Q: After the new China was founded in 1949, the country started its march on socialist road. Why did China put forward the policy of reform and opening to the outside world in 1978? At present, many countries are trying to carry out reforms, but their results differ. Compared to reforms in other countries, how did the Chinese reform achieve successes?

A: After the "new China" was founded, the country China adopted a centralized planned economy after the economic mode of the former Soviet Union. That kind of economy played an important role given the historical conditions of that time.

However, with the expansion of economic scope and increasing complexity in economic relations, defects of rigidity and over-centralization of the planned economy gradually stood out. These defects, coupled with egalitarian distribution, failed to bring productivity into full play, which in turn resulted in a shortage of production materials and poverty of the people. They also blocked the development of social productive forces. The situation forced China to implement the reform and the open policy.
 
Since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978, we have gradually realized that China is still in the elementary phase of socialism. During this phase, the basic task is to develop productivity and to strengthen comprehensive national strength and to improve people’s life. The aim of the reform and the open policy is to overhaul the economic system that had held back the development of productivity, to build a socialist market economic system full of energy and vigor, and to reform the political system and other systems, so that advantages of socialism will be fully demonstrated.
 
China has taken its national conditions into full consideration when implementing the reforms. Since 1978, China has adopted a gradual approach in the reforms, which started from rural areas and later spread to urban areas, from coastal areas to inland areas, from economy to politics, culture, science and technology, education and other fields.

More than 20 years of practice has demonstrated that the reforms and the open policy not only have injected new vigor into China's socialist system, but also have made the country more powerful and its people richer.

China is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has played a key role in the growth.