International Studies Compendium Project

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Comment on this article   Political and economic reforms in the former communist giants – Russia and China – have arguably been the most important events in the contemporary international political economy. Following decades of communism and central planning, the two states embarked on broad transformations from planned to market economy and limited political liberalization reforms. Although both states had significant economic potential buried in landmass, cheap labor, and generous endowments in natural resources, they also suffered from the well-known negative consequences of command economies and lagged behind the market economies at their respective transition points ( Bhaumik and Estrin 2007 :377). “Catching up” with the West became an impetus for both countries’ economic transformation ( Jakobson 2001 :30; Shlapentokh 2001 :17; Rutland 2007 ). Although China began its reforms in 1978, while the Soviet Union held fast to its mode of production until 1991, both states exhibited many similarities as economies in transition ( Nolan 1995 ). Nonetheless, they chose contrasting strategies for their economic reforms, and their experiences during economic transition have been depicted as polar opposites ( Galbraith et al. 2004 ). China's GDP per capita increased by 8 percent annually between 1978 and 2000. Russia's GDP dropped, on average, by 1.8 percent annually between 1990 and ... log in or subscribe to read full text