The 23rd Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society of Economic Laws and the 2nd National Forum on Marxist Economics Held in Fujian
The 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Chinese Economic Laws and the 2nd National Forum on Marxist Economics—themed “Institutional Reform, Innovation-Driven Development, and Structural Adjustment”—was held at Fujian Normal University in Fuzhou from April 20 to 21, 2013. The conference was jointly organized by the Society for the Study of Chinese Economic Laws, the Academy of Marxism of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and Fujian Normal University. Renowned economists in attendance included CASS Member [1] and Senior Researcher Liu Guoguan; Wei Xinghua, Honorary First-Tier Professor at Renmin University of China; Professor Cheng Enfu, President of the Society for the Study of Chinese Economic Laws and Director of the Academy of Marxism at CASS; Professor Wu Xuangong, former Party Secretary of Xiamen University; Professor Wen Kui, former President of Capital University of Economics and Business; and Professor Li Jianping, former President of Fujian Normal University. They were joined by over 150 experts and scholars from across the country.
Participating experts and scholars engaged in broad and in-depth discussions closely centered on the theme of "comprehensively deepening economic institutional reform, implementing the innovation-driven development strategy, and accelerating the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures." They provided profound answers to hot-button and difficult issues in contemporary Chinese economic development, achieving fruitful research results.
In his speech, Liu Guoguan pointed out that China has already established and preliminarily improved the socialist market economy system, and the task going forward is one of further refinement. Building a market economy requires cultivating diversified market entities and establishing a market environment of fair competition. However, one must resolutely oppose excessive marketization, oppose privatization carried out under the guise of marketization, and oppose the realization of diversified competitive subjects through the weakening, fragmentation, or dismemberment of the state-owned economy. Furthermore, one must oppose the establishment of a capitalist-style free competition market economy that lacks planning or strong state regulation. Those erroneous views suggesting that China's current socialist market economy is a "half-command, half-market" mixed economy are the residual toxins [2] of Neoliberal trends of thought. If these views are allowed to spread, and if the state-owned economy’s control over vital industries is dismantled and government intervention in the market is reduced in practice, the great cause of reform will surely walk down a path of no return toward "Westernization," "fragmentation," and "capitalization."
In his speech, Cheng Enfu argued that, based on the spirit of the 18th National Congress [3], and following the preliminary establishment and general improvement of the socialist market economy system, China should henceforth combine a socialist orientation with a modern market economy orientation. Focusing on the "four keywords" of property rights, distribution, regulation, and opening up, China should accelerate the adjustment and improvement of the socialist market economy system. The goal is to promptly construct a "four-pillar-based socialist economic system": namely, a multi-type property rights system with public ownership as the mainstay; a multi-factor distribution system with labor as the mainstay; a multi-structural market system with the state as the leader; and a multi-directional opening-up system with self-reliance as the leader.
Cheng emphasized that we must never follow the proposals of some individual economists who claim that China currently operates under a "half-command, half-market" dual system, where "state capitalism or crony capitalism" has caused reform to stagnate or regress. Such thinkers argue that reform must target "privatization of state-owned enterprises, land privatization, and financial liberalization," aiming to establish a market economy system based on the formula "social justice + market economy = socialism." On the contrary, the organic integration of socialism (or the public ownership mainstay) with the market economy can generate higher efficiency and greater equity than the combination of capitalism (or the private ownership mainstay) with the market system. Capitalism and monopoly private ownership depart from market economy principles to a considerable extent; the two possess inherent and profound contradictions and conflicts.