bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Moscow's China-watchers in the Post-Mao Era: The Response to a Changing China
Authors: Rozman Gilbert
Published: March 2009

The year 1982 was marked by repeated signs of Soviet interest in improving relations with China. Negotiations to chart a new course in the relationship between these two countries finally began in October. While the fate of these negotiations remained uncertain at the time this article was being written, the onus was largely on the Soviet leaders to show that they were capable of the sort of flexibility that the Nixon Republicans had demonstrated barely a decade earlier in wooing the Chinese. The Sino-Soviet talks provided a test of Soviet tolerance for diversity in international communism and of willingness to take tangible steps towards demilitarization. They also raised questions about the internal process of evaluating conditions in other countries, reporting on them to the Soviet people, and advising leaders on their significance. After 20 years of negative assessments of communist policies in China, what basis could be found for an optimistic outlook in 1982? In the six years after Mao's death what was the role of Moscow's China-watchers in preparing the way for overtures to China's leaders? This article examines the background behind the Soviet initiative of 1982 and the different outlooks found among China specialists.
The Struggle Between The Kuomintang And The Chinese Communist Party On Campus During The War Of Resistance, 1937–45
Authors: Kuo–tai Hu
Published: March 2009

Between 1937 and 1945 higher education was one of the main arenas of struggle between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both sides regarded it as an important area to be controlled. The Bureau of Investigation's 1951 report suggested that KMT support from youth in schools was “the key to success or failure.” The Chinese Communist Party also regarded the work of winning over intellectuals as vital for the Party's future. In 1939 Mao Zedong said that “without the participation of intellectuals victory in the revolution is impossible.” Thus, the two parties competed both overtly and covertly in colleges and universities to win the support of both staff and students.
Sino-Vatican Diplomatic Relations: Problems and Prospects
Authors: Chan Gerald
Published: March 2009

The China Quarterly Two major factors have continued to impair diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China and the Vatican, namely, the so-called “two-China” problem and the independence issue. China regards the Vatican’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan as an infringement of her sovereignty, and insists they are terminated prior to her consideration of a resumption of relations (broken off in 1958) with the Holy See. The Vatican is now the only state in Europe to maintain diplomatic links with Taiwan. Moreover, the Chinese Catholic Church wishes to remain independent of the Pope in Rome. This issue is manifested in the “self-consecration” of bishops in China without seeking the Pope’s prior approval. The “two-China” problem is basically a political and diplomatic one whereas the independence issue has religious as well as political implications. Both China and the Vatican recognize the existence of these two areas of dispute but they differ in their approach towards achieving a possible resolution. China demands that the Vatican should take steps to solve the “two-China” problem before China is ready to discuss the independence question, whereas the Vatican expects China to concede on the latter point first by acknowledging the Pope as the head of the universal Church, before proceeding to discuss other matters, including the status of the Vatican’s diplomatic ties with Taiwan. These different approaches lead to the present stalemate. Each side is expecting the other to take the initiative to overcome the apparent deadlock.
The Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 13th CCP Central Committee
Authors: Shambaugh David L.
Published: March 2009

The Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 13th Central Committee(CC) were the first comprehensive central Party meetings to be convened in the aftermath of the suppression of the “pro–democracy” movement in and around Tiananmen Square. Although held roughly four months apart, they can be considered together insofar as both sought to consolidate and confirm the legitimacy of the new hardline leadership. While the agendas of the two plenums varied, both dealt with the impact of the momentous events of April–June particularly in terms of their effects on: leadership personnel; public security; ideology and propaganda; economic policy; civil–military relations; and foreign affairs.
The Abortive Liberation of Taiwan
Authors: Huebner Jon W.
Published: March 2009

On 1 October 1949 the People's Republic of China was formally established in Beijing. On 7 December Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), who had earlier moved to Taiwan to secure a final base of resistance in the civil war, ordered the Kuomintang (KMT) regime to withdraw to the island from Chengdu, Sichuan, its last seat on the mainland. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its commitment to the goal of unifying the nation under the People's Republic, and thus called for the “liberation” of Taiwan. Although Taiwan represented the final phase of the still unfinished civil war, it was the strategic significance of the island that became of paramount concern to the CCP, the KMT and the United States.
The Marxist View of China (Part 1)
Authors: Wittfogel Karl A.
Published: March 2009

Marx's interpretation of China enriched his concept of a completely Asiatic society. While dealing with England's relation to the Far East, he became aware that in imperial China, unlike in other oriental countries, land was privately held. His analysis of this seeming exception to the rule is unsatisfactory, but it is indicative of his socio-historical position. He continued to view China as a major case of “Asiatic production” even after he learned that there communal landed property had long been abolished.
On China's Descending Spiral
Authors: Alsop Joseph
Published: March 2009

