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The Chinese government introduced a series of reforms beginning in 1978 which gradually privileged market dynamics over planning, private ownership over public ownership, and foreign enterprises and markets over domestic ones.[1] It claims that these reforms have been responsible for the country’s rapid and sustained economic growth—and that this growth demonstrates the success of a new form of socialism, what it calls market socialism.
The reforms have indeed transformed the Chinese economy. For example, transactions are now predominantly shaped by market determined prices. As Table 1 shows, the share of retail transactions in which prices were set by the state fell from 97 percent in 1978 to 2.6 percent in 2003. Perhaps more significantly, the share of producer goods transactions in which prices were fixed by the state fell from 100 percent in 1978 to 10 percent in 2003.[2]
Equally clear is the growing dominance of the private sector in industry (see Table 2). In 1978, state owned enterprises accounted for 100 percent of all industrial value added in the Chinese economy. By 1998 the state share had fallen to 54.8 percent. By 2003 it had fallen still further to 41.9 percent. However, even these declining percentages overstate the contribution of the state sector.
Recognizing that many state enterprises are now jointly owned by private interests—either as part of a joint venture or through stock ownership—the OECD has classified state firms as either directly or indirectly controlled depending on whether the state share of paid-in capital is greater than 50 percent of the total. As Table 2 illustrates, the contribution of directly controlled state enterprises to industrial value added fell from 38.9 percent in 1998 to 22.9 percent in 2003 (thus accounting for less than a quarter of total industrial value added). Over this same five year period, the private sector share rose from 27.9 percent to 52.3 percent.
If we focus just on the manufacturing sector (one component of the industrial sector which also includes mining and utilities), the declining strategic importance of the state sector becomes even clearer. The OECD has divided China’s manufacturing sector into two groups. The first includes 5 industries that continue to be dominated by state enterprises: petroleum processing and coking, smelting and pressing of ferrous metals, smelting and pressing of non-ferrous metals, tobacco processing, and transport equipment (OECD 2005: 119).
The second and larger group (which accounts for over 75 percent of manufacturing value added) is made up of 23 different manufacturing industries, including food processing, textiles, garments, chemicals, medical and pharmaceuticals, plastics, ordinary machinery, special purpose machinery, electrical equipment, and electronic and telecom equipment. These industries are now dominated by private, and increasingly foreign, enterprises (OECD 2005: 133-4). As the OECD explains:
In 1998 the private sector produced the higher share of value added in only 5 out of these 23... manufacturing industries. By 2003, this was true for all 23 of these industries. Moreover, in half of them, private firms produced more than three-quarters of output. Overall in these 23 industries, the private sector employs two-thirds of the labor force, produces two-thirds of these industries’ value added and accounts for over 90 percent of their exports. (OECD 2005: 82)
The Electronic and Telecom Equipment industry offers an important illustration of recent developments. Its share of overall industrial value added rose from 6.4 percent in 1998 to 9.5 percent in 2003, making it the single largest contributor. But, as Table 3 illustrates, this rise is largely the result of foreign controlled activity. The foreign share of value added rose from 38 percent to 58 percent while the state share (direct and indirect) fell from 45 percent to 25 percent. Since this industry is one of China’s leading growth centers, this trend strongly suggests that the state’s share, and even the nationally controlled share of value added, is destined to continue to decline.
State enterprises do remain important and the Chinese state still dominates critical sectors of the economy, but these areas of strength are now largely outside the core industrial sector. In 2006, the total assets of the approximately 160 largest “state owned monopolies and oligopolies amounted to a stunning 12.20 trillion yuan ($1.6 trillion) or about 57 percent of the country’s gross domestic product” (Lam 2007). However, half of the earnings of this group were generated by three large oil enterprises. In fact, “Up to 80 percent of the year-on-year increase in profits realized in 2006 by all Chinese enterprises were attributable to... monopoly financial groups or monopoly firms in the areas of oil and petrochemicals, electricity, coal and metals” (Lam 2007).
The reform process has also greatly strengthened the role of foreign capital. For example, the share of foreign manufacturers in China’s total manufacturing sales grew from 2.3 percent in 1990 to 31.3 percent in 2000 (UNCTAD 2002a: 17). Perhaps more revealing, a 2006 report by the Development Research Center of the Chinese State Council concluded that foreign capital holds a majority of assets in 21 out of 28 of the country’s leading industrial sectors (Cheng 2007b). A National Bureau of Economic Research study of the contribution made by transnational corporate activity to China’s growth found it substantial and increasing over time. Specifically, it concluded that approximately 30 percent of China’s growth over the period 1995-2004 was due to transnational corporate activity, with the foreign contribution rising to over 40 percent in 2003 and 2004 (Whalley and Xin 2006: 9).
One consequence of this development is that China’s economic growth has become increasingly dependent on foreign produced exports. Approximately 46 percent of foreign manufacturing production is exported, compared with only 16 percent for domestically-owned manufacturing firms (Whalley and Xin 2006: 5). Not surprisingly, then, foreign firms now dominate China’s export activity: their share of China’s total exports grew from 2 percent in 1985, to 30 percent in 1995, and 58 percent in 2005 (and stands at 88 percent for high tech exports (Whalley and Xin 2006: 6; Miller 2006). Moreover, a growing percentage of these foreign produced exports are now being produced by 100 percent foreign owned firms. For example, the share of China’s computer related exports produced by 100 percent foreign owned firms increased from 51 to 75 percent over the period 1993-2003 (see Table 4). As a result of these trends, the ratio of exports to GDP has steadily climbed from 16 percent in 1990 to over 40 percent in 2006 (Asian Development Bank 2007a: PRC Country Table).
In sum, while state planners and enterprises continue to play an important role in China’s economy, state power has been used to shape an accumulation process that is now dominated by privately-owned, profit-seeking firms, and led by foreign transnational corporations, whose production is largely aimed at markets in other (mostly advanced capitalist) countries. Regardless of how one might evaluate the performance of the Chinese economy, it is hard to imagine how this development can be viewed as laying the foundation for an alternative to capitalism, at either national or international levels. Rather it points to the conclusion that capitalism itself has been restored in China (an argument further developed below).[3]
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