Introduction

Most of the papers in this collection were written by Goh Keng Swee around the early 1990s, with the exception of the first chapter, “China’s Economic Policies in a Historical Perspective”, which was his speech delivered at a conference for foreign investors in 1987. By that time, Goh was already an economic adviser to China’s State Council on the opening up of China’s coastal cities and on tourism development. As an economic adviser to China’s top leadership (1985–1990), he was able to have access to important information on China’s development as well as observe changes on the ground at a close range. Consequently, he had developed not just a good grasp of the structure and operation of the Chinese economy, but also a strong interest in modern Chinese studies…