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Chinese economic reform (Chinese: 改革开放; pinyin: Găigé kāifàng) refers to the program of economic changes called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" in the mainland of the People's Republic of China (PRC) that were started in 1978 by pragmatists within the Communist Party of China (CPC) led by Deng Xiaoping and are ongoing as of the early 21st century. The goal of Chinese economic reform was to generate sufficient surplus value to finance the modernization of the mainland Chinese economy. Neither the socialist command economy, favored by CPC conservatives, nor the Maoist attempt at a Great Leap Forward from socialism to communism in agriculture (with the commune system) had generated sufficient surplus value for these purposes. The initial challenge of economic reform was to solve the problems of motivating workers and farmers to produce a larger surplus and to eliminate economic imbalances that were common in command economies.
Chinese economic reform has been undertaken through a series of phased reforms. In general, these reforms were not the results of a grand strategy, but as immediate responses to pressing problems. In some cases, such as the closing of state enterprises, the government has been forced by events and economic circumstances to do things that it did not want to do.
Although Chinese economic reform has been characterised by many in the West as a return to capitalism, Chinese officials have insisted that it is a form of socialism, because to do otherwise would call into question the validity of Marxism and the legitimacy of the regime. However, they have not argued against the premise that many of the reforms involve adopting economic policies that are in use in capitalist nations, and one of the premises of Chinese economic reform is that China should not avoid adopting "whatever works" for ideological reasons.
In addition, many of the economic structures that have been created in the course of Chinese economic reform may appear superficially similar to those found in other nations, but are in fact quite unique.
Comparison to Perestroika
Chinese economic reforms occurred at roughly the same time as perestroika in the Soviet Union, yet perestroika has been widely judged to be a failure while Chinese economic reform has been widely considered to be a success. This is largely because the Soviets largely focused their efforts on developing heavy industry, which only affects a small group. In China the emphasis was on agriculture and light industry, which produces immediate winners because the goods produced are consumed by a large portion of the population.