Russia Fall

Russia's Fall, China's Rise? - Comparing Transitions of Russia and China (Part I)

Yu LIU

The questions that this article addresses are: why is Russia unable to step out of economic troubles after a decade's democratization and liberalization, whereas China has been developing steadily under the process of liberalization in the absence of democratization? Does this fact indicate that there is an insurmountable paradox between democratization and economic development? And will this ironic phenomenon endure? For these questions, my arguments are that: (1) the reason of Russia's fall is not necessarily related to democratization and liberalization; rather, it is strongly due to, first, the special initial condition of Russia before reform, and second, the improper reform strategies adopted by authorities. In comparison, China's rise can be attributed to its more advantageous initial conditions and wiser reform strategies. (2) Although the contrast between Russia's fall and China's rise is quite conspicuous, as the two are both states that are transformed from state socialism, they are facing remarkably similar problems, and this similarity is often neglected by analysts. These unfolding problems, and the constitutional infrastructure of both systems that are targeted at these problems, indicate that the fates of reforms in both countries are still far out of sight. Any conclusion made now would be too rash.

Section I: The differences

1. Contrasts of achievement of reform in both countries

The transition from communist system has been underway for over twenty years in China, and about ten years in Russia. The contrast of achievements in the two countries is obvious. Over the decade beginning in 1989, while China's GDP nearly doubled (from about US$ 300 billion to about 700 billion), Russia's GDP almost halved (from US$ 700 billion down to 400 billion). While at the beginning of the period, Russia's GDP was more than twice that of China's, at the end, it was a third smaller. [1]

2. Different explanation for the contrast

The striking contrast between developments in the two countries has fostered substantial discussion. Generally, the reasons developed by scholars to explain the contrast can be divided into two categories--the "reform strategy" perspective and the "initial condition" perspective--although, the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive either empirically or theoretically. The representative of the first perspective is Joseph E. Stiglitz; and the representative of the second perspective is Jeffrey Sachs.

2.1 The perspective of "initial condition"

A. Economic structure

It is well known that Russia had been a highly industrialized country before the transition began, whereas in China, at the beginning of transition, a significant portion of production and population were agricultural in nature. In China, at the beginning of reform, there were only 18% of labor working for the non-agricultural sector; meanwhile, in former Soviet Union, the number was 85%. [2] The relative backwardness of China provided a twofold advantage to its transition.

First, according to Sachs, less industrialization means that at the beginning of transition, China still had a huge "space [for] mimicking industrialization" which could release the potential productivity in Chinese rural region, whereas in Russia, this potential had been exhausted during the period of the former Soviet Union. [3] Furthermore, China's impressive development performance is not only due to its potential for mimicking the capitalist industrialization mode. A great variety of social experiments in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and other East Asian countries also provided new examples for imitation. One example of how China mimicked the industrialization strategies in other parts of Asia is the government's support for the "rural industry"--"township and village enterprises" (TVE)--which was the most important source for China's economic growth.

Second, because agricultural production and population had occupied a much higher portion of China's economy and society than that in Russia, the productivity released from liberalizing agriculture production in China is accordingly much larger than that in Russia. The achievements of de-collectivizing agriculture in China constituted a major part of its reform achievements in 1980's. However, the contribution of agriculture to GDP increase is withering, since the government's discriminatory curb on food prices frustrates peasants' willingness to engage in agriculture, and since the ban on property transaction limits the probability to transfer labor-intensive agricultural production to capital-intensive and technology-intensive production.

B. The extent of central planning in economy

Although China's and Russia's economy were both called "planned" economies before the transition, the extent of planning involved in the economy was quite different for each country. Two differences demonstrate that Russia's economy involved a much higher level of "planning" before the transition.

The first difference lies in the preference of leaders. [4] Russia's leaders were more or less rational, more interested in scientific reasoning than Mao. Lenin was an admirer of the "Ford system" and the "Taylor system". The Constitution in the Stalin era stressed the "professional management of factories," economic auditing, and bureaucratic management. In the Brezhnev era, mathematical economics flourished under the establishment of a "scientific planning" system. [5] However, in China, the rationality in planning economy was drained off after the first-five-year-plan period (1953-1958), mostly due to Mao's romantic and heroic personality. In 1958-1961 and 1966-1970, central economic planning was totally discarded. Attempts at economic planning were either drowned by political movement or became political movements themselves.

