Grain imbalances, CHINCOM and China’s evolving economic and foreign trade strategy, 1949–June 1957

In mid-1949, as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) consolidated its Civil War victory, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders were already debating how to transform China into an industrialized power. The Chinese needed substantial

paramount CCP leader Mao Zedong’s vision, of economic self-reliance through rapid industrialization.