For the first thirty years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, Chinese leaders adopted either a semi-autarkic or an import substitution industrialization (ISI) development strategy to establish a self-reliant economy insulated from the global economy. Following Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, the new paramount leader Deng Xiaoping rejected Mao’s semi-autarkic approach and authorized experimentation with a variation of outward-oriented development, the coastal development strategy. The party-state issued seven key documents that promoted greater integration between the global and coastal economies, while limiting its impact on the less competitive interior economy. These seven documents laid the foundation for China’s emergence in the twenty-first century as a global superpower.
