SHINICHI ICHIMURA is a well-known econometrician (the Econometric Society fellow since 1962) and leading scholar of Asian economies, director of Kyoto University, Japan. He worked in the Institute of SEAS for 1969-79 and was a vice-chancellor of Osaka International University (88-95). He also was director of ICSEAD, Kitakyushu (95-2005) and founder of East Asian Economic Association (1987)

TSUNEAKI SATO is Professor Emeritus, Yokohama City University, Japan. Between 1987 and 1991 he was President of the Japan Association for Comparative Economic Studies (JACES). He was on the Editorial Board of the international journal Comparative Economic Studies (1991-95), and worked as temporary research staff with the UN (1992-93, 96-97). He has written extensively on the economic reforms in the former Soviet and Eastern European Countries and then systemic transformation in these countries. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he took part in a number of advisory groups for Transition countries. At a conference in Moscow early in June 1992, he strongly argued against Jeffrey Sachs. His major work after the Transformation is The Economic System of Post-Socialism (Iwanami Pub., Tokyo, 1997, in Japanese). His contributions to international publications include Moct-Most (No.1, 1995), Economic Systems (No.2, 1999), Privatization in the Transition Process : Recent Experiences in Eastern Europe, (UNCTAD, Geneve, 1994), Re-evaluating Economic Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989 (Budapest, 1996) and The 10-Year Review of Transitional Economies and Challenges in the Next Decade (UNIDO, Vienna, 2001).

WILLIAM E. JAMES is a Principal Economist at the Asian Development Bank, Philippines. He regularly contributes to the Asian Development Outlook and writes extensively on Asian economic issues. He has served as advisor to trade, finance ministers and central banks in Asia and taught at several universities in Japan and the US.

This book provides a unique comparative study of two historic experiences in transition from Socialist planned economies to Capitalist market economies. It examines the dramatic breakaway of Central-Eastern European countries from the Soviet rule ignited by Gorbachev's Grasnost and Perestroika, and compares their struggling transformation with China's gradualist successful transition under the declared guidance of Den Xia-ping's Reform and Openness. The contributors to this volume provide a framework for understanding the differing emphasis and sequencing of two reforms and explore these issues in the demise of communism and the triumph of the market economy. The book offers an in-depth analysis of the relative success of the East Asian economies compared with the Central-Eastern European countries, which suffered from Soviet power for most of the last century. This book is indispensable reading for all interested in Transitional Economics, Economic Development and Comparative Economic Studies focusing on the transformation in Central-Eastern Europe and East Asia.