The second difference is the extent of the centralization of power. Because of Mao's preference, the degree of the centralization of administrative power in China was much less than that in Russia before the reform. [6] Mao advocated administrative decentralization, encouraged small-scale, self-supported local economies, and was opposed to unified central planning and large-scale division and coordination of labor among different parts of the society. Therefore, when he passed away, China's urban economy was typified as a "command economy" with little planning, while its rural economy remained mostly self-supporting and self-consuming as in its traditional economy. On the contrary, Russia's administrative power was highly centralized, which provided the basis for unified economic planning that involved both cities and the countryside. In other words, before reform, Russia's economy was generally a planned economy while China's economy was neither a market economy nor a planned economy.

As mentioned above, the "initial conditions" in China provided it with two advantages that are favorable to economic development. First, China had much more potential to benefit from enacting reasonable "planning" whereas this potential had largely been exhausted in Russia. It is widely held that the economic growth of China after 1978 has stemmed from the development of the free market. However, the period after 1978 was not only signified by the development of "market" but the development of macro-level "planning" as well, which was largely destroyed before 1978. After 1978, the central "five-year-plan" has been recovered based on scientific statistics and professional analysis instead of the will of the leaders, following which economic development planning on the local level also flourished. In other words, not only liberalization of the economy on the micro level, but also rationalization on the macro level have contributed to China's economic development. However, in Russia, the rationality of planning had already been maximized within the "planned" system, and the economic vigor derived from planning had been consumed up. Therefore, once reform began with large-scale liberalization, the available means for distributing resources were insufficient, which meant that both the "market" and "planned" economy were paralyzed. In contrast, Yang, Wang and Wills have shown that rural China was quite an autarchic society until 1978, where the degree of commercialization was 0.3 before 1978, [7] which means that China's rural economy had room to develop a higher level of division of labour either via commercialization or via central planning. It is easy to develop a commercialized market system from an economy with a low level of division of labour, but it is extremely difficult to develop private property rights and related markets in an economy where there has been a high level of division of labour developed through central planning, as evident in the case of the former Soviet Union.

The other advantage that China possessed was the relatively decentralized power structure in China before reforms were enacted, which provided helped to facilitate the transition. It is well known that the process of transition moved in tandem with the process of decentralization. Most achievements of China's reforms have been stimulated by decentralization from central government to local government, from governments to enterprises and civil society. As mentioned above, China had no highly centralized power structure and nationally integrated economy before the reforms. In many rural areas, the economy was localized. Decentralization made the liberalization of the economy in China, especially in rural areas, easier than that in Russia. Russia's transition is tougher partly because its more centralized planning system, before the reforms, had already fostered a high level division of labor across the whole society; this division and coordination suddenly disintegrated, while local areas did not have enough time to learn how to develop independently without central planning.

C. Coverage of social welfare system

Different historical burdens inherited from socialist system have also influenced the effects of reforms greatly. Although China has been called a socialist society, its social security network covers only 20% of its population living in urban China. In Russia, however, from 1966, peasants got guaranteed salaries from government, and from 1985, 99% of labor, no matter urban workers or rural peasants, is covered by the social welfare system. [8] However, with the liberalization reforms, the reform of the welfare system in Russia lagged far behind given the social pressure. On the contrary, Chinese peasants, who had constituted 80% of China's population until recently, had not been the objects of social welfare services. Thus, the motivation to institute social welfare reform for peasants in China was certainly higher than that in Russia. For Russian peasants, since reform meant that they would have to say farewell to "socialist welfare," their motivation of course is weaker. An inquiry in Russia in 1990 found a mere 17% of employees of state and collective farms in favor of reform in the form of increasing private ownership. [9] In a similar manner, urban China, where workers had already been covered by the welfare system, was more resistant toward reform than rural China.