The present condition of Communist China raises a political question of great theoretical and practical importance. The question is whether there are limits to the hardships which any government can safely inflict upon the governed.
The November 1960 Moscow Meeting: A Preliminary Reconstruction
Authors: Griffith William E.
Published: March 2009

Only very rarely does extensive evidence of a secret Communist meeting become available to the non-Communist world; when it does, as in the cases of the July 1955 Soviet Central Committee plenum or of Khrushchev's “secret speech” at the Twentieth Soviet Party Congress, it gladdens historians' hearts and adds greatly to our comprehension of Communist history and current developments. Such evidence was not always unavailable; before Stalin totally dominated and terrorised the Comintern, material on developments in the international Communist movement and even within the Soviet Party itself occasionally would appear in the publications of other European Communist Parties.
The Marxist View of China (Part 2)
Authors: Wittfogel Karl A.
Published: March 2009

In the present context we need not trace in detail the changes Lenin made in Marx's socio-historical views on the eve of and after the revolutions of 1917. Having previously described Lenin's doctrinal engineering of institutional history in general and of Russian history in particular, I shall here indicate only the change in the image of China that Lenin initiated after 1917 and that after his death Stalin and the Chinese Communists completed.
The Communist Chinese Attitude Towards Inter-Class Marriage
Authors: Huang Lucy Jen
Published: March 2009

Since the change of political régime on the Chinese mainland in 1949, new values and attitudes have been consciously introduced by the Communist Party. The family institution has undergone a rather drastic alteration not only in form but also in composition, structure, roles of its members and especially in values and patterns of mate selection and marital adjustment. According to traditional Chinese social values, one should marry a person of relatively similar social background consistent with the concept of homogamy discussed by Burgess and his associates. The traditional Chinese sentiment often referred to the marriage of two individuals whose family front doors faced each other as a good match, implying that they had matched family backgrounds in residence, social class, occupations, education, economic status and other values held important in pre-Communist China. The strong emphasis laid by the Communist Party on indoctrinating every citizen in the political ideology of socialism and communism in true totalitarian form covers every phase of his life, including that of marriage. In the course of Communist rule, slightly more than a decade, this political emphasis has often come in direct conflict with the traditional value of social homogamy in mate selection and marriage.
Recent Chinese Policies in Tibet and towards the Himalayan Border States
Authors: Patterson George N.
Published: March 2009

In the months prior to the recent fighting with India, China initiated a new policy in Tibet and towards the Himalayan border countries in order to recover the ground lost—in the case of Tibet—by its previous policies, and—in the case of the neighbouring Himalayan territories—by its suppression of the Tibetan revolt. China's recent successful attacks in the border areas will probably lend added strength to her diplomacy in the border states whatever the immediate reactions of some local statesmen.
A New Birth Control Campaign?
Authors: Orleans Leo A.
Published: March 2009

Anyone who has been scanning the news sections of the world press over the past few months must have come across headlines proclaiming Peking's “revived birth control bid” and the “renewal of the birth control campaign in Communist China.” The implication, as suggested by most of the articles, is that since China has suffered a series of grave agricultural reverses she is finally coming to her senses and again instituting controls over fertility. Has there recently been a change in the régime's attitude with respect to the population problem, and are the present measures likely to produce significant results in the rate of growth of China's population?

Let us briefly review some of China's population policies over the past ten years. The initial jubilation over the results of the 1953 census, showing a population of almost 600 million on the Chinese mainland, was gradually modified to concern over the economic and social implications of both the size and the rate of growth of this population. The official propaganda, however, never admitted the economic problems inherent in a rapidly growing population, and the birth control campaign which started slowly in late 1954 and 1955 stressed the health and educational advantages of having a small family. After the campaign reached its peak in the middle of 1957 and the early part of 1958, it began to lose its impetus; and by the autumn of that year it became obvious that Communist China had reversed its recently introduced policy of birth control, at the same time introducing the communes and the “great leap forward.” The new policy proclaimed a severe labour shortage and attacked all proponents of controlled fertility as Malthusians and rightists. The labour shortage, proclaimed in 1958 as an excuse for the reversal of the birth control policy, became a reality in 1959, when the overzealous cadres created an artificial labour crisis by conscripting millions of men into a variety of mass projects.
The Judicial and Administrative Structure in North Korea
Authors: Kim Ilpyong J.
Published: March 2009

