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Some Speculations on the Return of the Regions: Parallels with the Past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Dorothy J. Solinger
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At the National Conference on Learning from Taching in Industry, held in Peking in May 1977, vice-premier of the State Council, Yu Ch'iu-li, first publicly mentioned the recreation of regional “economic systems.” Although there has been no reference to any administration for governing these regions, the use of the term “systems” (t'i-hsi), which must be “established,” suggests organized co-ordination on a regional basis. Several Hong Kong-based journals that report on current Chinese economic or political developments took note of Yu's remarks, speculating, respectively, that they were to serve economic development or defence goals, or that they might represent a concession to provincial leaders demanding autonomy. Thereafter, no further word of these regions surfaced for over four months. Then, in mid-September, in an article on socialist construction, the State Planning Commission drew attention again to these regions.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 75 , September 1978 , pp. 623 - 638
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1978

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References

* I would like to thank, first of all, Joel Falk for encouraging me to write a piece such as this one when talk of the regions first appeared, and also the following people who read the manuscript and made helpful comments: C. Thomas Fingar, Gardel Feurtado, Richard Curt Kraus, Thomas G. Rawski, Bruce Reynolds and Lewis Stern. Finally, I am grateful to William Abnett, whose own research corroborates some of my speculations, for telling me about his findings.

1. Jen-min jih-pao (hereafter Jen-min), 8 05 1977, p. 3. Regional systems existed in China in 1949–54 and 1961–66.Google Scholar

2. David, Bonavia, “Six of the best for Chairman Hua,” Far Eastern Economic Review (hereafter FEER), 27 05 1977, p. 29.Google Scholar

3. Business China, 20 05 1977, pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

4. Jen-min, 12 09 1977.Google Scholar

5. “Some problems in speeding up industrial development” (hereafter “Some problems”), Issues and Studies, Vol. XIII, No. 7 (07 1977), pp. 90–113Google Scholar. The editors of Issues and Studies believe their copy to be the original draft of this document, the 18-point version that was later expanded to 20 points (hence, the colloquial title, “The 20 points”). I am accepting their word, mainly because the wording is nearly identical to that in the Jen-min article on industrial strategy of 12 September 1977, and to that in an article entitled, “Why did the ‘gang of four’ attack ‘the 20 articles’?,” translated in Peking Review, 14 10 1977Google Scholar. However, much controversy surrounds the document. The Peking Review article charges that the “gang” altered the piece and circulated false versions; the “gang” charges that Teng himself revised his original draft to placate his attackers (see Kung, Hsiao-wen, “Teng Hsiao-p'ing yü ‘er-shih t'iao’,” Hsüeh-hsi yü p'i-p'an, No. 6, 1976)Google Scholar. Also, radical criticisms of “The 20 points” as reported in “Kuan-yü chia-k'uai kung-yeh fa-chan ti jo-kan wen-t'i hsüan-p'i,” Hsüeh-hsi yü p'i-p'an, No. 4 (1976), pp. 28–35 do indeed lift quotations out of context, but do preserve nearly the exact wording of the document translated in Issues and Studies.Google Scholar

6. “Some problems,” p. 100.Google Scholar

7. Jen-min, 8 05 1977, p. 3Google Scholar, as quoted in Peking Review, 27 05 1977, p. 17.Google Scholar

8. Jen-min, 12 09 1977Google Scholar, as quoted in Peking Review, 23 09 1977, p. 14Google Scholar. This is the most recent publicized reference found at the time of writing this article in October 1977. Hua Kuo-feng later referred to regions in his work report to the First Session of the Fifth National People's Congress in late February 1978. See Peking Review, 10 03 1978, p. 19.Google Scholar

9. For analyses of the situation in 1949, see Dorothy, J. Solinger, Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977)Google Scholar, especially Ch. 1; John, Gittings, The Role of the Chinese Army (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 269–70Google Scholar; and Barnett, A. Doak, Uncertain Passage (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974), p. 37Google Scholar. For the situation in 1960, see Chang, Parris H., Power and Policy in China (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975), pp. 129–30Google Scholar; Li, Shih-fei, “The Party's middlemen: the role of the regional bureaus in the Chinese Communist Party,” Current Scene, Vol. 3, No. 25Google Scholar; Franz, Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 148–49Google Scholar, 218; Gittings, , The Role of the Chinese Army, pp. 286Google Scholar, 296, 300; Nelsen, Harvey W., The Chinese Military System (Boulder: Westview Press, 1977), p. 24Google Scholar; Rice, Edward E., Mao's Way (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 180Google Scholar. On 1977, see David, Bonavia, “Peking's year of change,” FEER, 29 April, 1977, pp. 16–18Google Scholar; and Colina, MacDougall, “Politics behind the bamboo curtain,” Financial Times, 10 05 1977. However, these last two articles contain discussions of north-versus-south factional splits in 1977 in the Politburo. Such analyses may be vitiated by Teng's return to power, since the analyses saw the splits as being centred on the question of Teng's return.Google Scholar

