institutionalizing term limits is a result of Mao.
He’s also the one who starts to grapple with capitalism.
Introduced large subsidies into agricultural areas
→ to keep people content in countryside and keep them from flooding cities
→ labor shortages in cities
→ wage increases
2012: Xi comes in and attacks corruption
- Will he overdo it and paralyze democracy when there is much less initiative?
- Will this delegitimize the Party?
BUT not just a matter of unleashing capitalism in a country with a huge, cheap, disciplined labor
force, and coastal cities poised for export.
Ang’s perspective:
- Coevolution between state and private institutions is how China escaped the poverty
trap
- Changes were broad, bold & uneven
- But they were also incremental and sequential, not “shock therapy” as would later be
adopted in Poland and Russia in the early 1990s.
- Allowing corruption is what made this possible!
Where is China headed?
● Robert Service: No one knows
● Ang: Now at a turning point
○ Fears that corruption crackdown has lead to paralysis of bureaucracy
○ But it worked for escaping the poverty trap
● Shambaugh (absolutist): need to get beyond the Middle Income Trap
○ Can only be escaped by democratizing and liberating the creativity of the poeple
○ Revolutions of rising expectations, regime could collapse
○ “People are fickle” is his basic argument
Document Summary
Lots of people lost jobs and benefits that came with loss of 16 mil. manufacturing jobs. In 2002, jiang was succeeded by hu jintao who adopts more populist policies. Deng"s norm of institutionalizing term limits is a result of mao. He"s also the one who starts to grapple with capitalism. To keep people content in countryside and keep them from flooding cities. But not just a matter of unleashing capitalism in a country with a huge, cheap, disciplined labor force, and coastal cities poised for export. Coevolution between state and private institutions is how china escaped the poverty trap. But they were also incremental and sequential, not shock therapy as would later be adopted in poland and russia in the early 1990s. Allowing corruption is what made this possible! Fears that corruption crackdown has lead to paralysis of bureaucracy. But it worked for escaping the poverty trap. Shambaugh (absolutist): need to get beyond the middle income trap.
