CHINA IN TRANSITION: WHERE IS SHE HEADING NOW?

With assistance from government officials and friends in the People's Republic of China, and from others, the author has been able to gather rare information on developments in that country. Five years ago, he predicted that China would move toward a system akin to one with private property rights, that development of the labor market would precede that of the property market, and that state enterprises wielding relatively strong monopoly powers would be the last to yield. Dramatic changes since then have made those predictions remarkably accurate…faulted only by an underestimate of the speed of change. Continued investigation of events inside China suggests that, while the undercurrent for change remains strong, economic reform in China is likely to progress at a considerably slower pace in the future.