10. The decentralized state of the economy just before 1949 is noted in Audrey, Donnithorne, China's Economic System (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 273Google Scholar. The problems associated with extreme decentralization that began with the November 1957 decentralization measures and culminated in the Great Leap Forward are recounted in Prybyla, Jan S., The Political Economy of Communist China (Scranton: International Textbook Co., 1970), Ch. 8 and p. 387Google Scholar; Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development, 1958–1963,” The China Quarterly (hereafter CQ), No. 17 (1964), pp. 3–38Google Scholar; and Franz, Schurmann, “China's ‘new economic policy’ – transition or beginning,” CQ, No. 17 (1964), pp. 65–91Google Scholar. In “Some problems,” p. 99Google Scholar, Teng Hsiao-p'ing speaks of decentralization decisions taken in 1970, as does an article commemorating Chou, En-Iai (Peking Review, 14 01 1977, p. 16)Google Scholar. Resulting difficulties are alluded to in “Some problems,” pp. 92Google Scholar, 93, 100, 101, 111; and in Yu's speech in Peking Review, 27 05 1977, pp. 12Google Scholar, 20. Jürgen, Domes, China After the Cultural Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 61Google Scholar, notes Lin Piao's promotion of decentralized planning and administration in 1969. Also, Donnithorne's, Audrey article, “China's cellular economy,” CQ, No. 52 (1972), pp. 605–619CrossRefGoogle Scholar, uses largely anecdotal data to discuss increased decentralization in the economy as of the early 1970s; and Barnett, A. Doak, Uncertain Passage, p. 140, also notes an increased role for the lower levels in 1972–73.Google Scholar

11. On using regions to implement inter-provincial programmes in the early years, see Whitney, J. B. R., China: Area, Administration, and Nation Building (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Department of Geography, Research Paper, No. 123, 1970), p. 81Google Scholar. See also six articles treating the various administrative regions, stressing the outstanding characteristics of each area and emphasizing the industrial development plans for each region, in Ta kung pao (Hong Kong), during January and 02 1954.Google Scholar

12. See Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954, pp. 252–56Google Scholar and Chs. 3 and 4 on economic goals in the first period; and Schurmann “China's ‘new economic policy,’” p. 67, on the goal of speeding economic growth in the early 1960s; Schurmann, “China's ‘new economic policy,’” and Choh-ming Li, “China's industrial development,” discuss economic development strategies with regard to industry during this period. For the 1977 period, see “Some problems”; Yu, Peking Review, 27 05 1977; and Peking Review, 23 09 1977, pp. 7–14, 26.Google Scholar

13. In the early years the Soviet Union supplied the model of a planned economy. In China, nationwide planning was already under way in 1951. See Audrey, Donnithorne, “China's economic planning and industry,” CQ, No. 17 (1964), p. 111Google Scholar. Prybyla, , The Political Economy of Communist China, on p. 388Google Scholar, explains that in the early 1960s plans were being laid for a Third Five-Year Plan, which, however, was slow in getting started. The concept of planning is again present in the documents from the third period, and, at different times, has pertained to a period ending in 1980, to one ending in 1985, and to one ending in the year 2000. See, for example, Peking Review, 27 05 1977, p. 17Google Scholar and Peking Review, 23 09 1977, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

14. Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development,” p. 4Google Scholar; “Some problems,” p. 103.Google Scholar

15. See Li, shih-fei, “The Party's middlemen,” p. 3.Google Scholar

16. On these points, see Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954Google Scholar, Ch. 1. Also, although regions had lost much of their power by the time the First Five-Year Plan was in operation, they definitely helped pave the way for the Plan. See ibid. Chs. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

17. See Current Background (hereafter CB), No. 170 (1952), for the “Organic law of the new regional government councils.”Google Scholar

18. Directions on carrying out this purge appeared in the communiqué of the Ninth Plenum of the Eighth Central Committee of the CCP, found in Jen-min, 21 01 1961Google Scholar and Peking Review, 27 01 1961.Google Scholar