A knowledge of judicial and administrative structure plays a vital part in understanding the government and politics of any society. In a Communist society, the administrative apparatus plays an important role, not only in controlling the society but also in implementing Party and government directives. To fully understand the government and politics of North Korea, it may prove helpful to investigate the administrative structure by which the North Korean leaders control the society and remain in power. After a decade and a half of political rule, these North Korean leaders are faced with constant social changes and rising pressures from below. The relations between political power and political institutions, between political ideal and social reality, between the formulation and implementation of policy, have in fact been a major ideological concern for North Korea's administrators, a preoccupation they share with the leaders of other Communist societies. The amount of information made available about the North Korean judicial and administrative system has been scanty at best. This article therefore is exploratory and not definitive in nature. By utilising the materials that are available this article attempts to present North Korean views and attitudes about law and administration, and to describe the institutional framework in which the legal and administrative apparatus functions; at the same time it also attempts to examine the Soviet and Communist Chinese impact on the development of North Korea's administrative system.
Dilemmas of American Policy towards Formosa
Authors: Iriye Akira
Published: March 2009

America's policy towards Formosa has come under fire in recent months from all three groups of Chinese. The Nationalists and the Communists alike share the heritage that China is one state; some of the facts of international life, however, have given American policy a preference for accepting two Chinas in the world. The apparent American support for the Formosan independence movement is favoured neither by Peking nor Taipei. On the other hand the native Formosans criticise the contradictions and indecisions of American policy which, they say, encourages their democratic liberal movements, but at the same time helps Chiang Kai-shek to stay in office.
The Intellectuals on Formosa
Authors: Wen-Li Mei
Published: March 2009

Chiang Kai-shek rebuilt his régime on Formosa not through his military might alone. Rather, he succeeded through rallying a group of intellectuals who could help him consolidate his rule on Formosa, work on propaganda, attract foreign aid and organise military control.
The Li Li-san Line and the CCP in 1930 (Part 2)
Authors: Harrison James P.
Published: March 2009

Ch'en Shao-yü, Ch'in Pang-hsien (Po Ku) and others of the “returned students” group later claimed they had opposed the June resolution of the CC. According to a Japanese source, opponents centred within the propaganda and labour departments hastily convened a Central Workers' Conference in late June to criticise the Li Li-san leadership. The article stated that Li was able to override this opposition through the support of Hsiang Chung-fa, Chou En-lai, Hsiang Ying and others. However, in fact, Ch'en Shao-yü had urged a virtual replica of the “Li Li-san line” including the use of the Red Army two years earlier, and just a month before the June resolution he had written:

Only those who are willing to protect the militarists, and the Iiquidationists who basically oppose armed uprisings can scold the CCP for preparing armed uprisings to seize power or term these actions adventurism….
The Theory of Price Formation in Communist China
Authors: Chen Nai-Ruenn
Published: March 2009

The theory of price formation has been vigorously discussed in Communist China since 1953, but the main themes of the discussion have varied. Generally speaking, the discussion may be conveniently divided into two periods. The first period covers the years prior to 1960, during which there were a large number of articles dealing with the role of the “law of value” in socialist planning and the problem of price formation for producer goods transferred within the state sector. The discussion was partly a result of Stalin's publication ofEconomic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.A number of Chinese economists disagreed with Stalin's assertion that the law of value and the concept of commodity production and exchange did not apply to the state sector.
The Fall of Chou Yang
Authors: Goldman Merle
Published: March 2009

FOR more than twenty years, Chou Yang was chief guardian of Mao's literary policy. Next to Mao, he determined who was to write and what was to be written. In a series of relentless campaigns, he ruthlessly purged the ranks of China's most creative writers. Then suddenly in the summer of 1966, Chou Yang himself became the public target of the “great proletarian cultural revolution.”
Mortality, Fertility and Contraceptive Use in Shanghai
Authors: Banister Judith
Published: March 2009

Shanghai is the largest city in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Once part of Kiangsu Province, it is now governed as an independent municipality consisting of the city proper and 10 suburban counties annexed to the city in 1958. Shanghai municipality ranks as the world's third most populous metropolitan area, after New York and Tokyo. However, if the rural residents of Shanghai municipality are excluded from the comparison, then Shanghai's urban population of 6 or 7 million ranks it within the 15 largest urban areas of the world.
The Institute of Modern History, Peita and the Central Institute of Nationalities
Authors: Loh Pichon P. Y.
Published: March 2009

This is a report about the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with supplementary notes on Peita and the Central Institute of Nationalities, all of which I visited while in China between 15 December 1975 and 13 January 1976.
Peking and Rangoon
Authors: Dai Shen-Yu
Published: March 2009

