Resolving that tension requires constitutional and political reform. What China needs is not market socialism. The reformers in the Chinese Communist Party, such as Premier Zhu Rongji, recognize the importance of competition in turning China into a modern market economy. But Zhu and others are pitted against a stubborn coalition of hard-liners whose primary concerns are to stay in power and to eliminate competition. If China enters the World Trade Organization, as now appears likely, and significantly opens its markets to foreign competition, chances will be substantially increased for a true market economy to develop and for eventual political liberalization.
People have a natural propensity to trade, and trade requires private property to be legitimate.
The Chinese people, when allowed to choose, favor the market over the plan and private over state ownership. In the booming coastal regions, individuals have freely opted for the non-state sector, and millions of people have voluntarily left their homes in the countryside to search for a better life. And that was in 1993. Give all state property to the people. His courage and boldness reveal what China may become in the next several decades, if the party gets out of the way of the market revolution that is sweeping the global economy.