ABSTRACT
The Wuxi Conference and the early experiments in enterprise reform were important in articulating an approach to reform and in testing that approach, however tentatively, against reality. The exigencies of economic management, however, forced those working in the research groups under Zhang Jingfu's supervision to direct their attention toward readjustment, redressing proportional imbalances in the Chinese economy by directing more resources to weak sectors such as agriculture and light industry. For some senior economic bureaucrats, such as Xue Muqiao, readjustment was seen as a way of preparing the conditions for reform rather than · as a goal in itself. For others, however, readjustment represented a policy direction in and of itself, and starting in late 1979, such people began to gain in influence.