In hisBurma in the Family of Nations(Amsterdam, 1956), Dr. Maung Maung, Burma's modern jurist-scholar, tried to dissipate the impression —created according to him by Chinese nationalist pride rather than legal rights—that Burma had at any time in her history borne tribute to the Imperial Court of China. It must have made him shudder that hundreds of his compatriots should shout “Chou En-laiwan sui” when the latter visited their country in mid–April 1960. For Burma relations with mainland China in recent years have been in many ways difficult. When China under the Nationalists had to trade space for timevis-à-vispowerful Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, the building of the Burma Road almost inevitably led to a common defence of the two neighbours in later stages of the Second World War. Between 1942 and 1945 Chinese troops were in and out of Burmese territory, and Burmese freedom fighters and independence leaders likewise used China as their shelter and planning headquarters. The Chinese Nationalist Government expressed its readiness to exchange Ambassadors with Burma in September 1947, when the latter had hardly completed the formalities of its independence pact with Britain. But no sooner had the Burmese envoy been appointed to Nanking than the latter had to face the menace of the Chinese Communists, whose leader, Mao Tse-tung, had himself supported Burmese independence as early as 1945.
The Bitter Years
Authors: Hudson G. F.
Published: March 2009

In the original doctrine of Marx, the proletarian Socialist revolution was to be the climax of the process of industrialisation through private capitalist enterprise and was therefore to be expected to begin in the most highly industrialised region of the world. It would occur when capitalist relations of production were no longer adequate to contain the forces of production which they had developed, when the ownership of the means of production had been concentrated in the hands of a small minority and when the great majority of the population had been transformed into propertyless wage earners. That the Socialist revolution should take place first in predominantly agrarian societies and that it should be, not the effect of a fully achieved industrialisation, but the means of bringing it about, was not a possibility contemplated by the early Marxists. But so it has happened, and in Asia and Africa today Communism makes its appeal less as a creed of social justice and welfare than as a system providing a short cut to industrialisation—and its corollary, national power—for weak and underdeveloped countries. The main task of the revolution is no longer to carry out a redistribution of surplus value from an economy already highly productive, but to promote a rapid growth of productivity from low, and largely pre-industrial, economic levels. The Soviet Union, after more than four decades of Communist Party rule, presents itself to the world not as a land where people have equal incomes—which Bernard Shaw regarded is the essence of Socialism, but which are as remote from actuality in Russia as in any bourgeois society—but as a country which by intensive efforts of planned production has overcome an initial economic backwardness and emerged as an industrial and military power of the first rank. In its ten years of history, Communist China has been striving to follow the same path, but the effort required has been even greater jecause of the very small margin available at the outset for capital armation from the national income and the vast leeway to be made up fot “overtaking and outstripping” the most highly industrialised lations of the world.
Problems of the Film Industry
Authors:   Document
Published: March 2009

During the period from 1949 to 1957, which was the year prior to the big leap forward, our country had only ten motion picture studios (six of which were for feature films), and 19 shooting sheds. Now, there are 33 studios (11 of which produce feature films) and 27 shooting sheds. As to projection units, in 1949 there were only some 600 motion picture theatres and not even one mobile projection team in the whole country; by the end of 1957, the number of projection units had risen to 9,965; and preliminary statistics showed that there were about 14,500 units by the end of 1959. As a result of the development of this projection network, the people have more and more chances to see movies; movie audience jumped from 1,750 million man/times in 1957 to 4,050 million man/times in 1959.… During the eight years between 1949 and 1957 we had produced a total of 171 artistic films; but during the past two years since the beginning of the big leap forward, the number of artistic films we have produced is estimated to have reached some 180.… Formerly a feature film needed at least four or five months to shoot, and in some cases it needed a whole year or an even longer time. This time has been greatly shortened since the beginning of the big leap forward. Take, for example, the 18 artistic pictures produced last year as a token to celebrate the National Day; most of them were shot within four or five months, and several were completed within three months. With respect to cost, it drops greatly with the increase in the quantity of production and the shortening of the time for shooting.… With respect to quality which is a question of capital importance, all the 36 films of various kinds produced in celebration of National Day last year were markedly better ideologically, artistically and technically than films made earlier. Of course, strictly speaking, even these relatively better films still have shortcomings in certain respects and various degrees.…
The Salary, Structure, Allowances and Benefits of a Shanghai Electronics Factory
Authors: Wong Thomas T.
Published: March 2009

The employees of this profitable and technologically advanced factory seem satisfied with their relatively high salaries, bonuses and allowances, and pleased with the extensive benefits and services given by the factory. In particular, the bonus system of this factory offers factory-wide, production-group and individual bonuses that seem to offer adequate incentives for the improvement of both productivity and quality, two key goals in the present nationwide economic reform. The possibility and means of improving status and income through study, hard work and innovation have been effective in encouraging many employees to apply their efforts and talents to their jobs and to study after work in the hope of qualifying for higher education in the case of technical workers, and for higher technical and language proficiency levels in the case of technicians and engineers.

