Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 China as a Latecomer in World Industrial Markets
- 2 The Outside World as an Impetus for Change in China
- 3 Tailor to the World: China's Emergence as a Global Power in Textiles
- 4 Beating the System with Industrial Restructuring: China's Response to the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA)
- 5 China Looms Large: Reform and Rationalization in the Textile Industry
- 6 Industrial Change in the Shadow of the MFA: The Role of Top-Level Strategy, Mid-Level Intervention, and Low-Level Demand in China's Textile Industry
- 7 Chinese Shipbuilding: The Modest Origins of an Emerging Industrial Giant
- 8 Dangerous Currents: Navigating Boom and Bust Cycles in International Shipbuilding
- 9 Chinese Shipbuilding and Global Surplus Capacity: Making a Virtue out of Necessity
- 10 Market-Oriented Solutions for Industrial Adjustment: The Changing Pattern of State Intervention in Chinese Shipbuilding
- 11 Who Did What to Whom?: Making Sense of the Reform Process in China's Shipbuilding Industry
- 12 External Shocks, State Capacity, and National Responses for Economic Adjustment: Explaining Industrial Change in China
- 13 China in the Contemporary International Political Economy
- Appendix Contours of the Research Effort
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - China Looms Large: Reform and Rationalization in the Textile Industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 China as a Latecomer in World Industrial Markets
- 2 The Outside World as an Impetus for Change in China
- 3 Tailor to the World: China's Emergence as a Global Power in Textiles
- 4 Beating the System with Industrial Restructuring: China's Response to the Multifiber Arrangement (MFA)
- 5 China Looms Large: Reform and Rationalization in the Textile Industry
- 6 Industrial Change in the Shadow of the MFA: The Role of Top-Level Strategy, Mid-Level Intervention, and Low-Level Demand in China's Textile Industry
- 7 Chinese Shipbuilding: The Modest Origins of an Emerging Industrial Giant
- 8 Dangerous Currents: Navigating Boom and Bust Cycles in International Shipbuilding
- 9 Chinese Shipbuilding and Global Surplus Capacity: Making a Virtue out of Necessity
- 10 Market-Oriented Solutions for Industrial Adjustment: The Changing Pattern of State Intervention in Chinese Shipbuilding
- 11 Who Did What to Whom?: Making Sense of the Reform Process in China's Shipbuilding Industry
- 12 External Shocks, State Capacity, and National Responses for Economic Adjustment: Explaining Industrial Change in China
- 13 China in the Contemporary International Political Economy
- Appendix Contours of the Research Effort
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE previous chapter documented China's successful response to the MFA, a response marked by export upgrading, adjustments to the product mix, and market diversification among export destinations. This chapter will explore how that record of industrial restructuring was built, with special emphasis on the policy environment. It begins by reviewing the problems that China's textile industry faced as it sought to cope with quotas. It then discusses the various administrative measures and economic reforms that were taken in an effort to improve the industry's performance. Here, the main argument is that bureaucratic coordination gave way over time to market coordination as the primary means for pursuing economic adjustment in the textile industry, albeit only after administrative measures failed to produce the desired changes. Next, the chapter provides an overview of rationalization efforts within the industry. Lastly, it examines the system of quota allocation as a detailed case study of China's adjustment to life under the MFA.
HANGING BY A THREAD: CHINA COPES WITH THE MFA
Although legendary for their immensity, the problems affecting the textile industry are little different from the basic challenges that all Chinese industries have faced during the post-Mao era.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- China in the World MarketChinese Industry and International Sources of Reform in the Post-Mao Era, pp. 111 - 143Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002