D. International economic condition

There are many overseas Chinese living in Taiwan, Hong Kong, other parts of East Asia, as well as other continents in the world; they are the main providers of foreign direct investments (FDI), which stimulate China's economic development strikingly. For example, the FDI China attracted in 1995 was US$37 billion, and the total investment in fixed assets in the same year was US$241 billion. FDI now contribute more than 10% of fixed capital formation in China.[20] In contrast, the destruction of traditional trade relations among former Soviet republics and among the former Soviet states and their largest external trade partners in Eastern Europe has caused a slump in demand and output in the former Soviet republics. This has greatly increased the costs of the transition of Russia. Some economists analyzed that, during the economic slump of former Soviet republics in 1991-1995, more than 50% of the costs were generated by the dissolution of the unified economic space; only over 40% were the result of the costs of "institutional transition". In contrast, the Chinese economy was quite independent from the international economic system at the beginning of the reform. While Russia had to struggle for new trade partners and adjust its productive structure according to the needs of its new partners, China had a brand-new starting point in international trade.

2.2. The "reform strategy" perspective

This perspective is the mainstream perspective that explains the contrast between the achievements of Russian and Chinese reforms as the result of the difference and speed of their reform strategies. According to most popular literature, the difference between the two strategies is that Russia adopted the "radical reform strategy," or "shock therapy", whereas China adopted the "incremental reform strategy".

Russia's reform indeed seems radical. The collapse of communist party-state system and disintegration of USSR happened almost overnight. In the economic sphere, the reform can be divided into two stages: the first was between 1992 and 1994--the stage of "mass privatization" (voucher privatization)--which was coupled with the liberalization of prices and stabilization policy (fiscal stringency policy). [11] Of approximately 250,000 state-owned enterprises when Russia became independent, 130,000 had already been privatized as the second stage began in July 1994. The major differences between the second and the first stage are that all change of ownership in the second stage was carried out with money instead of "voucher," and that the procedure is geared towards encouraging the concentration of share ownership so that equity-holders can effectively participate in enterprise governance. China's strategy is quite different: the government has been implacably opposed to democratization, so instead of privatizing its large state enterprises, it has assured economic expansion exclusively from decontrolling agriculture and retailing, harnessing private incentives to local-authority agencies, and admitting foreign capital within strict territorial constraints.

(1) Russia's strategy

The criticism against reform strategies adopted by Russia can be divided into two kinds: the first finds "shock therapy" an unsuitable mode for reform in Russia, especially since it was developed by western neoclassical economists whose expertise and knowledge of Russia may be inadequate; the second stipulates that "shock therapy" is not a wrong prescription for reform by itself, but that its poor implementation is the decisive factor for failure.

A. Improper reform strategies

Stiglitz argued that a market economy must include two elements: full competition and private property. However, "shock therapy," with its focus on privatization, placed too much emphasis on the latter element, because, "after all, it is easy to simply give away state assets, especially to one's friends and cronies." [12] Unfortunately, privatization alone does not guarantee the establishment or strengthening of social, organizational and legal infrastructures and institutions that are essential for an effective market economy.

Indeed, compared to creating a fair, well-ordered market environment, privatization is the easier part of liberalization. A good market environment should consist of three parts: reasonable macro-regulation of government (tax policy, finance policy, and so on); a viable legal system; and social, organizational capital ("the spirit of market contract", "social trust" and so on), all of which cannot simply be legislated, decreed, or installed by the government. Most would argue that generating social and organizational capital is a time consuming process that can only be developed in a bottom-up instead of a top-down approach. Thus, a serious problem of Russia's liberalizing policies is: it stressed too much on privatization, too little on market creation.

B. Bad implementation of reform policies

Different from the above explanation, the second perspective argues that the reasons for the failure of Russian reform were not in the design of the reforms, but in their implementation. Other critics have been accustomed to blaming Russia for adopting "shock therapy", which was a strategy suggested by a group of western economists represented by Sachs, and carried out by young radical reformers represented by Gaidar. Those upholding the second perspective contend that although "shock therapy" did fail to create a new, prosperous Russia, it is unfair to impute all failures and the disasters associated with it to "shock therapy" because "shock therapy" has not been thoroughly or properly implemented.

First, the exercise of "shock therapy" actually only took half a year. From January 1992, Russia began its program of "shock therapy" whose main methods include restricting the government's budget and liberalizing prices. However, under the pressure of Russia's congress, this method was abandoned in July 1992. In short, "shock therapy" in its strictest sense was aborted after a mere six-months of implementation, while Gaidar, who was appointed as prime minister in May 1992--the "radical democrat," "youth reformer" (he is the symbol of "shock therapy")--was exiled from government in December 1992 under the pressure of congress.

