, caused great disruptions in economic management and in rational economicgrowth and was ultimately abandoned in 1960. The Chinese economy then entered aperiod of readjustment, but ran into problems again, this time being much a result of theCultural Revolution. Yet again, a fourth five-year plan was introduced in 1971 as theeconomy began its recovery.In an effort to deal with the failure of the Cultural Revolution in 1976,China's leaders began to boost up the economy. A fifth five-year program was begun in1976 but was interrupted in 1978, when the Four Modernizations program was launched.It called for the “all-round modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense, andscience and technology by the end of the century so that the economy can take its place inthe front ranks of the world” (Butler/Encarta 1996). In at attempt to attract Westerntechnology and investment more programs and plans were put into effect such as one inOctober 1984 which called for further decentralization of economic planning and forincreased reliance on market forces to determine the prices of consumer goods. Howeverthe economy temporarily stagnated due to the political crackdown in 1989. Luckily, theChinese economy expanded rapidly during the early 1990s as the government continued toloosen controls on the economy.From a political perspective, it would be in the United State’s best interestto engage in free trade with China. There has been much opposition from the far right tolabor unions to any such association with a nation that has been “suspected of pirating USnuclear secrets - and whose military - industrial barons probably orchestrated illegalcampaign contributions during the 1996 US presidential campaign” (Christian ScienceMonitor 10). However, there are great political stakes that are being overlooked here. An important advantage in free trade lies in the influence western culture will have overChina, so as to ...
