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Conceptual Difficulties in Measuring China's Industrial Output

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Fred C. Hung  and
Yuan-Li Wu
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Extract

A sharp contrast stands between the mood of optimism in 1958 and 1959 when official as well as unofficial reports of industrial progress continued to pour out of Communist China and the silence and complete black-out of statistical information which has characterised the Chinese scene since 1960. If the principal landmarks are retraced, the first major sign of a change in official policy appears to have come in early 1961 when the Chinese Communist Party decided to reverse the policies which had characterised the “leap forward” of 1958–59. This was followed by a drastic policy of retrenchment in investment and reorientation of industrial production during the latter part of 1961 as the economic crisis deepened. Since then the new slogan has been “adjustment, consolidation, reinforcement, and improvement”; the new order of priorities is agriculture, light industry and heavy industry; the new approach is to regard agriculture as the economic base and industry as the “leading factor.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 17 , March 1964 , pp. 56 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1964

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References

1 Since the second half of 1962, much information has been made available by Communist China on cost savings, quality improvement, percentage increase in output over the previous year, and production of new products. However, information on physical output is still rare.

2 Kang, Chao, “Indices of Industrial Output in Communist China,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 08 1963.Google Scholar

3 Hung, Fred C “Rates and Patterns of Industrial Growth in Modern China,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, New York, 1958.Google Scholar

4 Wu, Yuan-li, Steel: A Study of the Industrialisation of Communist China (to be published soon).Google Scholar

5 Wu, Yuan-li, Economic Development and the Use of Energy Resources in Communist China (New York: Praeger, 1963),Google Scholar and Wu, Yuan-li, Hoeber, Francis P. and Rockwell, Mabel M., The Economic Potential of Communist China (unpublished).Google Scholar

6 The Economic Potential of Communist China, op. cit.

7 See note 5 above.

8 For discussion, see Wu, Yuan-li “Industrial Development in China,” Current History, 09 1963.Google Scholar