Could someone explain why the chinese economy has begun to grow so rapidly in recent years?

Question

Could someone explain why the chinese economy has begun to grow so rapidly in recent years?

Answer 1

Walmart

Answer 2

1. They were so poor to begin with

and

2. They have reformed the way the government interacts with the economy.

Briefly...

In 1979 Deng Xiopang started to reform the Chinese economy stating that the economic situation be judged on facts, not truths...and the fact was they were miserable.

Since then, the government has created Special Economic Zones (SEZs) where they would allow small capitalist experiments to see how things worked. The results have driven their policies since.

In 1998 they signed an agreement into the World Trade Organization which basically protected foreign investments in factories and such from Chinese government nationalization. (Government takeover of foreign assets) Foreign investment soared.

The Chinese government has recently allowed private property, incentive work systems, and have gotten control of the most free economy in the world when the British turned Hong Kong over to them in 1997. They have used Hong Kong as a model SEZ for the nation.

These changes have encouraged massive development in China since 1979 to the extent that younger people rarely hear the phrase "There are starving kids in China." Economic groth has been (depending on who you believe) 8-12% per year since then, and they are quickly catching up from an ineffecient start.

The best thing the Chinese government has done is to stay out of people's business, one which, under Mao's rule found villagers melting good steel in home furnaces to meet government scrap iron quotas, and tearing apart effecient farms to make ineffecient ones.