Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper tries to evaluate the relation between Zhu Rongji (Chinese Premier 1998-2002) and Chinese economic growth with a view to examine how and in what way that the most important economic decision maker in China contributed to Chinese economic growth in the late 1990s. The study of Chinese politics has been dominated by the 'great man theory' which emphases more on the political leader, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping for instance. On the contrary, little has been explored in order to study the importance of decision-making by some 'managers' who strike the balance between the political chessboard and administrative duty in contemporary Chinese politics. It is this reason that I want to focus on Zhu Rongji because, while swimming in the political ocean, he is very successful in a way to combine his administrative skill together with the charisma to accomplish Chinese economic development. This paper will be divided into four parts. The first part will use a decision-maker approach to look at his personal elements. Some areas will be discussed: his openness, corruption free, relations with party members and strictness. Those personal traits serve as the virtual aptitude test in helping him to develop a sense of trustworthiness. Second, His style of administration and personal traits generate an aura of legitimacy to be accepted by the general public, at least initially before the reform of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) being carried out in full swing. Culturally, this is so important especially he is not generally elected. He needs some legitimacy, and one of the ways to reach popular legitimacy is to resort to some cultural requirements in Confucianism. The third part will examine the situational requirements for economic reform such as the privatisation of those SOEs and the ways in which the level of economic growth can be kept. It is a highly sensitive issue relating to the central and local relations. And it was never a plain sailing, almost causing his job, because those people's (companies managers, unemployed workers, etc) political and economic interests were seriously affected. Finally, to what extent China has gained from the seesaw rebalance between her less engaging economic development with those more engaging economies in East Asian after the Asian financial crisis? This intriguing question leads us to explore the regional economic relations that China has been maintained especially with Japan and Southeast Asian countries. Although China is being run by a new batch of political leaders after 16th Politburo Standing Committees in November 2002, the study of Zhu Rongji allows us to shed light on how Chinese politics is balanced between the art of politics and the science of administration.