The special economic zones of China and their impact on its economic development /

Park's monograph examines the initial decade of the existence of China's "special economic zones" (1980-1989), those coastal enclaves of freewheeling capitalism that came to symbolize the PRC's post-Mao opening to the global economy. Based on field research undertaken from 1989-1992 in China, Macao, Hong Kong, and Korea, this study is an English version of a widely circulated original work that appeared in all three East Asian languages. Park's text and numerous statistical tables provide data comparing a11 five of the zones (Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen, and Hainan Island), but he devotes the most attention to Shenzhen, Hong Kong's immediate neighbor. The author's dry, terse style does not make for captivating reading, but he presents a good deal of useful information regarding the role of foreign and domestic capital in zonal development, labor and management conditions, and the economic linkages between the zones, China's interior economy, and the economies of the "smaller dragons"--Macao, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In sum, Park thinks that the most important achievement of the zones is that they facilitate the emergence of the "Southern Chinese Economic Block," a driving force in today's world markets. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and above. R. P. Gardella; United States Merchant Marine Academy