The Characteristics of Chinese and Russian Economic Reform

In the Russian view, the Communist Party and former organs of the state are obstacles to economic reform, and, therefore, a thorough political reform was carried out first. China believes in gradual economic reform under the leadership of the Communist Party implemented through existing state organs. In transforming ownership relations, Russia started with state-run enterprises, which account for more than 95% of the country′s GNP. China has protected the existence and development of state enterprises and, simultaneously, encouraged the establishment of nonstate enterprises. Russia chose price reform as the breakthrough point in its economic reform, but China chose agricultural reform instead because agriculture was backward and constituted the backbone of the economy. J. Comp. Econom., June 1994, 18(3), pp. 000-000. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100007, People′s Republic of China.