The relatively high standard of living of this factory's employees seems to have dampened outspoken criticism of its leaders and policies. Continued increases in remuneration and benefits should keep the employees satisfied in the immediate future.
The Preliminary Results of China's 1982 Census
Authors: Aird John S.
Published: March 2009

On 27 October 1982 the State Statistical Bureau (SSB) issued a communiqué giving the eagerly awaited preliminary results of China's third national population census, taken as of 1 July 1982. The figures consisted mainly of national data based on responses to eight of the 19 items on the census questionnaire – those that could most easily be tabulated manually by local census personnel within a short time. In December the State Council Population Census Office and the SSB Population Statistics Division published a 55-page pamphlet giving both national and provincial figures on the population by sex; by rural, urban, municipal and town residence; by educational level and literacy; on births, deaths and vital rates in 1981; on households by type and residential status; on average size of household; and national data on minorities. National figures have also been provided on the frequency of overcount and undercount in the population totals and error rates in the data on age, sex, and births and deaths in 1981. The most interesting of the national data are given in Table 1, together with comparable figures from the 1953 and 1964 censuses and from other sources for more recent years. Selected provincial data are given in Table 2.
Voice of Protest: Political Poetry in the Post-Mao Era
Authors: Yu Shiao-Ling
Published: March 2009

Poetry in the People's Republic of China during the past 30 years has been dominated by works intensely political in nature – a kind of poetry known by the name zhengzhi shuqing shi (political lyric). The function of this poetry was to eulogize current political movements and to generate public support for them. This phenomenon reached its height during the xin minge yundong (New Folksong Movement) of 1958 when millions of peasants were mobilized to write poetry to praise the Great Leap Forward and the people's commune. Even when the Great Leap backfired and a widespread famine ensued, poetry was still boasting of “commune members piling rice all the way to the sky.” The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–76) proved a greater disaster than the Great Leap Forward, hence, the greater need for poetry to supply optimism. It was also a time of personality cult and xiandai mixin (modern superstition); poetry was therefore obliged to provide eulogies. To meet these demands, large quantities of what poet Gong Liu called “huanhu shi” (hail-to-the-chief poems) flooded the market. Many of them were considered to be little more than “rhymed lies.”
The State of Nutrition in Communist China
Authors: W. K.
Published: March 2009

Recently reports have filled the columns of the world Press suggesting that malnutrition or even starvation is widespread in the most populous country in the world. This is clearly a matter of far-reaching implications and no longer a subject for discussion only among scientists. The evidence available is scanty and far from conclusive. Reports remain conflicting, but they seem to indicate that malnutrition is not a general feature of the Chinese scene. Whereas Western observers have tended to conclude from sparse reports emanating from China that malnutrition may be widespread, the Chinese authorities have denied these reports and have rejected all offers of relief by voluntary organisations as based on misconceptions.
Hai-lu-feng—The First Chinese Soviet Government (Part II)
Authors: Eto Shinkichi
Published: March 2009

In the area under the rule of the Canton Government, the young Kuomintang members were full of revolutionary spirit and in favour of social change. In addition to this, the graduates of the Peasant Movement Training Institute, who were disciplined in the revolutionary atmosphere of the Institute, went out to the rural areas to organise the peasants. It is easy, then, to understand why the peasant unions developed rapidly in this area. Of course, even under the Canton Government, there were some countermovements among landlords, traditional local officials and their supporters.
Korean Communists and Yenan
Authors: Lee Chong-Sik
Published: March 2009

Until the Chinese “volunteers” crossed the Yalu in November 1950, the Chinese involvement in North Korean politics seems to have been minimal. And yet, when the North Korean régime's very life and the Chinese border were threatened by the massive assault of the United Nations forces, the Chinese quickly came to the aid of the North Koreans. What is Chinese policy toward Korea? What are the prospects for Sino-Korean relations? Such questions will concern us for a long time. This article details part of the historical background to them.
Factory Management and Political Ambiguity, 1961–63
Authors: Andors Stephen
Published: March 2009