As a matter of fact, "shock therapy" itself does not necessarily lead to economic collapse, as evident in the reform experiences of other Eastern European countries. Other countries that adopted "shock therapy," such as Poland and the former Czechoslovakia, all succeeded in the transition (both have surpassed the economic level of the communist era and their GDPs have been growing steadily). On the contrary, those countries that did not adopt "shock therapy," such as Ukraine and Belarus, have not achieved more than Russia. In other words, whether a country adopts "shock therapy" or not is not a crucial factor of economic success.

Second, mass privatization, as advocated by radical reformers, privatized only 11% of Russian large-scale state-owned enterprises two years after the completion of voucher privatization. Compared to Czech's 50%, Mongolia's 55%, the scope of Russia's privatization program was miniscule. [13] In other words, disregarding the hyperinflation in Russia during 1992-1995, and disregarding the fact that the privatized assets were mostly poor in value compared to those assets that remained intact, the assets being privatized in "radical reform" only constituted a small part of state-owned assets.

Third, Russia's poor implementation of "shock therapy" is also embodied in the phenomenon of "insider buyout" in Russia. In Russia, most of the state-owned assets under privatization were sold to "managers and workers," or "insiders," compared to 0% in Czechoslovakia and Mongolia, 2% in Hungary, and 14% in Poland. According to survey, until 1994, when the voucher privatization was said to be finished, 65% of the stocks of these privatized enterprises were still grasped by "insiders", while 13% were possessed by the government, and a mere 21% were held by "outsiders". In this sense, it is more precise to describe Russia's privatization as "insider privatization" (the first stage) and "oligarch privatization" (the second stage- which I will be explaining later) than as "mass privatization". It is also of note that the "insider governance" is the most inefficient means of managing.

The "insider buyout" induced "employee dominant ownership", inevitably leading to the tendency for the stockholders, who are managers or employees themselves, to vote for increased wages, reduced investments, and fewer layoffs, which all disfavor the growth of market economy. Employee ownership in general keeps wages and employment at levels that were too high. The impact of "insider buyout" in Russia can be seen from the abnormally low unemployment rates in the process of reform. Generally speaking, large-scale privatization should increase the proportion of those who are unemployed substantially--16% of the workforce became unemployed in both Eastern Germany and Poland. [14] Even in China where organized, large-scale privatization has not been carried out (although it is said that spontaneous privatization has been under way), the unemployment rate in 1998 was, conservatively counted at 8 to 9%. But in Russia, in the most radical stage of privatization, 1994, only 6.3% of the economically active population was unemployed. [15]

Those countries that enjoyed successful privatization experiences, such as Taiwan and East Germany, however, all adopted the strategy of "outsider buyout" when privatizing enterprises. [16] That is why Kornai concludes that one of the most precious lessons for transition is: outsider privatization is generally more efficient than insider privatization.

Fourth, the rising of "localism" prevented the implementation of central reform policies. Since 1991, local elite and the national government have tended to pull economic policies in opposite directions. Philip Hanson summarized the typical attitudes of local elites in terms of the following features: "not in my backyard" stabilization, populist anti-liberalization, insider privatization, and localism in the pursuit of foreign-trade privileges.

(2) China's strategy

A. On macroeconomic regulation

The Chinese government has not surrendered its control over its economy as thoroughly as the Russia government. According to Li Daokui, the mild "financial pressure" policy adopted by Chinese government has been very constructive in amassing capital and thereby lessening the possibility for a fiscal crisis. Although the imposition of government regulations violates "free market" principles in essence, it is helpful for a government to maintain its competence amidst the chaos generated by transition. In light of how Russian government has lost its capability to collect taxes and was thus unable to carry out large-scale investments, China's "financial pressure" policy appears particularly reasonable. "Financial pressure", according to Li, [17] refers to two policies: the first is the policy of restricting overseas capital outflow; the second is the monopoly of state-owned banking system (forbidding competition from privately held banks). Through the policy of restricting capital outflow, China has insulated its currency and capital flows from the vicissitudes of foreign speculation (in contrast to Russia's policy of opening accounts). Through a monopoly of state-owned banks, and through mandating interest rates that are much lower than market interest rates, the Chinese government has collected much funds to subsidize state-owned enterprises and invest. For example, in 1994, the interests rate of banks was 12% compared with market rates that were between 25% and 30%, which meant that state-owned enterprises got subsidies of over RMB 280 billion from banks in that year. [18]

