Chinese Development Reforms: A History of Pragmatic Policy Learning

China’s recent economic growth and associated institutional development have been so spectacular that it is relatively easy to draw the conclusion that it possesses a significant learning capability. As the quotation from Deng Xiaoping above illustrates, traditional Chinese scholarship relates this capability primarily to a culture of pragmatism. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate whether there is historical evidence that demonstrates the presence of a culture of learning within China’s developmental elite and seeks to identify its key ingredients. This will provide a historical foundation to our understanding of processes of policy learning in subsequent chapters.