1. The description “peasant” in China has gained almost a legal status. It is determined by the rural residency registration and is irrelevant to actual occupation. A rural resident who has long been separated from fanning is still officially identified as a peasant. If he runs a manufacturing enterprise, he will be called a peasant entrepreneur. If he engages in commerce, he will be called a peasant merchant or peasant businessman.

2. There are other areas in which a predominant private sector has emerged in the local economy. They include Quanzhou in Fujian (see Zuyiao, Yu, “Xiangzhen qiye fazhan de di er gaochao: Fujiang jinjingxian yu anxixian xiangzheng qiye fazhan de duibi kaocha” (“The second peak in the development of rural industry”), in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Jingji Yanjiusuo (ed.), Zhongguo xiangzhen Qiye de jingji fazhan yu jingji tizhi (The Development of Chinese Rural Industry and Its Regime) (Beijing: Zhongguo jingji chubanshe, 1987), pp. 77–123Google Scholar; Feitian, Chen and Huakai, Jiang, “Quanzhou xiangzhen qiye gufen jingji de kaocha” (“A study on partnership enterprises in rural Quanzhou”), Zhongguo nongcun jingji (Chinese Rural Economy), No. 8 (1988), pp. 45–50)Google Scholar and Qinghe county in Hebei province (Jingji ribao, 4 11 1988, p. 2Google Scholar; Renmin ribao, 3 03 1989, p. 3)Google Scholar. However, the predominance of the private economy came much earlier and is greater in degree in Wenzhou than in these places.

3. For more detailed discussion of sweeping privatization and marketization over the local economy in Wenzhou, see Nolan, Peter and Furen, Dong (eds.), Market Forces in China: Competition and Small Business- The Wenzhou Debate (London: Zed Books, 1990).Google Scholar

4. Rongfei, He, Wenzhou jingji geju: women de zuofa he tansuoxing yijian (The Economic Structure of Wenzhou) (Zhejiang: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1987).Google Scholar

5. For instance, as early as 1985, 70% of local transport and 70% of food services in Wenzhou were provided by the local private sector; the total value of transaction proceeds in private commerce was at least equal to, if not greater than, that of the state sector. See “Wenzhou nongcun shangpin jingji kaocha yu zhongguo nongcun xiandaihua daolu tansuo” (“A study on the commodity economy in rural Wenzhou and the investigation on modernization of rural China”), Jingji yanjiu (Economic Studies), No. 6(1986), pp. 3–18.Google Scholar

6. The production value of the household industry accounted for 58.8%, 60.5% and 59.5% of the total industrial output in Wenzhou in 1984, 1985 and 1986 respectively, according to local statistics.

7. Interestingly, in his discussion of the development of factory industry in medieval Europe, Weber pointed out that, among other things, the separation of a household from production is one of the most important conditions in distinguishing factory from household industry. It seems that this process is universal in both east and west in the development of a factory industry. See Weber, Max, General Economic History (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1981), pp. 153–177.Google Scholar

8. Bai, Lin et al. (eds.), Wenzhou de jueqi (The Rise of Wenzhou) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 103Google Scholar. It should be noted that a private enterprise is officially defined as an undertaking which employs more than eight workers. The 10,000 private enterprises might not be exclusively industrial enterprises. They may include non-industrial undertakings with more than eight employees in the service, transport and food sectors.

9. Szelenyi, Ivan, Socialist Entrepreneurs: Embougeoisement in Rural Hungary (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988).Google Scholar

10. The Chinese Communist Party and government have altered their favourable attitude toward the private economy since the incident of Tiananmen Square, increasingly seeing entrepreneurs in the private sector as a threat to social and political stability. As a result, entrepreneurs are no longer eligible for Party membership. See Shijie ribao (World Journal), 3 10 1989, p. 32.Google Scholar

11. In fact, many Party members have joined the camp of capitalist entrepreneurs, using their political connections to advance their economic interest. A 1986 study pointed out 330 such cases, though I believe the real figure must be higher. See Ruiming, Chen, “Dui Wenzhou nongcun guyong dahu de chubu fenxi” (“A primary analysis on the large employers in rural Wenzhou”), Jingjiyanjiu ziliao (Materials for Economic Studies), No. 8 (1986), pp. 28–36.Google Scholar

12. It is estimated that the ratio of capital to output in the state sector is 1:2 in the textile industry, as opposed to 1:10 in the private sector of the same industry. As a result, the pay in the private sector is much higher than that in the socialist sector. See Enzhen, Yuan, Wenzhou moshi yu fuyu zhilu (The Wenzhou Model and the Road Towards Affluence) (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1987), p. 10.Google Scholar

