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Economic Growth in Communist China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Colin Clark
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Extract

Recognising that pre-Communist China in the 1930s was not a very prosperous or well-ordered community, even before the Japanese invasion, we should nevertheless examine what information is available about the level of its productivity and well-being, as a standard with which to compare such information as we can obtain today. This is fairer than comparing productivity in recent years with that of 1949, which is what Communist propagandists prefer to do (and many western economists are naïve enough to follow them). In 1949 the country was so disorganised that a substantial improvement in productivity was to have been expected as soon as any stable government was established.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 21 , March 1965 , pp. 148 - 167
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1965

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References

1 My conclusion that population growth has been temporarily checked is based on the analogy of Soviet Russia, where there was a definite check of population growth (concealed at the time by Soviet officials) at the time of Stalin's forcible farm collectivisation. In Population (Paris), June 1958, Biraben, taking the contemporary frontiers of the U.S.S.R., estimated the population at the beginning of each year as follows:

Prokopvicz, in his Histoire Economique de l'U.S.S.R., estimated 8·7 million famine deaths during this period, Allais between limits of 5 and 9 million. Communisation of farming in China may have been accomplished with less disorder than in U.S.S.R., but there was less margin to spare over subsistence level, and my guess would be at least 20 million famine deaths.

2 Interview with Felix Greene, BBC's Summary of World Broadcasts (SWB), Part 3, FE/1473Google Scholar

3 Real Productivity of Soviet Russia; A Critical Analysis. Printed for use of the Committee of the Judiciary (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961).Google Scholar

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8 See statements in Népszabadság (Budapest) August 25, 1960 and January 7, 1961, both of which imply a population of 655 million for 1958.Google Scholar

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12 Sun Kuang, , People's Daily, November 27, 1957.Google Scholar

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16 Sources:Google Scholar

China: See above.Google Scholar

India: Official figures I have converted to dollars of 1950 purchasing power.Google Scholar

U.S.S.R.: From the author's “The Real Productivity of Soviet Russia—A Critical Evaluation” (United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, 1961) brought up to date by Bergson's Economic Trends in the Soviet Union.Google Scholar

Japan: Official figures, converted to dollars on price comparisons made by Kumano, , Journal of Economic Behaviour, October 1961.Google Scholar

U.S.: Official figures of gross product less 8 per cent. for depreciation.Google Scholar