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Economic Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Choh-Ming Li
Choh-Ming Li
Affiliation:
Berkeley.
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Extract

In the ten years of Communist rule since late 1949 a thoroughgoing revolution has taken place on the Chinese mainland in economic organisation, savings and investment, and distribution, with profound effects on the daily lives of the people. Peking has claimed that immense progress has been made on all economic fronts, including the real income of industrial and agricultural workers. It has felt confident enough to shorten from fifteen to ten years (beginning 1958) the target period at the end of which its output of electric power and certain major industrial goods would match or exceed that of Britain. In the non-Communist world, commentators vary greatly in their judgments; they range from those who reject all the official statistics and consider no important progress to have been made during the period, to those who not only accept the claims in tato but have advanced all sorts of arguments to defend even those claims that Peking has later had to repudiate.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 1 , March 1960 , pp. 35 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 For further comment on 1958 statistics, see below.

2 The annual figures for 1952–56 are given by the State Statistical Bureau, Research Department, “A Preliminary Study of China's National Income Produced and Distributed,” T'ung-chi yen-chiu (Statistical Research) 1.11–15, 01 1958Google Scholar. The figure for 1957, being provisional, is given by Po I-po, “The Tasks and Functions of Statistical Work in China's Socialist Construction,” ibid. 4–10. (The exchange rate between yuanand £ sterling is 6.9—£, and between yuanand $ U.S. is 2.5—$.)

3 Hollister, William W., China's Gross National Product and Social Accounts 1950–1957. (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1958), p. 2Google Scholar. The rates are computed from the data given in his Table 1.

4 See Li, Choh-ming, Economic Development of Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, and London: Cambridge University Press, 1959), pp. 53–74.Google Scholar

5 See his “Structural Changes in the Economy of the Chinese Mainland, 1933 to 1952–57,” Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association, xlix: 84–93, 05 1959; particularly p. 93.Google Scholar

6 Interestingly, his figures yield a rate of 6·9 per cent, if 1952 is taken as the base.

7 For the Soviet Union, see Gregory Grossman, chapter on “National Income,” in Bergson, A., ed., Soviet Economic Growth (Evanston, Illinois: Row, Peterson & Co., 1953), pp. 1–23, especially p. 8Google Scholar. For Japan, see Ohkawa, K. and others, The Growth Rate of the Japanese Economy since 1878 (Tokyo: Kinokuniya Bookstore, 1957), p. 248Google Scholar. For India, see Government of India, Planning Commission, Review of the First Five Year Plan (New Delhi, 1957), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

8 Po, Yang, “The Relationship between Accumulation and Consumption in China's National Income Account,” Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), 10 13, 1958.Google Scholar

9 Hollister, , op. cit. pp. 128–129Google Scholar; Liu, , op. cit. p. 93Google Scholar. Again it may not be amiss to cite here Professor Henry Rosovsky's recent findings on Japan's rates of capital formation: the rate of gross investment to net national product at current prices averaged 10 per cent, from 1889 to 1914 and 18 per cent, from 1914 to 1936. See his “Japanese Capital Formation: The Role of the Public Sector,” Journal of Economic History, XIX: 350–375, 09 1959Google Scholar; the average rates cited are computed from Table 2, pp. 354–355.

10 Li, ibid. p. 138.

11 The research plant, located in the outskirts of Peking, has been in operation since September 1958.

12 Fu-ch'un, Li, “The First Five Year Plan,” Ta Kung Pao (Impartid Daily), Tientsin, 09 16, 1953.Google Scholar

13 State Statistical Bureau, “Communiqué on the Results of the First Five Year Plan for National Economic Development,” Jen-nan Jih-pao(People's Daily), 04 14, 1959.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Li, , op. cit. p. 73.Google Scholar

16 Hollister, , op. cit. pp. 23–24.Google Scholar The rate is computed from his production index, adjusted “for probable overstatements in trend for 1950, 1951 and 1953–54 resulting from changes in statistical coverage.” He did not make any adjustment for the subsequent years.

17 Wei, Yueh, “The Problem of Accumulation in Agricultural Co-operatives,” Hsueh-hsi (Study), 7: 23–24, 04 1958.Google Scholar

18 Lu-yen, Liao, “Strive to Realise the Goals of the National Agricultural Development Programme,” Hsueh-hsi (Study), 3: 2–8, 02 1958.Google Scholar

19 See Li, , op. cit. pp. 135–136 and 219–220.Google Scholar

20 They are conveniently collected in Jen-min Shou-ts'e 1958 (People's Handbook for 1958), Peking, 1958, pp. 502–507, 514–525 and 533–539.Google Scholar

21 The revised plan for 1959 scaled the total investment down to 24–8 billion yuan, with no details given.

22 Li, , op. cit. p. 215.Google Scholar

23 “A survey of the Gross Income and its Distribution of 228 Agricultural Collectives in 1957,” T'ung-chi yen-chiu (Statistical Research), 8:8–12, 08 1958.Google Scholar