Goh Keng Swee on China

The following sections are included:

• About the Editors

• Contents

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…

The foreign businessman when contemplating business prospects in China experiences mixed feelings. First, he is dazzled at the prospect of the huge domestic market: one billion consumers. On getting down to the nitty gritty, he soon finds that things are not what they seem to be and he must rid himself of all kinds of preconceptions. The Chinese have their own methods of doing business and he must understand the system if he is going to get anywhere. So one way or another, he acquires the minimum knowledge. If he makes the right contact or has the right product, negotiations are successfully concluded. Then the real work begins. The operating environment is different from the one he is accustomed to. So a major adjustment has to be made in expectations, modes of assessment, methods of planning and in general psychological attitudes…

Not many Singaporeans are aware of the efficient way the US Congress keeps itself informed of world affairs. The Library of Congress is probably the largest and best-managed general library in the world. It contains 88 million items, including 26 million books and pamphlets, with 1.4 million volumes in Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian languages. The library’s holding of manuscripts and other archive material, photographs, sound recordings, films and maps runs to tens of millions of items…

Harry Harding, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Programme of the Brookings Institution, asks why the future of China’s economic reforms is important.¹ Harding states “China’s economic productivity, rate of growth and standards of living will be determined by the fate of its economic reforms.”…

China cannot be considered backward in the production of weapons sytems. She produces nuclear tipped missiles, operates a commercial satellite launching service and is building a fleet of nuclear powered submarines. Socialist countries have demonstrated that they do not lag behind capitalist states in weapons production. It is in production and distribution of civilian goods, things that raise living standards, that their performance shows major weaknesses…

It is easy to come to misleading conclusions when examining a large and complex socio-economic system such as China, especially as the system is in a state of rapid change. Mistakes can stem from several sources…

The following sections are included:

• Editors’ Note

• Prologue
  • Statement of the Problem
  • Solution A
  • Solutin B

• Introduction

• Proposed Remedies

• Will They Work?

• Future Tasks

The starting point of what the 21st century will hold could be to describe the special features of this century, point out the most significant events and try to discover the underlying forces which brought about these events. To be sure, the causes are diverse and complex, but a certain logical and coherent order does emerge…

This paper analyses the consequences following from the disparity between China’s political system — essentially a Marxist–Leninist state — and her economic system, which is moving rapidly towards an open market economy. The assumption is made that the political system will eventually be reformed to enable China to realise her full economic potential. Under this optimistic scenario, China will reach American living standards in 29 years if she maintains her present rate of economic growth, which has raised per capita GNP by 7.5% a year. A more realistic (but still optimistic) projection would be an annual growth rate of 7.5% for 15 years, 5% after that, and 3% thereafter. China then will arrive at this destination in 2024 AD. The economic parameters are easy to define. China will then produce each year some 450 million tons of steel, 54 million motor vehicles, 27 million refrigerators and 90 million TV sets. She will need some 20,000 universities and polytechnics to produce the educated work force her economy needs. Nobody knows by what path the country can progress from its present mess of contradictory elements to being by far the world’s largest economy. It is unclear if some major systemic failure will prevent her ever reaching this objective. This paper tries to identify some of the systemic defects that can frustrate progress, as seen from the present. Although dealing with contemporary problems, the perspective taken is necessarily a long-term one.

The following sections are included:

• Editors’ Note

• Introduction

• Coal as a Vital Commodity

• The Coal Industry: Growth and Structural Change

• The Need for Reform

China is such a large country presently undergoing dramatic economic changes as she presses forward with economic reforms. Since the reforms began in 1979, literally thousands of pieces of legislation — principal and subsidiary — have been passed by the central government, provincial governments and local governments. One Hong Kong legal firm engages nine lawyers on full-time work in tracking such legislation…

If asked to cite the year the Chinese giant woke up, most people would choose 1979 when Mr. Deng Xiaoping started the reforms of China’s economy which produced such dramatic results. Annual economic growth since then averaged 9%. Today, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that businessmen in Western industrial countries are dazzled by the prospects offered by the huge burgeoning market of 1.2 billion customers…

The following sections are included:

• Index