The military imperative in Chinese economic reform: The politics of electronics, 1949--1999

This dissertation asks the question: what role has the Chinese military played in determining the course of China's post-1978 economic reforms? A case study of China's state-run electronics industry, focusing on its governing structure and the competing high-technology policies that have affected it since 1949, provides the empirical data necessary to generate a causal hypothesis regarding the military imperative in Chinese economic reform. The Chinese defense establishment's stake in high-technology policy, "the military imperative," serves as the independent variable, interacting with the dynamics of "fragmented authoritarianism," to create a particular institutional outcome, specifically the governing structure of the Chinese state-run electronics industry as it evolved during the reform era. The results of my analysis suggest that the course of reform in China's state-run electronics sector has been strongly shaped by China's defense establishment, often in conflict with the goals laid down by China's more liberal economic reformers. The dissertation concludes that a professionalizing Chinese military remains influential in politics, a role extending well beyond the barracks, to the course of China's post-Mao economic reforms.