Examine it from 1978 (the year China adopted a capitalist economic Essay

Examine it from 1978 (the year China adopted a capitalist economic system) to present. Analyzing the country from the 1990s to t - Essay Example Introduction Before 1976, China’s economic ideology was purely communism. The death of Mao Zedong in 1976 precipitated leadership decisions, which were significant. No one would foretell that the end of Maoist Socialism in China would result into what modern scholars refer to as China’s great transformation (Wang & Coase 1). China became capitalist and mostly productive (Shaw 1). It became one of the most democratic income distributors to the rest of the world. Despite the rise of the Chinese economy, existing statistics reveal that most Chinese are still poor; in fact, most Chinese still face challenges in exercising their freedom and protecting their rights. Tony 1 postulates that one of the most overlooked astounding narratives about China is that, since the economic resurgence of china in 1978, the country has become an unequal society to the extent that it rates high in the Asian continent. Since 1978, the Cina's Gini coefficient of general family income distributi on surpasses both Indonesia and India, and it is now approaching Malaysia and the Philippines, which are unequal in Asia. This paper seeks to document a hallmark feature of china’s capitalism, with close review as to how the economy has reformed. i. Politics and Policy Deng’s skeptical slogan of ‘Letting some Chinese get rich first’ marked the outset of inequality in China. This became a source of concern for his predecessors, who prompted political moves to distance themselves from their predecessor. Between 1995 and 2002, a development strategy, popularly known as ‘Great western Strategy’, which gave greater emphasis on investing in poor provinces, was adopted (Jane 1). The program also included alleviation of rural poverty through support to farm production, rural educational and training, and emigration into ecologically sustainable areas. The implementation of these policy initiatives has yet faced numerous challenges. For example, tax re bates for local governments tend to be biased towards urban areas, this leaves rural areas depressed out in the cold thus, not doing anything on the urban-rural gap. The complexity behind Chinese politics is worth noting. A debate as to whether the Chinese Government should worry about political destabilization to compact inequality is intriguing. The political elites, the protagonist’s side of Jiang, argue that it is not a pressing problem while Hu and Wen argue it is. With Hu and Wen ruminating openly that inequality is a threat to political stability, their opponents take comfort because they understand that the relationship between poverty and inequality, and protests against social movements are often attenuated (Tony 12). ii. Inequality and Poverty According to Shujie, Yao and associates, China’s largest component of inequality is best illustrated by the rural-urban gap. In 2002, for example, the average urban: rural per capita was expressed in the ratio 3: 1 (Bl echer & College 3), which economic analysts described as staggering, and almost unheard in developing nations. However, China’s extremely egalitarian distribution of land has reduced rural inequality, coupled with its policy on land reform and collectivization, the approach that those molded the collective land distribution to households in the 1980s, and the ongoing restrictions on the growth of a farmland market. Today, rural inequality in Chin