
Title
Kaikakukaihouki no Chugoku (China in the Budding Era of “Reform and Opening-up” - Reading from Soviet and Eastern European Perspectives)
Size
168 pages, A5 format
Language
Japanese
Released
October 10, 2023
ISBN
9784771037762
Published by
Koyo Shobo
Book Info
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Japanese Page
Today, China has transformed itself into a “great power.” The nature of this transformation and China’s behavior in the international community should be examined from an academic perspective. Regardless of how these issues are evaluated, scholars worldwide are approaching the point where they must deepen their research on the roots of China’s rise as a great power.
What then are these roots?
Among the various possible answers, one of the most promising is the early period of “Reform and Opening-Up” from the 1970s to the 1980s, when the foundation for rapid economic growth was established. This book traces this path by focusing on the political system reforms of the 1980s. In short, it seeks to illuminate one of the origins of China’s rise by historicizing political reform theories from the early “Reform and Opening-Up” periods.
The key questions addressed in this book are as follows: In the 1980s, when socialist countries around the world were experiencing turmoil, China sought to guide its “Reform and Opening-Up” efforts by learning from the experiences of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. However, China followed a different path. Why was that? How did China perceive the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and how did it attempt to reshape itself?
To answer these questions, this book focuses on several key concepts: party power, the state and society, worker autonomy, democracy, the rule of law (socialist rule of law), multiparty systems, electoral systems, the cadre system, and openness. However, unlike Chinese scholars in the Western world, we Japanese researchers of modern Chinese history do not subscribe to the methodology of analyzing these concepts through theoretical frameworks. Instead, we emphasize a methodology grounded in empirical evidence based on the discourse of key figures at the time. Simultaneously, we place importance on a comparative perspective, working alongside European political historians and political scientists to compare China’s situation with those of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
The study of the history of “Reform and Opening-Up” as the origins of modern China has just begun in Japan, China, and the West. Through this book, which prioritizes empirical evidence fostered in Japan’s free academic environment, we hope that global research on the history of “Reform and Opening-Up” will continue to expand. Of course, I also intend to contribute to this effort. I plan to organize a special issue titled “Historicizing China’s Reform and Opening-Up” in the spring of 2026 for the English-language journal Modern Asia Studies Review (Vol. 17) of the Toyo Bunko. My goal is to advance the academic study of “Reform and Opening-Up” on a global scale, in collaboration with researchers worldwide.
(Written by NAKAMURA Motoya, Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences / 2024)