Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-Owned Industry

by Edward S. Steinfeld

• ISBN13: 9780521778619
• ISBN10: 0521778611
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The greatest economic challenge facing China in the post-Deng era is the reform of unprofitable, state-owned enterprises that have never truly been forced to face the pressure of a bottom line or the threat of bankruptcy. Forging Reform in China explains how and why well-intentioned, market-oriented reform measures have not been sweepingly successful to date, and what it would take to achieve meaningful reform. This book makes a compelling argument that private ownership cannot work in China's current system until governance over complex economic factors has been established, that is, until credit is tightened and market selection processes made to work.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: China's ailing State enterprises

Part I. Conceptual Approaches to Post-Socialist Reform: 2. Property rights, privatization, and the state-owned firm

3

The 'nested problems' dynamic: an alternative approach

Part II. Enterprise Case Studies: 'The Commanding Heights' in Transition: 4. The Living Museum of iron and steel technology

5. King of the Red Chips: Ma'anshan iron and steel and the debacle of the 'public' SOE in China

6. Shougang: the rise and fall of an industrial giant

Part III. Reassessing Chinese Patterns of Economic Development: 7. Extending the argument: budget constraints and patterns of growth in China

8. Conclusion.