In other words, the Chinese government adopted an indirect way of "collecting taxes" through the monopolization of its banking system, at the cost of exploiting the potential interests that citizens could have earned on their deposits. Compared to the difficulties encountered by the Russian government with collecting taxes, we can infer that the government regulations that may stifle liberalization is useful in a transitional stage. According to Li, the "financial pressure" policy, which is both a political and an economic phenomenon, is one of two crucial strategies of China's success in transition. [19] Empirical evidence also proved this point. Aside from the increase of state revenues from taxes, statistics shows that 5% of China's GDP, or 25% of the state's revenue, came from the "financial pressure" policy. [20] Meanwhile in Russia, at the end of 1996, only 25% of firms and enterprises had met their tax obligations, while 73 large enterprises were responsible for 40% per cent of the overall tax debt due to the state. [21]

China's "financial pressure" policy stands in sharp contrast to the policies adopted by Russian government. Russia had established the banking market even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thousands of banks were founded, thus putting upward pressure on market interest rates. Therefore, the government had no way to gather "indirect taxes" raised from state-owned banks. It is no wonder why some scholars pointed out that "in fact, it was the collapse of the financial system and not the ill will of 'democrats who sold themselves to America' that made the system ungovernable". [22] Besides, in the initial stage of Russia reform, capital outflow was permitted through the lifting of the ban on free exchange of foreign currency. Therefore, compared to Chinese government, Russian government has relinquished its macro-regulative competence rather rashly. Given that it is important to have a "competent" government" in transition, Russian government has been indeed "radical", at least at the level of macroeconomic regulation. [23]

The harm from liberalizing financial system too rashly can be demonstrated by the illicit capital flight from Russia. Ruble convertibility severely reduced available funds for restructuring after privatization, diminishes the government's taxable base and limits its ability to service external debt. The IMF estimated that the capital flight from Russia reached US$13 billion in 1992 and US$8 billion in 1993. [24] The estimated $30 billion of Russian-owned 'capital hovering abroad' was four times the value of the top five hundred first-stage enterprises and ten times the sum which the Russian government hoped to raise from the second stage of privatization in 1995. [25]

B. At the micro-level

Compared to Russia, China has been stressing more on creating an environment for developing new private, quasi-private enterprises than on privatizing old state-owned enterprises during its process of reform. It is well known that China's economic "miracle" refers mainly to the "miracle" in the non-state-owned sector. Statistics shows that up until the end of 1995 about 190 million people were employed in the non-state-owned sector, constituting nearly two-thirds of total employment, excluding agricultural employment. [26] In 1978, state-owned enterprises consisted of 78% of GDP while collectively-owned enterprises consisted of 22% of GDP; however, in 1995, state-owned enterprises consisted only 34% of GDP while other enterprises (including collectively-owned enterprises, individually-owned enterprises, joint-ventures, shareholdings and foreign-funded enterprises) consisted 66% of GDP. In sum, the burgeoning and flourishing of township and village enterprises (TVE) have proved that the reform strategy of China is more about "enlarging the cake" than "redistributing the cake." Here, we can see another contrast between Russia's and China's reforms. Russia's reform began with privatizing old state-owned enterprises, whereas China's reform began with fostering new non-state-owned enterprises in both urban and rural areas (aside from its efforts on agriculture), leaving the privatization of state-owned enterprises to a later stage.

Stiglitz criticized that Russia's plan for reform has been too centralized and was carried out in a top-down approach. Instead, he believed that "new and complex situations call for experiments; not one but many experiments", and that "the need for many parallel experiments to see 'what works' implies decentralization so that the smaller units can operate with some independence". [27] The Russian government refused to decentralize power to start the new process of learning and reconstitution, and clings instead to the hope that some new masterful restructuring plan will solve the problem. What the Chinese government did was just the contrary. The Chinese government did not enact a unified, and centralized reform blueprint at the beginning of reform. Therefore, the methodological foundation of the difference between Russia's "rapid privatizing state-owned enterprises" and China's "encouraging and legitimating small, new enterprises" is the divergence between "plan" and "spontaneity", "centralization" and "decentralization", "ideological adherence" and "flexible pragmatism".

