State, party, and market: Chinese politics and the Asian crisis

This article addresses the problem of the interactions between Chinese politics (circumscribed to leaders and institutions), its emerging economy and the start of the Asian crisis. It shows that the regional financial crisis agenda intersected with Beijing domestic political timing from mid-1997 to 1998. In international politics, the Beijing leaders economic policy and attitudes toward Hong Kong may have helped to modify to its best advantage the position of China with regard to its external relations with Asia and the rest of the world. In domestic politics, an important consequence of the regional crisis was to press a reluctant leadership to try to push forward economic and monetary reforms whose delay was often at the heart of the problem in countries in crisis. Moreover, such a situation may have helped to impose a new technocratic leadership dominated by economic officials and a new political style. Finally, this article asserts that the true nature of the Asian crisis is more political than economic. As a consequence, that crisis already has had profound effects on the overall transformation of the Beijing regime.