Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

China's Rise, Russia's Fall : Policy Choice Or System Difference, Peter Nolan

Centre for Public Policy Studies : CPPS Working Paper Series

This paper outlines the major policy differences between the post-Stalinist reform in the former USSR and China (Section 1). It then briefly presents the dramatic contrast in outcomes in the two cases (Section 2). The usual explanation is to suggest that the two systems had radically different starting points, with large differences in their respective capacities for 'catching up, forging ahead and falling behind', to use the terminology of Abramowitz (1986). China's 'success.' is seen as mainly due to 'special' factors such as the strength of its historical traditions of 'capitalism' and the advantages enjoyed on account of the impact …