While presenting both perspectives for the purpose of contrast, I would like to emphasize on the "initial condition" perspective. If we take "incrementalism" as the clue to China's success, what exactly does it mean by "incrementalism"? As many scholars pointed out, in many fields, China's reform is "radical"--the de-collectivization of agriculture happened upon 80% of the population nearly overnight, is this not "radical"? The construction of "special economic zones" discarded almost all communist ideological constraints upon economic development, is this not radical? On the other hand, in fields where "incremental reform strategies" were adopted, such as reforms of state-owned enterprises and macro-economic regulations, the reforms have been the least successful, since these reforms have unleashed large-scale "state opportunism" and corruption. Besides, is Russia's reform really that radical? As we know, the socialist welfare system has been kept intact to much extent in Russia, and although the owners of many state-owned assets have been changed, the previous operating style of those assets are also still prevailing...in many aspects, Russia's reform is not very radical.

To incrementalists the meaning of "incrementalism" may not be about whether the reforms have been radical or not, in which specific field, but in whether the reforms have been carried out "field by field". While this "field by field" approach may have been applicable to China, it may not be so for the case of Russia. Let us suppose that Russia has adopted exactly the same reform strategy as China has--first, quasi-privatize agriculture; then transform from a planned to a market economy, permit the diversification of property rights; and at last postpone political reform unconditionally. Would Russia's reform be as successful as China' reform if it took this strategy? According to the differences of initial conditions analyzed above, the gradual release of macro-control and incubation of micro-enterprises may have mitigated Russia's troubles.

(The author is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Columbia University.)

Endnotes:

1. Joseph E. Stiglitz, Whither Reform?: Ten Years of the Transition 1 http://www.worldbank.org/research/abcde/pdfs/stiglitz.pdf

2. Sachs, J. and Woo, W.T. (1999), "Understanding China's Economic Performance", Journal of Policy Reforms.

3. According to Sachs, the initial economic burgeon in both Russia and China in their early period of planning economy is just from their abilities to imitate industrialization strategies that are accumulated by developed countries through hundreds of years.

4. Of course, we can say that the preferences of leaders are determined by different traditions and so on. Anyway, in a highly centralized economic system, the most meaningful factor influencing economy is the will of the leaders.

5. Su, wen The Lessons of Russia's Transition http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/issue/article/991204g.htm

6. In a sense, Mao opposed to any centralization of power except for his own power. He had been making all efforts to dissolve all bureaucratic powers by mobilizing "the mass" to overthrow all local authorities.

7. Yang, X., Wang, J., and Wills, I. (1992), "Economic Growth, Commercialization, and Institutional Changes in Rural China, 1979-1987", China Economic Review, 3, 1-37.

8. Cook, Linda (1993). The Soviet Social Contract and Why It Failed: Welfare Policy and Workers' Politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

9. Smith, Alan Challenges for Russian Economic Reform Brookings institution 1995 p173.

10. David C.B. Teather and Herbert S. Yee (ed) China in Transition (St. Martin's Press, Inc. 1999) p. 149.

11. Originally, only stabilization policy could be called "shock therapy" (for example, its usage in Latin America), which is purely a technical term, unrelated with the ideological concern; but in Russia and East Europe, this term includes all the three categories: liberalization; privatization, and stabilization.

12. As footnote 1, p5.

13. As footnote 7.

14. As above, p183.

15. As above.

16. As footnote 5.

17. Li, Daokui, Dispersed Information and Restricted Government. http://www.sinobnet.com/glzh/speech/speech-content-26.htm

18. As footnote 2.

19. Another strategy is called "anonymous banking"- a way of liberalizing economy.

20. As footnote 25.

21. Joseph Prokopenko (ed) Privatization: lessons from Russia and China 4 Enterprise and Management Development Working Paper.

22. As above, p24.

23. But on the other hand, although "financial pressure" can provide "monopolized interests" for government, it's not a long-term reasonable strategy at all. As a matter of fact, it brought potential crisis to Chinese finance and led to corruption. Even Li himself admitted that this strategy should be nullified in the long run. I'll mention it later.

24. Challenges for Russian Economic Reform, p192.

25. As above, p195.

26. China Statistical Yearbook, 1996.

27. As footnote 1, p6.