First Published in 1965. This short monograph is the first result of the author's decision in 1959 to study the Chinese economy. This came about as they were appointed to join a group of economists with the shared goal of examining the modern problems of Asian countries. The aim of the essay is to outline one of the many real problems encountered by the Chinese Government in carrying through a social and economic revolution in the countryside.
During the past quarter century Jonathan Unger has interviewed farmers and rural officials from various parts of China in order to track the extraordinary changes that have swept the countryside from the Maoist era through the Deng era to the present day. A leading specialist on rural China, Professor Unger presents a vivid picture of life in rural areas during the Maoist revolution, and then after the post-Mao disbandment of the collectives. This is a story of unexpected continuities amidst enormous change. Unger describes how rural administrations retain Mao-era characteristics - despite the major shifts that have occurred in the economic and social hierarchies of villages as collectivization and "class struggle" gave way to the slogan "to get rich is glorious." A chapter explores the private entrepreneurship that has blossomed in the prosperous parts of the countryside. Another focuses on the tensions and exploitation that have arisen as vast numbers of migrant laborers from poor districts have poured into richer ones. Another, based on five months of travel by jeep into impoverished villages in the interior, describes the dilemmas of under-development still faced by many tens of millions of farmers, and the ways in which government policies have inadvertently hurt their livelihoods.
During and after the Cultural Revolution, radical leaders in the Chinese Communist Party tried to mobilize rural society for socioeconomic and political changes and move rural China to even higher stages of collectivism. David Zweig argues that because advocates of agrarian radicalism formed a minority group within China's central leadership, they acted in opposition to the dominant moderate forces and resorted to alternative strategies to mobilize support for their unofficial policies. The limited institutionalization of the system allowed the radicals to promote their principles through "policy winds," speeches generated by newspaper articles, networks of political allies, and organized visits; they also linked their policies to ongoing political and economic campaigns. In spite of this radical ideology and frequent upheavals in the countryside, Zweig finds that Chinese peasants had no ideological affinity for Mao's theory of the continuing revolution and reacted to each policy change on the basis of how it affected their personal, family, or collective interests. Despite intense propaganda, cadres adjusted the impact of these radical policies so that the peasants' conservative mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, and desire to improve their own lot remained intact. Zweig examines the local realities of the radicals' program by describing the results of specific policies; he discriminates among the responses of officials at different bureaucratic levels, peasants of varying income levels and family structures, and villages with specific geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. He draws on his own field research in Chinese villages and interviews with Chinese college students and their friends who had lived in the countryside and emigrès in Hong Kong who had lived and worked in rural China.
China is particularly dependent upon her agricultural surplus for financing her ambitious industrialization programme, but the performance of the agricultural sector of the economy has been extremely unstable throughout the twentieth century. Professor Kueh provides a scholarly and authoritative account of this vital part of the Chinese economy during the period 1931-1990, based upon detailed statistical data and other sources of material. Professor Kueh has achieved a unique analysis of the interrelationships between natural, economic, and institutional factors, which lie at the heart of China's agricultural performance. He describes policy changes, technological advances, and natural factors such as climactic conditions, and distinguishes the effect of each factor in the varying level of agricultural production. The strength of this book lies not only in its collection and analysis of data but in the innovative methodological process used, including the construction of a `weather index', which will be invaluable not only for Chinese studies scholars but also for those wishing to undertake similar work for other countries.
Economic development in mainland China during the first two decades of Communist control provides a typical example for the difficult task to transform a vast underdeveloped agrarian economy into a modern industrial one. In the first half of this period, a series of massive transformations of social and economic institutions was accompanied by a drafted industrialization program; the result was an impressive speed-up in economic growth. The second decade witnessed an economic crisis (1960–62) and a political upheaval (1966–68). These disruptions marred the economic performance over the period as a whole. Consequently, the long-term growth rate appears to have been only moderate. The Economy of Communist China reviews selected aspects of the economy. After examining the development strategy, it analyzes the quantitative trends and the structural changes. The book goes on to analyze the key factors contributing to the earlier growth and the elements responsible for the later disruption and finally assesses the impact of the Cultural Revolution on the Chinese economy and the prospects of the current Third Five-Year Plan. The text includes a bibliography of selected materials on Chinese economic development.
