Xue Muqiao was born in the waning years of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). In the 1930s, while China was in the grip of civil war, he conducted groundbreaking research into rural poverty. In the '50s he was an economic policy assistant to the country's highest decision-making body and in 1979 he published works widely regarded as the seminal guide to China's market-oriented makeover.

On Thursday, the 101-year-old Xue was named one of the first four winners of the China Economics Prize for his creation of the open-door, trade-with-all policy and for suggesting that farmers be allowed to own the land they till and work unfettered in the cities.

Xue, together with Ma Hong, 85, Liu Guoguang, 82; and Wu Jinglian, 75, were all key figures in helping China launch its market-oriented reforms. Each of the four was given 300,000 yuan (US$36,000) in prize money at Thursday's ceremony.

At the award presentation, Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said that China's breathtaking economic transformation of the past 26 years was in part due to the prizewinners' contributions. He singled Xue out for praise as one of the fathers of China's economic research and as a devoted and creative educator.

(China Daily March 25, 2005)