19. Transl. in Peking Review, 25 12 1976.Google Scholar

20. See Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954Google Scholar, Ch. 3; and Chang, , Power and Policy in China, p. 130.Google Scholar

21. This was based on Chia-tung's, Hsu article in the 07 1977 issue of Hung-ch'i.Google Scholar

22. See Bonavia, , FEER, 29 04 1977, pp. 16–18Google Scholar; and MacDougall, , “Politics behind the bamboo curtain”; see also note 9 above.Google Scholar

23. Kang, Chao, “Policies and performance in industry,” in Alexander, Eckstein, Walter, Galenson and Ta-chung, Liu (eds), Economic Trends in Communist China (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1968), p. 563.Google Scholar

24. On the Anshan Charter, see Prybyla, , The Political Economy of Communist China, pp. 554–55.Google Scholar

25. See Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” p. 76.Google Scholar

26. See Li, Shih-fei “The Party's middlemen,” p. 6; Chang, Power and Policy in China, p. 129.Google Scholar

27. On the 1958 regions, see Donnithorne, , China's Economic System, p. 20Google Scholar and Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” pp. 73–75. William Abnett has located articles in the Chinese press of the first half of 1958 on these regions.Google Scholar

28. For example, Li, Shih-fei, “The Party's Middlemen,” pp. 4 and 6.Google Scholar

29. Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, pp. 88–90, 175 and 188ff describes these two principles and types of rule. The branch principle “means that administrative units are linked hierarchically according to functional principles.” This principle is combined with vertical rule, which involves a single, straight line chain of command. The committee principle entails inter-branch co-ordinative agencies that cut across branch lines, and is combined with dual rule, which relies on both vertical and horizontal control (although the horizontal chain of command, under the Party, has tended to predominate under this system). Despite Teng's mention of dual rule, he strongly stresses the vertical component and the role of the centre.Google Scholar

30. See Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, pp. 239–84;Google ScholarSchurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” pp. 84, 86Google Scholar; and Stephen, Andors, China's Industrial Revolution (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977)Google Scholar, Ch. 3, for a discussion of the early 1950s; for the early 1960s, especially 1961–63, see Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development,”Google Scholar; Stephen, Andors, “Revolution and modernization: man and machine in industrializing societies, the Chinese case,” in Edward, Friedman and Mark, Selden (eds), America's Asia (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971)Google Scholar; Stephen, Andors, “Factory management and political ambiguity,” CQ, No. 59 (1974), pp. 435–76Google Scholar; and Andors, , China's Industrial RevolutionGoogle Scholar, Ch. 5. Andors, China's Industrial Revolution, pp. 54Google Scholar, 56, 59, 60, explains the relationship between these factors of the management and planning systems. I am basing my analysis of the 1977 period largely on Teng Hsiao-p'ing's “Some problems,” since Teng's direction of the economy is an accepted fact among scholars today, and because several of the key points in this document reappeared in the State Planning Commission's article on socialist construction of 12 September 1977. See also Teng's speech at the National Science Conference in March 1978 (in Peking Review, 24 03 1978), p. 17, in which he notes that “It is impossible for Party committees to handle and solve all these matters. We must honestly admit that in scientific and technical work, there are many things we do not know. Even should we know them, it would still be impossible for Party committees to do everything.”Google Scholar

31. Regional Party Bureaux were attacked as “independent kingdoms” during the Cultural Revolution, presumably a result of the regional Party officials' obtaining power through the exercise of dual control. However, their tenure was also the period during which Liu Shao-ch'i allegedly tried to institute “trusts.” On trusts, see Andors, , China's Industrial Revolution, pp. 131, 155, 187, 191–94. The problem today seems to be one of restraining political hacks and factional infighting.Google Scholar

32. Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954Google Scholar, Ch. 3; Li, Shih-fei, “The Party's middlemen,” p. 6.Google Scholar

33. Donnithorne, , China's Economic System, p. 159. These targets regulated: quantity, total number of employees, the total wage bill, profits, value, variety, quality, the rate and the amount of cost reduction, the number of manual workers, the average wage, and labour productivity.Google Scholar

34. See Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954, Chs. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

35. Andors, , “Revolution and modernization,” pp. 397–98. The first four of the above targets remained mandatory.Google Scholar

36. Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development,” p. 22.Google Scholar

