Political stabilization and Chinese economic opening: the role of post-1978

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how the political stabilization promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, has historically conditioned the process of economic opening initiated in 1978. Specifically, it is proposed to analyze the process of political stabilization by pointing how the unity and legitimacy of the Party catalyzed the state capacity, examining how the convergence between stability and administrative reorganization in the context of the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1981-1985), enabled a gradual model of selective use of foreign funds and technologies and the controlled expansion of foreign trade. Starting from the problem of how the Chinese economic opening was conceived, it is understood that the post-Cultural Revolution stabilization was a necessary historical condition for the adoption and success of gradual reforms, restoring legitimacy and institutional predictability. Methodologically, this work is a qualitative historical study based on the articulated analysis of primary and secondary sources and the conceptual contribution offered by Reinhart Koselleck (2006) with the analytical categories of experience space and expectation horizon. The results indicate that the political stabilization after the Cultural Revolution constituted the structuring element of the recomposition of the state capacity necessary for Chinese modernization at the beginning of the Settling also as a condition for the feasibility of economic opening following the gradual model.