Book contents
- Across the Great Divide
- Cambridge Studies in the History of the People’s Republic of China
- Across the Great Divide
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Stylistic Note
- Introduction
- 1 Farewell to the Huangpu River
- 2 Not All Quiet on the Rural Front
- 3 The Unplanned Economy
- 4 Inappropriate Intimacies
- 5 Urban Outposts in Rural China
- 6 Things Fall Apart
- 7 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
3 - The Unplanned Economy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2019
- Across the Great Divide
- Cambridge Studies in the History of the People’s Republic of China
- Across the Great Divide
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Stylistic Note
- Introduction
- 1 Farewell to the Huangpu River
- 2 Not All Quiet on the Rural Front
- 3 The Unplanned Economy
- 4 Inappropriate Intimacies
- 5 Urban Outposts in Rural China
- 6 Things Fall Apart
- 7 Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Glossary
- Index
Summary
Chapter Three focuses on how the network of connections established by the sent-down youth movement provided rural leaders a way of bypassing state planning policies to obtain directly from Shanghai materials and equipment they desperately needed to establish small local industries. At a time when state planning policies favored large industrial centers such as Shanghai, most remote rural counties had almost no way to acquire resources, in spite of Mao’s advocacy of rural industry. Were it not for the sent-down youth movement, these county leaders would have had no connection to Shanghai, nor would agencies in Shanghai have had reasons to donate materials to places unfamiliar and irrelevant to them. Now, when rural local leaders issued requests for equipment, officials in Shanghai hustled to identify bureaus that could satisfy them, as the otherwise far more powerful Shanghai municipal government found itself dependent on small and peripheral local governments to take care of the city’s youth.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Across the Great DivideThe Sent-down Youth Movement in Mao's China, 1968–1980, pp. 65 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019