Developmental Legacy of Deng Xiaoping’s Reform Strategy and China’s Economic Rise: Lessons and Implications for Governance, Institutional Reform, Industrial Development and Economic Growth in Pakistan

Abstract

This paper will discuss the reform plan of Deng Xiaoping and its implications with references to the ruling and economic growth of Pakistan. The transformation of China which started in the 1978 was a succession of ideological leadership under Deng to a pragmatic reform with concentration of strong political leadership and slow economic liberalization. This paper suggests that these reforms would be successful not just due to the policies that were market oriented, but due to a combination of sequencing, institutional discipline and continuity of policies that was facilitated with sound governance. Conversely, the economic reform efforts in Pakistan had been sabotaged by political instability, poor institutions, divided authority, and short-term policymaking. The paper analyzes how the assets of the structure of governance determine the success or failure of economic reforms based on a qualitative comparative approach based on the political economy and institutional theory. The analysis indicates that economic liberalization without governance reforms have a few and short fall outcomes. Although Pakistan cannot follow a similar path to China in terms of politics, the paper finds some principles of strategy transferability, specifically governance-based reform, institutional strengthening, and the establishment of long-term commitment to the policies, which are useful in the case of Pakistan. The paper has concluded that the problem facing the development of Pakistan is as much political rather than economic and that sustainable development means the synchronization between economic reforms and stable structures of governance.