The Great Leap Forward was an attempt radically to transform, or perhaps more correctly, an attempt to begin a process of radically transforming the political and economic face of China. In China's still relatively small, but crucially important industrial systems, the legacy of the Great Leap was a very ambiguous one. This ambiguity, it should be noted, flowed to a much greater extent from the tentative nature of many unprecedented experiments in organization and incentives in China's factories and planning systems, than from the application of a consistently and logically injter-related set of “radical” or “dogmatic” principles applied a priori to social reality.
Health Services and the New Relationship between China Studies and Visits to China
Authors: Li Victor H.
Published: March 2009

The new improved relations with China have placed China specialists in the United States, and in some other countries as well, in an apparently contradictory position. On the one hand, direct contact is now possible: instead of being confined to libraries an ocean away or visiting Hong Kong a border away, China specialists can now look forward to visiting China itself, and to experiencing at first hand what before was principally a mental concept. On the other hand, it appears that most of the scholarly exchanges will be in areas such as physics, medicine, and the biological sciences, and that social scientists in general and China specialists in particular are low on the priority list of people being admitted to China. There are exceptions to this, of course, including fields such as population studies and early childhood development, and perhaps archaeology, art, and language. Still, it is undeniable that the opportunities for doing research in China are very limited. So near and yet so far.
The Chinese View of ‘Alienation‘
Authors: Munro Donald J.
Published: March 2009

Readers may be interested in the status of the concept of “alienation” and of Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (where the topic is most extensively discussed) in mainstream Chinese Marxism. The topic is important, among other reasons, because it has figured so prominently in “revisionist” philosophical writings of the problem of freedom in societies where the bureaucracy becomes a new class. The points I am about to make are based both on my own research and on talks with philosophers in the People's Republic in 1973.
The Effect of Transportation on Famine Prevention
Authors: Watt John
Published: March 2009

Throughout China's history widespread famine has been a frequent occurrence. While natural calamities have been primarily responsible for its appearance, there is no doubt that consistent lack of communications has always been a serious obstacle to the relief of famine areas. During, for example, the great drought famine of 1877–78, which affected Shensi, Shansi, Honan and Hopei, efforts to get food into the Shansi plateau foundered because of the difficulty in sending supplies up the only direct track from the eastern ports, where food was arriving in abundance. As a consequence of these conditions up to thirteen million people may have lost their uves. Since then there have been a number of other severe droughts and floods, but with the introduction of railways and gradual improvement of the existing system of communications, distribution of relief has undoubtedly become more effective and loss of life less widespread. This brief survey will accordingly examine China's present transportation system and its ability to alleviate the hardship caused by last year's natural calamities.
Birth Control: Reversal or Postponement?
Authors: Orleans Leo A.
Published: March 2009

Whereas throughout most of the world the results of the 1953 censusregistration of Communist China, reporting a population of 582·6 million, evoked anxiety and even alarm, the Communists expressed only pride and overwhelming confidence. As a people “liberated from the oppressive chains of capitalism,” Communist leaders felt that their horizons were unlimited and that feeding and caring for a population of this size presented no problems under a system in which people are “the most precious of all categories of capital.” The simultaneous release of vital rates which indicated a birth rate of 37 per thousand population and a death rate of 17 per thousand, further stressed the “great vitality of the people of new China.” The 2 per cent, natural increase (excess of births over deaths), resulting in an annual population growth of some 12 million, was declared, in line with Marxist doctrine, to be an asset in a country with vast new lands and unexploited natural resources, where additional people create additional wealth.
China After the 13th Congress
Authors: Schram Stuart R.
Published: March 2009

It is almost exactly a decade since the process of change in China initiated by Deng Xiaoping and his political and ideological supporters began to gather momentum. Formally speaking, the decisive break point was, of course, the holding of the Third Plenum in December 1978, but by the spring of that year the confrontation between the “Whateverists” and the supporters of the “practice criterion” had become open and acute.
New Estimates of Fixed Investment and Capital Stock for Chinese State Industry
Authors: Chen Kuan , Jefferson Gary H. , Rawski Thomas G. , Wang Hongchang , Zheng Yuxin
Published: March 2009

Measures of society's stock of fixed assets are necessary for describing production technology, evaluating capital-output ratios and analysing multi-factor productivity. Even in advanced industrial economies, existing series of fixed capital incorporate many weaknesses and arbitrary assumptions; in low-income nations, these problems are often severe. China is no exception. While recognizing the inherent difficulty of compiling capital stock estimates for an economy in which prices have long deviated from scarcity values, this article uses currently available materials to derive an improved time series of fixed capital stock for independent accounting units within Chinese state industry. Our objective is to produce new series that adhere as closely as possible to the standard national accounting concepts of gross domestic fixed capital formation and gross reproducible fixed assets. Despite the difficulties mentioned below, we believe that our new series are distinctly superior to existing figures for the analysis of capital deepening, multi-factor productivity and other aspects of Chinese state industry requiring estimates of fixed capital stock.
Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai's Autobiographical Writings: The Making and Destruction of a “Tender-hearted” Communist
Authors: HSIA T. A.
Published: March 2009

