China’s Puzzle Game: Four Spatial Shifts of Development

Abstract

The Chinese policy makers should be perhaps the best chess players for they have been entitled to set up regional development priorities for different regions at different times. Mao Zedong and the founders of the PRC could directly move any chessman without much hesitation under the centrally planned economy of 1949-76. Deng Xiaoping made every move of his chessmen using two hands. His visible hand, like Mao’s, was the central control mechanism; the other was his invisible hand — the market mechanism. Deng gradually introduced a market economic system into China but his visible hand guaranteed that every move of the chessmen was accomplished, because of his seniority and reputation in the C..