Preface 

This first issue of Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies 
brings together three papers presented at the conference "Ten Years After: The 
Post-Mao Development", held, with a grant from the Danish Social Science 
Research Council, November 7-9, 1986, in Elsinore, Denmark. They deal 
with post-Mao economic and political reforms in China. The contributors are 
Professor Stuart Schram, School of Oriental and African Studies, London; 
Dr. Erhard Louven, Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg; and the editor. 

Professor Stuart Schram's contribution deals with reform of the economic 
and political system as it has been discussed and to a certain extent put 
into practice in China since 1978. His conclusion is that the predominant 
trends in the various economic, political, intellectual, and cultural domains 
tend to converge and reinforce each other. He believes that economic reforms 
will be maintained in the foreseeable future, provided the reform process will 
continue to include the implementation of concomitant political reforms. 

Dr. Erhard Louven analyzes basic trends and perspectives in the economic 
arena in the post-Mao period. He points out that the economy, in industry as 
well as in agriculture, has performed very well in the period, with record-high 
growth rates. He concludes, however, that sooner or later agricultural per- 
formance will have reached a plateau, requiring new massive investments 
from the industrial sector, and that the urban reforms seem to meet resistance 
from traditional power elites in the Party and in the planning apparatus. 

My own contribution addresses the overall economic and political reform 
process in the post-Mao era. It argues that the Chinese reform process is cha- 
racterized by the introduction of reforms which seek to improve particular 
aspects of the economic and political system rather than to change the system 
itself. In this sense, the Chinese have not gone beyond the borderline to struc- 
tural reform that changes the very parameters within which the decision- 
making process and the political-economic patterns of behaviour operate. 

Copenhagen Papers in East and Southeast Asian Studies is part of the publica- 
tion program of the Center for East and Southeast Asian Studies, University 
of Copenhagen. It is planned to publish 2 issues a year. Our hope with this se- 
ries is to demonstrate the breadth and depth of modern East and South- 
east Asian Studies in this part of the world. Nevertheless, as the first issue 
shows, contributions will not be limited to Scandinavian scholars. 



Forthcoming issues will include "Chinese Intellectual Life Post-Mao", "East 
Asian Security in the 1 9 8 0 ~ " ~  "Decentralized Water Resource Management in 
the P R C ,  "Science and Technology Reforms in the PRC", "Reform and Read- 
justment in the Chinese Economy with Particular Reference to the Post-Mao 
Period", and "The Role of the State in the East Asian Modernization Process". 

KJELD ERIK BRDDSGAARD