Book review

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.13.1.0156
• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Date: 01 July 2021
• Pages: 156-160
• Author: Edoardo Bellando

156 BOOk REVIEWS

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 13.1 Summer 2021

Alberto Gabriele, Enterprises, Industry and Innovation in the People’s

Republic of China. Questioning Socialism from Deng to the Trade and Tech

War. Springer Singapore, 2020. 301 pp. ISBN 9789811521218 (eBook),

9789811521201 (hbk).

Reviewed by Edoardo Bellando

Stony Brook University, United States

How has China succeeded in its extraordinary economic development over the

past four decades? What is the nature of its emerging model of market socialism?

And what practical lessons does it provide for other socialist transitions such as

those in Vietnam and Cuba? These are all questions to which this book provides

timely answers.

The book focuses on two pillars of China’s economic success: industrial

enterprises and the national system of innovation. The first part of the book

investigates the nature and evolution of China’s productive enterprises, concen-

trating on the rounds of transformation of their ownership structure. The second

part analyses the structure of China’s national innovation systems. The book is

based on a thorough analysis of statistical data provided by the China Statistical

Yearbook, the World Bank and other sources.

The author emphasises two key points, which constitute a partly novel inter-

pretation of two aspects of China’s unique development. The first point is the

crucial role of public ownership of the country’s core means of production, in

the framework of a harmonious market where different types of property coex-

ist. China, the author says, gradually abandoned old-fashioned administrative

command tools and is relying more and more on indirect and value-based forms

of strategic control of productive assets. The second point is China’s strategic

emphasis on technological progress and innovation, accompanied by an effort to

develop national capacity and reduce its dependence on other countries.

China’s drive to become a first-class technological power revolves around the

enhancement of its national innovation system, the author says. Big private high-

tech companies play a crucial role; however, the main engines of progress are

state-controlled enterprises, universities and research centres.

The author introduces the concept of “non-capitalist market-oriented enter-

prise”, a concept much wider than that of state-owned firms and cooperatives.

Such enterprises, which are responsible for much of China’s industrial activity,

are non-capitalistic from the key viewpoint of property rights.

According to Gabriele, China’s system is a “socialist-oriented mixed market

economy” – socialist in the sense that it aims to realise in the long term socialist

principles such as equity – in which the private sector has been allowed to flourish