Riding the Tiger: The Politics of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China (review)

Reviews 279 Gordon White. Riding the Tiger: The Politics ofEconomicReform in Post-Mao China Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993. xiii, 286 pp. $14.95. copyright1994 by University of Hawai'i Press The basic thesis of Gordon White's book, with which few will disagree, is that the Chinese economic and political system faced a dilemma in the late 1970s. Failure to implement reform would have led to insurmountable economic and particularly political problems, but carrying out reform would have unleashed forces that would undermine in fundamental ways the system that the reforms were intended to shore up. Thus, the party has faced a "Catch 22" situation. White's book is an effort to lay out the unfolding of this dilemma, tracing the fault lines ofthe Chinese political system and why and how the reforms have brought the Communist system to the verge of collapse. In discussing the politics of economic reform in the post-Mao period, White is interested in two interrelated aspects: the politics through which reform policies have been initiated and the impact that the reforms have had on the political system, particularly as the effects unleashed by the reforms have reverberated through the society. In accordance with this dual concern, the book is basically divided into two parts. The first part (chapters 2,3,4) deals with the setting of reform policy, while the remainder addresses the effects ofthe reforms. It is thus useful to discuss each of these parts separately. The perspective thatWhite brings to bear on the Chinese political system is that the decisions made by the political leadership take place within a broad context , or, as he puts it, "the game ofChinese elite politics is not played in an empty stadium" (p. 14). White asks us to view the political system as a dartboard, with powerful political leaders making up the bulls-eye; the vertical institutions of party and state radiating outward, slicing through society and the economy; and social classes, strata, and groups with their various linkages making up the rest of the board. He also tells us that this multilayered political system operates within a certain set of rules of the political game (p. 19). This framework is useful as far as it goes, but White does not choose to push it very far. He is right that there are certain, if ambiguous and changeable, rules ofthe game, but there is no effort to explore those rules of the game or how they have conditioned political conflict and influenced the development of reform. One suspects that the reason that such rules are not explored is that White's focus 28? China Review International: Vol. i, No. i, Spring 1994 is more on the broader political, economic, and social context in which reform takes place than on the intricacies of elite conflict. Although some scholars prefer to give greater weight to "environmental factors " while others choose to focus more closely on elite politics, it does seem that a book given over to understanding the politics ofeconomic reform should give greater attention to elite politics. Doing so would have broughtWhite closer to an understanding ofhow reform occurred and would have prevented some of the confusions and misinterpretations that are found throughout this work. Not doing so is tantamount to exploring the fans in the stadium without looking at the game on the field. In his first two chapters, White tries to explore the question ofwhy reform came about and the political dynamics of reform. The following two chapters explore the same questions with regard to rural and industrial reform. Unfortunately , White has tried to bring a general understanding to these processes rather than probe them in depth, with the result that he makes many statements that are misleading or wrong. For instance, White declares that the Hua Guofeng program was a return to the halcyon days of the pre-Cultural Revolution era (pp. 26, 28). Unfortunately, if there was one leader who looked for inspiration to the golden age of the 1950s it was the man who had contributed most to the economic successes of those years, Chen Yun—and Chen vehemently opposed the economic program of the Hua Guofeng government, considering it...