The Elusive Market: Privatization, Politics and State–Enterprise Reform in China

Although China's largest state–owned enterprises (SOEs) are destined to remain state–owned for the immediate future, recent reforms have affected these SOEs' property rights and ownership structures. Moreover, the government's insistence that privatization is not implied by present reform programmes is increasingly contradicted by actual developments and managers' attitudes at the enterprise level. This article explores some of the political and organizational tensions created by this present phase of SOE reform.