Abstract: Planetary Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities Research

Abstract:
It is a well-known metaphor, frequently mentioned in scholarly analyses on China that the market economy can be conceived as a “bird in a cage”. The suggestive image is said to have been coined by Chen Yun, one of the most influential colleagues of Deng Xiaoping, the father of market-orientated reforms in the PRC. Although not always in agreement with his high level protégé, Chen forged a strategic partnership with Deng and can be considered as the most important theoretician of early market reforms (he later fell out with his boss). In his thinking and propaganda, the bird was meant to represent market forces, which, once unleashed, can become extraordinarily dynamic and productive.