The Chinese Economic Reform — as Seen by Hungarian Economists

Abstract

On the invitation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, we spent four weeks in China in 1985. Although we have read a great deal of studies about China, by no means do we pretend to be experts on the subject. We have been studying the economy of Hungary—our own country—of ten million inhabitants for long decades, and we still feel we do not know it enough. How could we understand China—with a population a hundred times as large as Hungary’s—with a desirable degree of thoroughness only relying on a few books, several conversations, and a visit of four weeks? All we can undertake is to record first impressions.