Originally published in 1985, this study investigates the actual experience in mechanization during the Fourth Five Year Plan period, a period which represented, in many ways, a new stage in China’s rural development. It examines the historical perspective and the development approach under which mechanization efforts were exerted during this 5-year period and the mechanism, outcomes and problems these entailed. The book addresses the issues involved in agricultural development and mechanization through a more integral analysis of the way technological transformation has been linked to China’s quest for social and economic development.
A century of complex relations between Communists and workers in China In 2021, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated a century of existence. Since the Party’s humble beginnings in the Marxist groups of the Republican era to its current global ambitions, one thing has not changed for China’s leaders: their claim to represent the vanguard of the Chinese working class. Spanning from the night classes for workers organised by student activists in Beijing in the 1910s to the labour struggles during the 1920s and 1930s; from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution to the social convulsions of the reform era to China’s global push today, this book reconstructs the contentious history of labour in China from the early twentieth century to this day (and beyond). This will be achieved through a series of essays penned by scholars in the field of Chinese society, politics, and culture, each one of which will revolve around a specific historical event, in a mosaic of different voices, perspectives, and interpretations of what constituted the experience of being a worker in China in the past century. Contributors: Corey Byrnes, Craig A. Smith, Xu Guoqi, Zhou Ruixue, Lin Chun, Elizabeth J. Perry, Tony Saich, Wang Kan, Gail Hershatter, Apo Leong, S.A. Smith, Alexander F. Day, Yige Dong, Seung-Joon Lee, Lu Yan, Joshua Howard, Bo Ærenlund Sørensen, Brian DeMare, Emily Honig, Po-chien Chen, Yi-hung Liu, Jake Werner, Malcolm Thompson, Robert Cliver, Mark W. Frazier, John Williams, Christian Sorace, Zhu Ruiyi, Ivan Franceschini, Chen Feng, Ben Kindler, Jane Hayward, Tim Wright, Koji Hirata, Jacob Eyferth, Aminda Smith, Fabio Lanza, Ralph Litzinger, J onathan Unger, Covell F. Meyskens, Maggie Clinton, Patricia M. Thornton, Ray Yep, Andrea Piazzaroli Longobardi, Joel Andreas, Matt Galway, Michel Bonnin, A.C. Baecker, Mary Ann O’Donnell, Tiantian Zheng, Jeanne L. Wilson, Ming-sho Ho, Yueran Zhang, Anita Chan, Sarah Biddulph, Jude Howell, William Hurst, Dorothy J. Solinger, Ching Kwan Lee, Chloé Froissart, Mary Gallagher, Eric Florence, Junxi Qian, Chris King-chi Chan, Elaine Sio-Ieng Hui, Jenny Chan, Eli Friedman, Aaron Halegua, Wanning Sun, Marc Blecher, Huang Yu, Manfred Elfstrom, Darren Byler, Carlos Rojas, Chen Qiufan.
The Chinese political system has undergone a profound transformation since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and nowhere is this more evident than in the effort to exorcise the influence of the ultra-Leftism that is alleged by the current Chinese leadership to have characterized much of the last two decades of the Maoist era. The author places the post-Mao assault on radicalism into the historical and ideological perspectives of earlier critiques of ultra-Leftism within the Marxist tradition and the Chinese Communist Party. He traces the evolution of the critique in the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao and carefully examines three anti-Leftist criticism and rectification campaigns in recent Chinese history: the retreat from the Great Leap Forward of 1958-61, the campaign against Swindlers like Liu Shaoqi carried out in 1971-73 after the death of Lin Biao, and the criticism of the Gang of Four following their purge in 1976. These cases are analyzed in terms of both the political conflict surrounding each campaign and the ideological issues raised by the critique of ultra-Leftism. Understanding the nature and extent of the critique of ultra-Leftism helps to clarify the ideological world in which the Chinese leaders operate, to explain some of the most perplexing events in the history of the People's Republic, and to assess the changes that continue to shape the political environment of post-Mao China.