On February23, 1965,colleagues and students in Berkeley mourned the death of Tsi-an (T.A.) Hsia in his forty-eighth year. A profound sense of loss has since been shared and expressed in many other parts of the world by those who knew him and his work. Critic and literary editor for over a cataclysmic decade in China, as distinguished in creative writing as in historical research, he was first published in the West in thePartisan Reviewin1955. “The Jesuit's Tale” (PR, XXII, 4)is an agonising story of a religious devotee who finally succumbs not only to the mental torture perfected by his Peking inquisitors, but ultimately to the torments of a modern dedicated individual caught in the clash of two cultures. Tsi-an's talent was to probe deeply into the human psyche, individual and collective, and to reveal dimensions of symbolism in the social, political and cultural confrontations in today's contradictory world. His fine sensibility for words and his ability to analyse propaganda jargon, folk-lore and traditional myths in cogent critiques of the Chinese socialist dream as wèll as reality, were evidenced in hisMetaphor, Myth, Ritual and the People's Commune,and other brilliant monographs which he produced with us in Berkeley in our Project called Current Chinese Language: Studies in Communist Terminology.
Congress and the Cold War: U.S.-China Policy, 1955
Authors: Briggs Philip J.
Published: March 2009

Perhaps no other foreign policy area brought forth the emotional anti communism characteristic of the 1950s as did American relations with the People's Republic of China. The so–called “ loss of China ”issue beginning in 1949, for which the Republicans primarily blamed the Democrats, severely strained the bipartisan approach towards foreign policy. In addition, four years before he died in 1951, Republican foreign policy leader Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg excluded China policy from the area of bipartisan agreement, while his party's loyalty to the defeated Nationalists remained strong. Senator Joseph McCarthy's“communists–in– government” charges during the Korean War, when American forces were engaged in combat with the People's Liberation Army, further exacerbated relations between the Republican and Democratic parties, and between the legislative and executive branches of government. Ominously, the possibility of a preventive strike on the China mainland also became the focus of serious consideration and possible implementation during the Formosa Strait confrontation of 1954–55.
The Sino-Soviet Territorial Dispute in the Pamir Mountains Region
Authors: Garver John W.
Published: March 2009

The single largest territorial issue explicitly in dispute between China and the Soviet Union is in the region of the Pamir Mountains-just north of Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan corridor. The nature of this dispute is important because it impinges on the ease with which major sources of tension between the two countries may be eliminated. Moreover, the potential resolutions of this issue have important geo-political implications for the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Guerrilla Movement in Northwest China: The Origins of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region (Part I)
Authors: Seldon Mark
Published: March 2009

The loess hills of northern Shensi below the great wall, unsurpassed in their poverty and primitiveness in all China proper, are a traditional haven for rebels. Remote from major provincial power centres, this rugged terrain provides ideal sanctuary for roving armed bands. Here Li Tzu-ch'eng launched his campaign to overthrow the Ming, only to be thwarted by the Manchus after taking Peking in 1644. Much of the region was devastated by Moslem rebels in the mid-nineteenth Century, and in the chaotic final years of the Ch'ing, t'u-fei, (bandits) formed from the ranks of the military, secret societies and a population frequently on the brink of starvation, roamed unchecked. One early twentieth-century British observer described the area's reputation this way: “In the mind of the average Chinese of the Eastern provinces…north Shensi is a nest of plunderers lost in a wilderness.”
Leadership and Mass Mobilisation in the Soviet and Chinese Collectivisation Campaigns of 1929–30 and 1955–56 A Comparison
Authors: Bernstein Thomas P.
Published: March 2009

The Soviet collectivisation campaign of 1929–30 and the Chinese campaign of 1955–56 were similar in that both turned out to be attempts at achieving nationwide breakthroughs in agriculture. Both régimes attempted in the course of about six months to make the radical transition from small-producer to collectivised agriculture. The plans and forecasts that had been formulated by both the Soviet and the Chinese leaders had not called for such a breakthrough. These plans had envisaged the completion of collectivisation at a fairly slow pace.i The following graph indicates the rapidity and scope of the changes that actually took place, as well as the dramatically different outcomes of the two campaigns.
Recent Developments on Formosa
Authors: Gurtov Melvin
Published: March 2009

