China And Russia Case Study

The beginning of globalization in the 1980s-90s occurred simultaneously with the shift in China and Russia from a central planning economy to a trade-driven market economy. The Chinese leadership consciously embraced globalization, and saw it as an opportunity rather than a threat. The reaction in Russia was not like that of China, since during the 1990s Russia seemed to be suffering from the impact of globalization. Both Russia and China have emerged from the transition to global capitalism as stronger and more stable states. Yet neither of them has fully embraced the values and institutions of the “Washington Consensus” – the acceptance of the best economic policy being one of free trade, floating exchange rates, free markets and macroeconomic …show more content…
But in the 1990s, both countries decided to move away from many fundamentals of their model. The two countries, at first, seemed to be moving in completely different directions. Russia was moving towards market democracy and Western integration, as China attempted to keep its authoritarian rule together with very little opening to investment and trade with other countries. Russia then went through rapid political liberalization under Gorbachev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soon after, there was a system collapse and the Soviet Union came to an end. China, on the other hand, began a, “managed transition that involved the step-by-step introduction of elements of capitalism while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) retained a monopoly of political power.” The Chinese political system continues to be intact today, and the assumptions that when capitalism was introduced then a democracy would soon follow have since been …show more content…
The Chinese Communist Party was reconstructing their political institutions after the Cultural Revolution because the revolution had gravely damaged its organized consistency and popular legitimacy. Under General Brezhnev, the Soviet Union had experienced twenty years of consistency and stability, but this was a time that created increasing corruption, lack of economic activity, and plenty of unfortunate foreign policy mishaps. A more evident distinction between the two countries is that while China was ethnically homogenous, the Soviet Union was diverse. “Ethnic Russians made up only 53% of the Soviet population, and 80% of the Russian Federation.” It could be said that this ethnic homogeneity really should have made it easier for the Chinese to introduce democracy. One of the reasons the leaders of China feared democratic contestation was because they had many large regional differences and a great number of extremely poor