Transforming China: Economic Reform and Its Political Implications (review)

Wei-Wei Zhang's Transforming China: Economic Reform and Its Political Implications is an account of China's economic reform and an assessment of its political and social impact. Zhang, who offers the perspective of an "insider" who participated in the reform process from within the Chinese government, worked as senior English translator for the Chinese leadership in the mid-1980s, and this enabled him to experience firsthand how the reform policies were formed and carried out.

The stated goal of the book is to "provide a comprehensive yet succinct study of China's dramatic transformation: its economic reform, together with its distinctive features and political implications" (p. 2). Zhang makes three general assumptions: first, economic development can be the cause of major social and political change; second, economic change creates important conditions for social and political transformation; and third, "a coherent understanding of the Chinese experience can be better acquired through a holistic approach" (pp. 2-3). While praising China's economic achievement, Zhang also notes that "China's success has been achieved at a high cost." In conclusion, he offers five main arguments. First, China's reform was not just a spontaneous process; rather, "China's reform elites" provided "crucial leadership" and "strategic directions" for the reform. Second, China's reformers followed a gradual, pragmatic approach, which was "seemingly confusing, yet arguably more democratic." Third, the economic reform has transformed the state from totalitarian to authoritarian.

The fourth argument is that

China's experience is not a model of "economic reform without political reform" as many have asserted. It represents a process of significant economic reforms together with lesser political reforms, aimed at political rationalization, not democratization. But the primacy of economic reform has had a mixed impact on China's process of political liberalization,... China's full emergence as a first-rate power will ultimately hinge upon whether the country is capable of carrying out more meaningful political reforms so as to fight corruption, remove unwanted political interference in the economy and establish the rule of law, democratic culture and democratic institutions.

Fifth, "China's reform experience is both path-dependent and path-breaking" (pp. 3-4).

What distinguishes Zhang's book is his insider's view. According to the author, he has interviewed "China's prominent economists, political scientists, senior officials, sociologists, managers and entrepreneurs," and supplements this with his "own personal knowledge of some of China's leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, and Hu Yaobang," all of whom the author "worked for on numerous occasions as an English interpreter" (p. 3). Zhang's personal experience working with China's leaders allows the reader an unusual view of the political process in the Chinese government.

However, this unique insider's view is also the major weakness of the book. The author does not explicitly distinguish between China the society from China the state. The blurring of this line between society and government does not help the reader understand where China as a society is going and what policies the government is following. (Chinese government propaganda always equates itself with China the country; therefore, criticizing the Chinese government will be labeled by the government as criticizing China itself, and thus as being anti-China.) The research methodology is also not as vigorous as we would expect from social science research. The author draws his conclusions based on neither a theoretical framework nor scientific inference from data. The logical link between his observations of the reform and his conclusions is unclear. Some of his conclusions are so general (e.g., China's reform is said to be both path-dependent and path-breaking) that they are hard to test without recourse to empirical data. The author's views on some basic political concepts is also influenced by his insider's perspective. For example, one of his major claims is that the economic reform has brought about "a significant increase in elements of...