| Abstract: | The World Bank has played an important role in China's economic transformation since the late 1970s. China used the World Bank well and the Bank was responsive to China's needs. The Bank did not recommend early or comprehensive market liberalization or privatization, as it did in some other transition economies, but supported China's pragmatic—learning-by-doing—approach to economic reform. It pushed at the margin for critical institutional and policy reforms, presenting perspective based on international experience, while providing technical assistance in numerous areas, often through Bank-supported projects. As the Chinese gained expertise, confidence and access to international capital markets, the role of the Bank in China inevitably shrank. China now uses the Bank mainly for selective technical, institutional and conceptual innovations for development. China and the World Bank both gained from their interaction. |
** Pieter Bottelier is Sr. Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he teaches several courses on China's economy. He served as Chief of the World Bank's Resident Mission in China from 1993 to 1997. Helpful comments from Steven Dunaway, Jessica Einhorn, Parvez Hasan, Bert Hofman, Nicholas Hope, Ercheng Hwa, Shahid Husain, Edwin Lim, Stephen McGurk, Anthony Saich, Douglas Scott, Jinlin Yang and Jiayi Zou are gratefully acknowledged. The author is responsible for possible remaining errors.View all notes