From Mao Zedong to Zhu Rongji: Economic Reform in China

China’s experience with economic reform has been very different from that of the countries in transition. In fact, the IMF classifies China as a developing country, not one in transition. Politically China has not yet moved towards democracy. It remains a Communist one-party state. Its late ‘paramount leader’, Deng Xiaoping, spoke of his death as going to an appointment with Karl Marx. But his successor, Jiang Zemin, has used the term ‘socialist democracy’ and personal freedom appears to have increased somewhat.