Understanding socialist economic reform as a global phenomenon. Assessing exchanges between Europe and China and their influence on Chinese economic reform in the 1980s and 1990s.
China’s reform and opening up policy, kicked off in late 1978, is one of the core transformational forces of the late 20th century, leading to China’s reintegration into a global market and its establishment as a key international player. This project goes back to early years and roots of this key development in the transformation of Chinese society and socialism in general. It also tackles narratives claiming China’s reform thinking was strongly influenced by Western partners or emerged out of itself (the “China Miracle”).
Within a global history framework, I show a specific local variety of (neo)liberal thinking in China, which emerged within the context of the exchange of ideas and practices within the socialist world. My research concerns market-oriented and liberal thinking in China of the 1980s and 1990s. I emphasise exchanges with actors from (post)socialist countries on matters of market reform in a (post)socialist context, especially from Central and Eastern Europe.
I examine how pro-market and -liberal thinking in 1980s China emerged and was reshaped, especially through learning and exchange processes with actors from (post)socialist countries. A central research question is: How did global entanglements of knowledge networks within the socialist world lead to the development.