A comprehensive analysis of how China emerged as one of the most dynamic trading nations in the world, first published in 1992.

This book is a full review of China's foreign trade in the past 70 years of institutional changes and reform. It presents a magnificent historical overview for China's economic history, sometimes full of trials and hardships, while facing the growth and rise. The author aims to build a unique narrative system to analyze the success and failure, gain and loss during the period, and present the China path in foreign trade among numerous events and different stages under a complex context. It is a must-read book for readers who are interested in China's foreign trade during 1949–2019.

Along with its domestic economic transition, China has carried out a series of reforms in foreign trade and achieved significant policy changes. This thesis shows that China's export policies moved from strong government incentives to a state of market competition while import policies were switched from strict controls to significant liberalisation. In particular, the intensive trade policy reform in the 1990s demonstrated that China has been moving closer to trade liberalisation in line with most international trade practices. Besides providing a comprehensive and updated account of China's trade policy reforms, this thesis contributes to understanding of the field by arguing that: (1) Unlike the trade policy reforms in some other countries, China seems to be a unique case due to its special economic and political conditions, its exclusive reform targets, its cautious reform approach, as well as its sensitive position in the world economy. (2) Econometric tests carried out in this study showed that China's trade policy reforms have been effective, although not all of them were optimal. China's move towards freer trade is thus shown to be the right choice for the economy and is consistent with the view that trade can positively promote growth. (3) China has followed a path of gradual reform with strong government intervention. Given the undeniable achievements and the special natures of trade policy reform, China's experience implies that the route to trade liberalisation can be varied and must be adapted to the specific conditions in the reforming country. (4) Trade liberalisation in China has been less conspicuous in terms of reform measures (for example, tariff reductions) made in the past reform period, due mainly to the incompleteness of the market economy. (5) The biggest challenge facing China is still how to combine trade liberalisation and government intervention, in order to establish a "socialist free trade system". Continuous emphasis on government control may contain the risk obstructing a sustained trade policy reform. China needs to adopt a "market-first" reform strategy to complete the establishment of a full-functioning market economy. The concept of "Chinese characteristics" can only be well-developed in market systems rather than in making use of the market forces on the basis of a government regulated economy. The reforms in the past years have provided a foundation for China to go further towards trade liberalisation. China could, and should, move faster toward trade liberalisation.

China's extraordinarily rapid economic growth since 1978, driven by market-oriented reforms, has set world records and continued unabated, despite predictions of an inevitable slowdown. In The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?, renowned China scholar Nicholas R. Lardy argues that China's future growth prospects could be equally bright but are shadowed by the specter of resurgent state dominance, which has begun to diminish the vital role of the market and private firms in China's economy. Lardy's book arrives in timely fashion as a sequel to his pathbreaking Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China, published by PIIE in 2014. This book mobilizes new data to trace how President Xi Jinping has consistently championed state-owned or controlled enterprises, encouraging local political leaders and financial institutions to prop up ailing, underperforming companies that are a drag on China's potential. As with his previous book, Lardy's perspective departs from conventional wisdom, especially in its contention that China could achieve a high growth rate for the next two decades—if it reverses course and returns to the path of market-oriented reforms.

Recent events in China have revealed a nation struggling to reconcile its new thinking with its traditional institutions and practices. This book provides an assessment of one aspect of the reform process: the foreign trade system. The reforms in China have heralded a new openness in Chinese economic policy. In this book, his first full length work on the subject, Dr Hsu investigates the impact of the reforms on China's foreign trade and, consequently, on the domestic economy. In the process, he examines such issues as the role of foreign trade in China's economic development, the institutional changes involved in the foreign trade reforms, and the efficiency of the new foreign trade incentive system. He then evaluates the possibilities for further foreign trade reforms in the future. In conclusion, Dr Hsu suggests that Chinese enterprises have been slow to respond to changes in domestic and international market conditions, and that exposure to foreign markets has exacerbated inflation problems in the Chinese economy. As a result, he finds that China has not enjoyed the full potential benefits of its reform program. This book will be of interest to economists, political scientists, Asian studies specialists, and others interested in the economic ramifications of China's reform process. It is a timely and thorough account of this crucial aspect of reform and an important addition to the growing body of literature on the restructuring of modern communist states.