China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [1]
In measurable terms of economic development and social change, China’s achievement has been unprecedented in speed, scale, and scope.1 Rapid economic growth has not only vastly improved the economic well-being of the country’s 1.3 billion people, but also has (fundamentally altered the structure of Chinese society. Additionally, as market-oriented reforms have made the Chinese economy less state-centered and more decentralized, economic development has turned Chinese society from one that was once tightly controlled by the state, into one that is increasingly autonomous, pluralistic, and complex. During this period, China’s integration with the international community proceeded along several fronts. Trade and investment spearheaded this integration as China ascended from a negligible player in the world economy prior to reform, to a leading trading state and one of the most favored destinations for foreign direct investment (FDI). China’s integration with the outside world has also taken place in other important areas, such as membership and participation in various international institutions, advancement in key bilateral ties, and educational and cultural exchanges with the West.
Most of these momentous changes have been captured by statistics measuring various aspects of Chinese society and economy. The aggregate size of the Chinese economy in 2002 was more than eight times the size it was in 1978.2 In twenty-five years per capita income rose more than 600 percent, from $151 in 1978 to $1,097 in 2003.3 Rapid economic growth accelerated social change as well. The rate of urbanization, 18 percent in 1978, had reached 39 percent by 2002.4 A different measure, used by the United Nations, put China’s urbanization in 1998 at 50 percent.5
Rapid economic growth has greatly expanded Chinese citizens’ access to information and increased their physical mobility. About two thousand Chinese people shared a telephone line in 1978; in 2002, a fixed telephone line was available for roughly every six people and, in addition, about one mobile telephone was available for every six people. In 1978, three out of one thousand households owned a black-and-white television set. In 2002, there were 126 color television sets in every 100 urban households and 60 color sets in every 100 rural households. In 1978, on average, only 180 million domestic long-distance calls were made (about one for every five people); in 2001, 22 billion such calls were made—17 calls per capita. From 1978 to 2002, the number of newspaper copies printed tripled, and the number of titles of books published had risen eleven-fold. Internet users, barely 160,000 in 1997, numbered 79 million in 2003.6 Such data suggest that access to information for average Chinese citizens has risen by several orders of magnitude on a per capita basis within a quarter century.
The rise in physical mobility is equally impressive. Passengers transported by various means rose 533 percent in this period, from 2.54 billion in 1978 to 16 billion in 2002. Measured in per capita terms, increase in physical mobility was close to 500 percent. Significantly, an increasingly large number of Chinese citizens gained the freedom to travel overseas. In 1978, few ordinary citizens were allowed this privilege. In 2002, 16.6 million Chinese traveled abroad.7
An important—if not inevitable—by-product of economic reform was the significant decline of the state’s role in the economy. In terms of industrial output, the share of state-owned enterprises fell from nearly 78 to 41 percent from 1978 to 2002, while the share of the private sector (including foreign-invested firms) rose from 0.2 to 41 percent.8 This dramatic relative decline of the state is also reflected in the employment data. In 1978, the state employed nearly 80 percent of workers in urban areas; in 2002, it employed only 29 percent.9 These