37. During July 1960 the Peitaiho Conference of the CCP was in session, which probably passed the decisions to set up the regional bureaux, draw up a 1961 national plan and wage a nationwide campaign against leftist excesses. It is interesting to note that these various decisions were all passed at once. See Kenneth, Lieberthal, A Research Guide to Central Party and Government Meetings in China, 1949–1975 (White Plains: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1976), pp. 166–67Google Scholar. Donnithorne, , China's Economic System, p. 159Google Scholar, mentions these Jen-min jih-pao editorials. Targets for quality, variety and cost were explicitly mentioned in the editorials.Google Scholar

38. See supra, note 10, at the end.Google Scholar

39. The article on socialist construction of Peking Review, 23 09 1977, p. 13, contains a list identical to one in Teng's article in its original form.Google Scholar

40. Teng's “economic and technical quotas” (or targets) are: quantity; variety; quality; consumption of raw materials, other materials, fuel and energy; indexes of labour productivity; cost and profit indexes, and indexes showing circulating funds. See “Some problems,” p. 98. On pp. 100–101, the document states that, “the following must be centralized in central departments”: “orientation and policies of the national economy; key industrial production and agricultural production quotas; investment in basic construction projects; distribution of essential materials; purchase and allocation of vital commodities; national budgetary outlays and issuance of currency; numbers of additional staff and workers and the total sum of wages; prices of industrial and agricultural products.”Google Scholar

41. See supra, note 40. Probably the creation of a State Bureau of Supplies (NCNA, 10 10 1976), reviving the Ministry for the Allocation of Materials abolished during the Cultural Revolution, is a further indication of this trend.Google Scholar

42. “Some problems,” p. 101.Google Scholar

43. Donnithorne, , “China's cellular economy,” pp. 606, 614, 617.Google Scholar

44. Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development,” pp. 21, 24, 25Google Scholar; Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” p. 74Google Scholar. Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, p. 177, notes that 1961 saw a return to the branch principle, albeit in a modified fashion.Google Scholar

45. Donnithorne, , “China's economic planning and industry,” pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

46. Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954, Chs. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

47. Donnithorne, , “China's cellular economy,” pp. 605–606Google Scholar; Barnett, , Uncertain Passage, p. 140.Google Scholar

48. “Some problems,” p. 100.Google Scholar

49. Ibid.p. 97.Google Scholar

50. Andors, , “Factory management and political ambiguity,” p. 438. Such strict control systems would be linked to the higher levels and, ultimately, to ministries.Google Scholar

51. See Solinger, , Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949–1954Google Scholar, Ch. 4; and “Decision on change in the structure and tasks of the people's governments of the administrative regions,” translated in CB, No. 245 (1953), pp. 9–11Google Scholar, for the first point here; see Schurmann, , “China's new economic policy,’” pp. 84, 88 for the second.Google Scholar

52. Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, p. 218.Google Scholar

53. Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” pp. 74, 76, 77.Google Scholar

54. “Some problems,” pp. 97–98.Google Scholar

55. Ibid.p. 99Google Scholar. According to Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, p. 243, “responsibility systems” were introduced in Manchuria in 1949, and meant that individual workers were personally responsible for their work site and work performance. This system was “a means of enforcing labor discipline, badly needed in the face of the great disorganization which then reigned.”Google Scholar

56. See Andors, , “Factory management and political ambiguity,” p. 349Google Scholar; Andors, , China's Industrial Revolution, p. 99Google Scholar; Chao, , “Policies and performance in industry,” p. 570Google Scholar; Choh-ming, Li, “China's industrial development,” p. 28Google Scholar; and Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” p. 74ffGoogle Scholar for the early 1960s; and Schurmann, , “China's ‘new economic policy,’” p. 84Google Scholar, Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, pp. 239–84Google Scholar, and Andors, , China's Industrial Revolution, Ch. 3 for the early 1950s.Google Scholar

57. Schurmann, , Ideology and Organization in Communist China, pp. 243, 253.Google Scholar

58. “Why did the ‘gang of four’ attack ‘the twenty points’?” translated in Peking Review, 14 10 1977, p. 10.Google Scholar

59. Translated in Peking Review, 23 09 1977, and 30 09 1977, respectively.Google Scholar

60. See Andors, , China's Industrial Revolution, p. 131, on the 1960 decision to reintroduce aspects of the 1953–1956 system of planning and management.Google Scholar

61. Rice, , Mao's Way, p. 180.Google Scholar

62. Business China, 20 05 1977.Google Scholar