The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?

China’s extraordinarily rapid economic growth since 1978, driven by market-oriented reforms, has set world records and continued unabated, despite predictions of an inevitable slowdown. In The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?, the renowned China scholar Nicholas R. Lardy argues that China’s future growth prospects could be equally bright but are shadowed by the specter of resurgent state dominance, which has begun to diminish the vital role of the market and private firms in China’s economy.

Lardy’s book is a timely sequel to his path-breaking Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China (Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2014). This book mobilizes new data to trace how President Xi Jinping has consistently championed state-owned or controlled enterprises, encouraging local political leaders and financial institutions to prop up ailing, underperforming companies that are a drag on China’s potential. As with his previous book, Lardy’s perspective departs from conventional wisdom, especially in its contention that China could achieve a high growth rate for the next two decades--if it reverses course and returns to the path of market-oriented reforms.

Nicholas R. Lardy, called ＂everybody’s guru on China＂ by the National Journal, is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow from 1995 until 2003. He was the director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington from 1991 to 1995. From 1997 through the spring of 2000, he was also the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale University School of Management. He is author, coauthor, or editor of numerous books, including Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China (2014), Sustaining China’s Economic Growth After the Global Financial Crisis (2012), The Future of China’s Exchange Rate Policy (2009), China’s Rise: Challenges and Opportunities (2008), Debating China’s Exchange Rate Policy (2008), and China: The Balance Sheet--What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower (2006). Lardy is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the editorial boards of Asia Policy and the China Review.