Ever since the conquest of the mainland by Communist forces, the foreign policy of the Republic of China has revolved about a single goal: recovery of the mainland. Recovery of the mainland is, in fact, the reason d'être of the Chiang Kai-shek régime; should the government ever admit doubts about its ability or desire to return, the entire basis for KMT rule would be irrevocably undercut. It is therefore not surprising that, in the last two years no less than in the more distant past, the theme of an imminent return has dominated the pages of Formosa's newspapers, with new evidence being brought forward regularly to demonstrate that the mainland régime is on the verge of collapse. The cultural revolution has brought about important changes in the “return” theme. It has not reduced its relevance, but seems to have induced recalculations in ROC official circles over the timing and nature of the mainland recovery operation.
An Interview with Mr Wang Ruowang
Authors: Rubin Kyna
Published: March 2009

The overthrow of the “ gang of four ” in the autumn of 1976 gave rise to I a flourishing of literary themes untouched for many years in China. The first major sign of thematic breakthrough appeared with the short story “ The Wounded ” in 1978. Written by Fudan University student Lu Xinhua, “ The Wounded ” was an indictment of life under the harsh policies of the “ gang of four.” The young writer presented a moving portrayal of one young woman's tragic misfortune due to her blind faith in the regime's rigid policies. From this story blossomed a great number of similar emotional exposures of the cruelties suffered under the “ gang,” and thus emerged a new genre of literature called “ literature of the wounded.” Although usually technically immature, these stories were very well received among the general populace thrilled to read at last truthful, if overdramatized, portrayals of what they themselves had seen or experienced all those years.
Recent Chinese Labour Policies and the Transformation of Industrial Organization in China
Authors: Shirk Susan L.
Published: March 2009

Since the overthrow of the “ gang of four” and the rejection of the Maoist strategy for economic development, Deng Xiaoping and his allies have initiated new policies about the hiring, paying and rewarding of industrial labour. These labour policies are designed to raise the productivity of factory labour by increasing work incentives and utilizing workers more efficiently than in the past. The implementation of piecework-type wages and bonuses, point systems for bonuses, and examinations for hiring and promotion, represent a shift towards a new, efficiency-oriented, meritocratic industrial organization in China. The old organizational models which prevailed in the past - the seniority based model of the pre-1966 era as well as the politicized, “ virtuocratic” model of the Cultural Revolution decade - are being repudiated. Reforming industrial organization in China has been no easy task. The meritocratic norm, “ to each according to his work” is difficult to translate into concrete distributive rules. Different groups of employees disagree about the fairness of various distributive criteria. Informal patterns of group behaviour often subvert the intentions of managers and policy-makers. And managers themselves hand out bonuses indiscriminately in a manner which enhances their own popularity but not productivity.
The Baogan Daohu Incentive System: Translation and Analysis of a Model Contract
Authors: Crook Frederick W.
Published: March 2009

The development of work incentives has been a perennial problem in planned economies. In China's countryside the pendulum has swung from emphasis on non-material and egalitarian incentives under Mao to the more individualistic incentives of the post-Mao era. In the late 1970s, China's new leaders introduced the production responsibility system (shengchon zerenzhi) which sought to motivate farmers by rewarding them for completing specific tasks. Both old and new measures have been used to implement this system. Cadres have borrowed certain work measurement methods attached to the old labour-day work payment system, operating since the mid 1950s, which fixed responsibility for tasks and awarded labour days when work was completed. But cadres have also adopted an entirely new work-payment system in which households negotiate with production teams to farm given parcels of land. These households agree to return a certain quantity of their crops to fulfil collective and state obligations and are then permitted to retain the surpluses for themselves. This new system is called baogan daohu (“full responsibility to household,” hereafter referred to as the baogan system). Sometimes the system is also referred to as the jiating lianchan chengbao zhi or the household responsibility system.
Rural Marketing in China: Repression and Revival
Authors: Skinner G. William
Published: March 2009

Rural markets and peasant marketing did not fare well during the Maoist era, which extended from well before the consolidation of communist power in China to the triumphal return of Deng Xiaoping as the central political figure in 1977. Maoist radicals, who in broad perspective may be said to have held the political initiative throughout the era, can be fairly characterized as having an anti-market mentality. While this set of attitudes derives in part from Marxism, it is also rooted in the ideological preconceptions of late-imperial Confucian bureaucrats. The Maoist elite in the People's Republic and the traditional bureaucratic elite of the late empire were equally unhappy with market exchange, and both showed a preference for redistribution.