J. M. BERGER. ECONOMIC STRATEGY OF CHINA, Moscow: Forum PUBL., 2009, 560 p.
A monographic study by Y. M. Berger, a well-known Russian expert on the socio-economic and political development of China, examines a wide range of issues: from the driving forces and conditions of the country's economic growth to the impact of the global crisis on various areas of its economic complex; from the role of foreign, state and non-state national capital on the formation of market relations from the situation in the agricultural sector to the structure of foreign investment, from the relations between exports and imports in foreign trade to the place of the public sector in the economy; from analyzing the discussions of Chinese economists regarding the reform of the country's economy to considering the views of Western experts on this issue, etc.
In the first and third chapters, the author examines the Chinese model of economic and social development, focusing in detail on the process of forming the country's development strategy by the country's leadership. One cannot but agree with the author's observation that " the practical implementation of a strategy cannot be guided by a priori knowledge of a certain only true and correct theory that would allow us to suggest the right decisions and correct the course at all stages and turns of the implementation of a strategic course. Simply because there is no such theory. China is following its own path, which has no adequate precedent in history. And that is why the approach was adopted, which prescribes "wading through the river, feeling for stones under you" (p. 41).
Until 1979, the Chinese leadership followed the traditional model of socialism that then existed in the Soviet Union and other countries of the so-called socialist camp. The profound socio-economic crisis that engulfed the country at the end of the cultural revolution forced the Chinese leadership to begin a gradual departure from the traditional model of development. De ...
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