EVEN if we accept that the international environment was a powerful influence in impelling certain changes in the textile industry, we must still account for the response within China. Did the reforms and other policy changes in the industry mainly reflect strategy made by the top leadership to cope with life under the MFA? Or were they fundamentally the result of bureaucratic intervention by MTI/CNTC, CHINATEX, or MOFERT/MOFTEC at either the national or provincial level? Or, finally, did the main impulse for change come from below as enterprises (and other local actors) reacted to changing market conditions at home and abroad? In other words, are the changes that occurred in the textile industry best conceptualized as the outcome of top-level strategy, mid-level intervention, or low-level demand? This question will serve as the primary focus of this chapter. Before addressing this important topic, however, we must first examine more closely the evolving role of various bureaucratic players involved in China's textile industry. Only by surveying this “alphabet soup” of institutions, a subject not comprehensively explored in previous chapters, is a full assessment of their role in the system possible, especially vis-à-vis higher- and lower-level actors.

RESHAPING THE ORGANIZATIONAL LANDSCAPE OF THE CHINESE TEXTILE INDUSTRY

As with all eras of change, there were both winners and losers in China's textile industry during the 1980s and early 1990s. Of the three leading bureaucratic players, MOFERT gained the most strength.