In its 40th year the People's Republic of China has achieved a position in its foreign relations to which its leaders had long aspired. For the first time they can now claim to operate in a relatively peaceful international environment that is conducive to the attainment of their domestic goals of economic development.

Any attempt to evaluate China's achievements in industrialization during the past four decades must confront three crucial issues. They are: first, to what extent industrial success was gained at the expense of slower agricultural growth as a result of the Soviet-style, forced industrialization strategy. Secondly, whether in view of the perceived need to narrow the gap between the under-developed interior and the more advanced coastal areas, Chinese leaders have succeeded in correcting regional imbalances in industrial production. Thirdly, whether advances in the modern industrial sector have benefited traditional, small-scale industries. This last question is an important one in the light of the experience of other industrialized countries, highlighting the “spill-over” effects of technical change from modern to traditional sectors.

Judged by almost any standard, law and the legal system in China today form part of a growth industry. Although the pace has been uneven and has at times seemed to falter, the growth has been maintained for more than a decade, since the end of the Cultural Revolution and the inauguration of the Four Modernizations. The most easily visible aspect of this phenomenon is the volume of legislation, unprecedented in any other period since 1949. The output is difficult to monitor precisely, because although the major laws and regulations issued by the National People's Congress and the organs of the central government are now for the most part regularly published, the majority of regulations issued at the ministerial or lower levels of the central government are still not published in such a way as to be easily accessible, if they are published at all; and the amount of local legislation which filters out of the area in which it applies is still limited.

The main contrast between official discussions of China's rural economic development that took place nearly 40 years ago and those of the late 1980s is not to be found in the identification of the problems themselves, but in the policies proposed for their solution. Then, as now, stress was placed on the problems arising from the adverse man-land ratio; on the crucial importance for China's industrial development of securing adequate supplies of grain; on balancing the latter consideration with the need to supply the light industries with agricultural raw materials such as cotton; on developing the livestock sector of agriculture (particularly pigs) in the interests of consumption and of soil fertility; and on the investment requirements of agriculture, especially in the realm of water conservation and irrigation. These have been the constant factors in discussions throughout the past 40 years.

It would appear that many western observers of China, with some recent notable exceptions, have systematically underestimated the importance attached to S&T (science and technology) development by both the Maoist and post-Mao leadership. This article will argue that it is difficult to understand the complexities of Chinese affairs since 1949 within the political, economic and military spheres without direct reference to China's research and development (R&D) and education systems.