ABSTRACT

The outstanding characteristics of Chinese economic development since the final defeat of the Kuomintang and the overthrow of landlordism have been its speed and scale and its peacefulness. Its speed and scale elicited the following comments from Mr. Cedric Blaker, Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, in his Annual Report for 1955:

Even here in Hong Kong, close as we are to the Chinese scene, we find it hard to keep pace with and to evaluate the day to day economic and industrial changes and developments which are so rapidly being evolved. Nor do we know neither can we judge how the Chinese people as a whole — and particularly the agricultural population — are reacting to the kaleidoscopic events which have affected their lives and livelihood in the last few years.

Collectivisation is certainly proceeding with ruthless vigour: at the same time almost the whole range of agricultural production is being directed and controlled from above in a way which has had no previous parallel in Asia. This kind of policy is, of course, tied up with the current Five Year Plan and with industrialisation. The whole picture reveals remarkable speed of development. There is special concentration on heavy industry with extensive Russian help. Railways and road communications are being opened up at an astonishing pace, even if allowances are made for some work of a rough and temporary nature.

The key point in the economic policy of China has been summarised as follows: To build a socialist society which cannot be raised on the foundations of a small-peasant economy; its foundations must be based on large-scale industry and large-scale collective farming. 1