The Role of the State in China's Industrial Development: A Reassessment

Abstract

This paper focuses on China's industrial sector, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative evidence. We show the role of the state in China, far from withering out, is massive, dominant, and crucial to China's industrial development. State-owned and state-holding enterprises are now less numerous, but much larger, more capitaland knowledge-intensive, more productive and more profitable than in the late 1990s. The dominant role of the state in China's industrial development is not necessarily a transitional feature. In the long run, it might consolidate itself as a form of strategic planning, and as a key structural characteristic of market socialism.

The ambivalent impact of commodities: Structural change or status quo in Sub-Saharan Africa?

“…31 Similarly, China has based its spectacular growth on active state intervention, industrialisation and foreign investment Á and the enhancing of state-owned enterprises' productivity and profitability. 32 Simultaneously, public policies have preserved market mechanisms and competition. 33 The possibility for other developing countries to implement policies similar to those of developmental states in order to achieve structural change, however, remains under debate.…”

“…51 For its part, the boom of agricultural commodity prices has reflected the rising demand for biofuels and the increase in energy prices, oil in particular. 52 The demand 32 AN Sindzingre from emerging markets, especially China, contributed to the increase in food prices between 2010 and 2011 Á China has become a central importer in global grain and oilseeds markets, 53 as well as of cotton and rubber. 54 Not all commodity price booms can be attributed to demand from China, however: US demand for oil, for instance, still plays a major role in that sector.…”

Developmentalism with Vietnamese Characteristics: The Persistence of State-led Development in East Asia

“…Indeed, it is also important to note that very few larger, centrally controlled SOEs have been equitised: the majority of equitised companies were small scale and local (MOF, 2008a). 11 In many ways the corporate consolidation and the concentration of state control in Vietnam mirrors similar developments in China, which were captured under the rubric of ''grasp the big, let go the small'' (see Gabriele, 2010). The troubled relationship between Vietnam and China after 1979 makes it difficult to trace any direct influence on the reform process in Vietnam, but at the very least it is plain that Vietnam's reform path is closer to the ''Beijing Consensus'' than to the neo-liberal Washington Consensus.…”

South Korea’s and China’s catching-up: a new-developmentalist analysis

“…The exports over GDP ratio increases from 7.5% in 1980 to 10.5% in 1986, 17.5% in 1991, 20.4% in 1995, 26.5% in 2003 and 35.7% in 2006; it then begins to decrease, down to 22.6% in 2015. The investment rate, as discussed, undergoes a sharp acceleration process from the late 1990s.13 By anticipating massive domestic demand and securing technology transfer agreements with countries holding cutting-edge technology in this area, under contracts that date back to the latter half of the 1990s, China ceased to be a high-speed train technology importer until 2004 to become the world market's leader since 2011.14 On the various industrial policies that the Chinese government adopted since the early 2000s, seeGabriele (2010) andLo and Wu (2014).Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 40 (2), 2020 • pp. 264-284…”