Chinese foreign economic policy before 1978 has been considered isolationist and centered on Maoist self-reliance. In this revisionist analysis, the author argues that the dramatic economic reforms initiated by China’s leaders in 1978 were in fact revisions and expansions of policies from the Maoist period.
Focuses on primary sources, including Chinese Communist Party histories and other restricted-circulation materials to show that China's apparently sudden turn outward in 1978 was actually an extension of previous experiments hobbled by bureaucratic infighting and conflict among rival elites.
