Crossing the River by Feeling the Stones

The reform of China’s economic system as a whole was in the early period largely featured by “destruction,” supplemented by some “construction.” At this stage, approaches such as “Crossing the river by feeling the stones,” “stimulus-response,” and try and error were adopted, in an order from the “outside” to the “inside,” from the easy to the difficult. That is, places or fields subject to the strictest control of the planned economy were bypassed. Rather than addressing the most difficult parts first, the reform was advanced wherein breakthroughs could be most easily made. It extended gradually from where traditionally external to traditionally internal but peripheral to the system and then to the whole system, especially the center. Such an order and approaches were adopted out of the following considerations.