Abstract: To discuss and summarize the challenge and contribution of the practice of China’s reform and opening-up to the mainstream economic theory, it is necessary to choose the four correct methodologies as the perspective, i.e., “not just following the theory”, “not just following the classics”, “linking theory with practice”, and “practice being the sole criterion for testing truth”; only in this way, can we find the differences and similarities between the five classical economic theories implied in the practice of reform and opening-up. This paper summarizes the challenge and theoretic contributions of China’s reform and opening-up to the mainstream economic theory from the following six aspects: the role of government in the process of economic development, the organization mode of government combining fiscal decentralization and the mechanism of promotion through tournament, the state governance mode of vertical central authority with horizontal fiscal federation, the gradual economic and market-oriented reform path, the motive logic of development of forced reform by opening-up, and the gradually extended economic activities in the regions and space. It is necessary to recognize objectively the theoretic contributions made by the practice of reform and opening-up and the position in the history of economic thoughts or in the history of economic theories.

Key words: reform and opening-up; great practice; contribution to economic theory; mainstream economics