Chinese foreign economic policy before 1978 has been considered isolationist and centered on Maoist self-reliance. In this revisionist analysis, Lawrence Reardon argues that China was not out of touch with the global marketplace during the 1949-78 period and that Deng Xiaoping’s heralded liberalizations in fact were revisions and expansions of policies from the Maoist period.The dramatic economic reforms initiated by China’s leaders in 1978 boosted GDP by between 9 and 13 percent each year...
