Structural Changes and Policies in China: From the New Dream to COVID-19 Era

The work sheds light on the significant reforms that China has undertaken over the past 40 years and which, starting from the 1978 ‘Open Door Policy’, stimulated a massive structural shift of the Chinese economy and society. The twenty first century pandemic happened at a linchpin moment for China, when the country was bridging several contentious structural changes due to the ‘New Normal’ paradigm and the more recent trade war with the US. In response to the Covid-19 outbreak and in the light of the upcoming release of the new 5-year plan, Chinese authorities promptly adopted a series of coordinated measures to support the national economy and engaged in a new long-term planning, the so-called “Dual Circulation Strategy”. From the New Dream to the Covid-19 era, innovation and industrial policies are presented through the lens of political economy.