Facing opposition

Like any major social and economic reform in history, China's shift from a planned economy to a market one has been controversial.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, due to particular political reasons both domestically and internationally, the country's foreign trade plummeted and foreign investors were reluctant to come to China.

Domestically, questions about how to deepen China's reforms were surfacing. Conservatives in the Party were wary that China was stepping toward capitalism by tiptoeing to a market economy. Some scorned the country's special economic zones, which Deng had initiated.

Studying the domestic and foreign situation, the then retired Deng began to worry that marketalization might go astray and the country's economy might begin to slide downhill.

Deng came to the realization that someone had to speak out to strengthen the country's faith in the reforms and in 1992 the 88-year-old Deng started his tour of south China, traveling to Shenzhen, the mainland's first economic pilot reform zone next to Hong Kong, and Shanghai, the financial center of the eastern seaboard. He made speeches during his trip in response to critics of his faith in economic development, and his belief that it is a prerequisite for political reform.

In 1992, the third generation of central leadership, headed by Jiang Zemin, officially defined a socialist market economic system as the goal of national reform. The Chinese Communist Party also officially endorsed Deng Xiaoping Theory as a guide for the Party.

"Deng solved the dispute and doubt about the reforms by a series of strong gestures, and thus avoided giving-up on the uneasy reforms," said Xu.

In 2004, the reform process confronted another round of skepticism when certain scholars began to doubt its fairness. Some went to the extreme of saying that "a stop to the reform is better than a distorted and unfair one".

Again the government's central leadership fought back against skepticism and reiterated that the reform process and opening-up of China to the world economy that goes with it would not only be maintained but also strengthened.

"The top leadership is determined to deepen the reform instead of wasting time in the good-or-bad debate," Wang Changjiang, a reform minded scholar who works at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, told Beijing Review. "After all they know it's more crucial to solve real problems than verbal arguments."

The common good

According to Xu, it is easy to answer the question of "whether to reform" but not so easy to come up with a quick answer as to "how to reform".

"It's necessary to reflect on reform while sticking to it. The more downright we reflect on it, the more thorough it goes," said Xu.

"We've got to ask the ultimate question: who on earth are the reforms intended for? This question is the key when we reflect on our reform," he noted.

In Xu's opinion, the fundamental problem with China's reform process is that the country's political and legal environments have so far failed to keep up with the pace of marketalization. The question, he believes, is not how to hold back the marketalization process but how to regulate and normalize the market economy.

Early in the reform process the key task was to provide China's citizens with adequate food and clothing. Entering 2000, the number of impoverished citizens had declined to about 20 million from 250 million two decades earlier. With this accomplished, social needs such as compulsory education, social security, and environmental protection became the focus.

"With the economic development and finance increase, the government should focus on social fairness and provide basic public services for the people and let them enjoy the fruits of reform," said former People's Daily Deputy Editor-in-Chief Zhou Ruijin.