ABSTRACT
Notwithstanding Mao Zedong’s rural roots and the rural origins of the Chinese Revolution, Mao’s China did little to narrow the urban-rural gap. By placing tight constraints on the countryside, the state controlled most interactions—commercial, financial, technological, and personal—between villagers and workers and between the urban and rural sectors. Although the two sectors were not hermetically sealed off from each other, this “new Great Wall” between town and country exacerbated urban-rural inequalities and contributed to the low, rural living standards that prevailed at the end of the Maoist era. China’s current reforms, particularly those begun after 1983, and the national introduction of the household responsibility system, have facilitated increased interactions between the urban and rural sectors. The reform of urban-rural relations has not only called into question the Maoist model of development, but it also offered potentially important lessons on economic development and agricultural reform for other Third World and communist societies. Nonetheless, the path of the ongoing reform remains fraught with numerous problems as various sectors and a lingering antirural bias resist continued liberalization of urban-rural relations.
