The End of an Era: China's Breakneck Reform Period Comes to a Close

## A New Era of Governance in China China is marking a significant milestone in its history with the upcoming 100th anniversary of the birth of Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary. Jiang's partner in governance, Zhu Rongji, passed away on August 12 at the age of 97, leaving behind a legacy of breakneck reform that transformed China's economy. Jiang and Zhu were the "golden partnership" of the CCP's third-generation leadership, which took power in the 1990s. Together, they presided over one of the most sweeping periods of reform in modern Chinese history. China's reform did not begin with this pairing, however. Deng Xiaoping launched the reform era in 1979, and rural reform, special economic zones, price reform, and the emergence of the private economy all predated Jiang and Zhu's work. ## A New Economic Order The official obituary for Zhu lists the institutional legacies of that era, including bringing inflation under control, advancing fiscal and tax reform, rebuilding the financial regulatory system, restructuring state-owned enterprises, reforming government institutions and the housing system, opening the economy further, responding to the Asian financial crisis, and joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). These reforms amounted to a massive restructuring of China's economic order. The Jiang-Zhu era was characterized by an extraordinary clarity of market-directed reform. The CCP's 14th National Congress formally established the goal of a "socialist market economy," while the 15th National Congress further affirmed a system in which public ownership remained dominant but multiple forms of ownership developed together. This signaled a fundamental change in China's economic order. ## A New Era of Governance The Jiang-Zhu years did not eliminate all forms of discrimination based on ownership, and state-owned enterprises were still powerfully situated. However, an increasing share of economic growth came from private businesses, foreign investment, and export manufacturing. China also actively embraced globalization, culminating in its WTO accession in 2001. Reformers during this era moved fast and were willing to tackle the hardest problems. Prices, enterprises, housing, employment, finance, taxation, and foreign trade were all difficult areas, yet reforms advanced simultaneously. Problems that had long been considered too difficult or too sensitive, such as the work unit system or the relationship with Western economies, were tackled head on. ## A New Era of Governance The CCP's Third Plenum called for "further comprehensively deepening reform," while the 15th Five-Year Plan and the 2026 government work report likewise emphasize a unified national market, the private economy, fiscal and financial reform, and further opening. However, reform in China today comes with a series of qualifiers that are, in practice, more important than reform itself: CCP leadership, high-quality development, common prosperity, technological self-reliance, supply-chain and industrial-chain security, the domestic circulation strategy, new quality productive forces, and coordinating development and security are all given priority. In the Jiang-Zhu era, reform generally meant transferring things previously controlled by the government to the market, pushing a relatively closed Chinese economy further into the world and freeing individuals and enterprises from old institutional constraints. Reform today increasingly means the state reorganizing markets, guiding capital, allocating technological resources, building autonomous industrial systems, and ensuring that the economy remains dynamic and manageable. The passing of Zhu Rongji marks the end of an era in China's breakneck reform period, which began in the 1990s under the leadership of Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji. This period saw significant economic reforms, including the introduction of market-oriented policies and the opening up of the Chinese economy to the world. While the era produced enormous achievements, it also brought serious problems, including widening inequality, corruption, unemployment caused by restructuring, and a lack of proper social protections in pensions, health care, labor rights, and many other areas. The legacy of the Jiang-Zhu era will continue to shape China's economic and political landscape for years to come. As China looks to the future, it is clear that the country will continue to face significant challenges in its pursuit of economic development and reform.