Foreign Trade

In quantitative terms, foreign trade has always been a marginal activity in the Chinese economy. The country's total foreign trade, imports and exports together, was estimated for 1965 at less than us $3,900 million, that is at around us $5–$6 a head of the population, considerably below the per capita levels of India and Pakistan. Communist China has never published any detailed statistical information about its foreign trade, nor any figures at all on it in recent years. Therefore, information has to be derived from the returns of China's trade partners, an exercise fraught with statistical hazards. In addition, figures in terms of value are distorted by the use of different pricing bases in the case of trade with Communist and non-Communist countries. ¹ Hence the statistics given in this chapter should be treated with considerable caution. Unfortunately, too, the lack of information on trade between China and Mongolia, North Korea and North Vietnam means that some of the more careful calculations (such as those of the UN Statistical Yearbook given below) include the external trade of these four countries together: External Trade of China Mainland, Mongolia, N. Korea and N. Vietnam (excluding mutual trade between these countries) (from Table of World Exports by provenance and destination—f.o.b.) US $million

	1953	1957	1958	1959	1960	1961	1962	1963	1964
Imports	1,340	1,510	1,980	2,180	2,090	1,560	1,350	1,410	1,600
Exports	1,130	1,700	1,970	2,210	2,040	1,600	1,680	1,720	1,860
Total	2,470	3,210	3,950	4,390	4,130	3,160	3,030	3,130	3,460

Source: UN Statistical Yearbook 1965, New York, 1965, pp. 399 and 404. ‘Estimates based partly on import data of trading partners. Where exports to China (Taiwan) could not be distinguished from exports to China (Mainland) they are shown as exports to China (Mainland).’ Ibid., p. 406, fn. 5.