13. Bai, Lin et al. (eds.), Wenzhou de shichang (Markets in Wenzhou) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe), 1987, p. 54Google Scholar; Renwei, Zhao, “Wenzhou nongcun shangpin jingji fazhanzhong geren shouru de chaju wenti” (“The problems of income gap in the development of the commodity economy in rural Wenzhou”), Jingji yanjiu ziliao, No. 8 (1987), pp. 36–42.Google Scholar

14. Honglian, Zheng, “Wenzhou chengxiang jingji yunxing tedian ji tizhi Beijing” (“The characteristics and institutional backgrounds in rural Wenzhou”), Jingji lilun yu jingji guanti, No. 2 (1987), pp. 51–56.Google Scholar

15. Bai, Lin et al. , The Rise of Wenzhou, p. 26.Google Scholar

16. One 1987 report indicates that about 30% of household enterprises in Jinxiang township market their products by mail order. These household enterprises send their catalogues and order forms to state and collective enterprises, department stores and supply and marketing companies in other areas which may be interested in their products. See Bai, Lin et al. , Markets in Wenzhou, pp. 99–101.Google Scholar

17. Yanjiushi, Wenxian, “Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu yijiubasinian nongcun gongzuo de tongzhi” (“The instructions on the rural administration in 1984 by the Central Party”), in Yanjiushi, Wenxian (ed.), Shierda yilai zhonggong wenxian xuanbian (Collections of Central Documents since the Twelfth Congress (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1986), pp. 424–441 at p. 430Google Scholar; Zhengui, Liu and Jianfa, Chen, “Weishi de silu chuangzaoxing de shijian: Wenzhoushi fazhan jiating gongshangye de diaocha” (“Pragmatic thinking and creative practices”), Renmin ribao, 8 07 1986, p. 2.Google Scholar

18. Xiang, Wu, “Lun fazhanzhong de Wenzhou nongcun shangpin jingji” (“On the developing of the commodity economy in rural Wenzhou”), Renmin ribao, 4 08 1986, p. 5Google Scholar; Rongfei, He, “Wenzhou moshi de xingcheng: teding lishi tiaojianxia de chanwu (1)” (“The formation of the Wenzhou model (1)”), in Bai, Lin et al. , (eds.), Wenzhou moshi de lilun tansuo (Theoretical Investigations of the Wenzhou Model) (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 89–91.Google Scholar

19. Enzhen, Yuan, The Wenzhou Model and the Road Towards Affluence.Google Scholar

20. Xihua, Dong and Jinghao, Zhou, “Jingshen yinsu de zuoyong” (“The effect of the spiritual factor”), in Lin Bai et al., Theoretical Investigations, pp. 113–16.Google Scholar

21. In an official briefing in 1987 at Wenzhou municipal government, many cadres reported the local tradition of entrepreneurship as one of the most important conditions that contributed to the boom in private industry in today's Wenzhou.

22. Yikang, Gu, “Wenzhou moshi de xingcheng: teding lishi tiaojianxia de chanwu (2)”Google Scholar (“The formation of the Wenzhou model (2)”), in Bai, Lin et al. , Theoretical Investigations, pp. 91–93.Google Scholar

23. It is reported that a newly-built airport in the suburban area of municipal Wenzhou has been open to commercial flights since July 1990. Renmin ribao, 19 06 1990, p. 1.Google Scholar

24. In my discussions with a group of researchers from Zhejiang Shehui Kexueyuan, Jinjixue Yanjiusuo (The Institute of Economics, Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences) in 1987, they pointed to the geographic isolation from central control as the most important condition determining the rise of the private sector in Wenzhou. They used the popular Chinese dictum, “The Emperor is as far as the sky” (tiangao huangdiyuan) to describe the geographic isolation of Wenzhou.

25. Xiaohan, Zhou, “Sunan moshi he Wenzhou moshi de bijiao ji zhongguo nongcun fazhan de xuanze” (“A comparison between south Jiangsu and Wenzhou models and the selections among the paths of Chinese rural development”), Zhejiang xuekan, No. 2 (1987), pp. 4–9, at p. 5.Google Scholar

26. Bai, Lin et al. , The Rise of WenzhouGoogle Scholar; Zhengui, Liu and Jianfa, Chen, “Pragmatic thinking”Google Scholar; Yi, Yang, “Fangchu laide he chuanxia laide,”Google Scholar in Bai, Lin et al. , Theoretical Investigations, pp. 94–96.Google Scholar

27. Bai, Lin et al. , The Rise of WenzhouGoogle Scholar; Zhengui, Liu and Jianfa, Chen, “Pragmatic thinking”Google Scholar; Yi, Yang, “Fangchu laide he chuanxia laide,”Google Scholar in Bai, Lin et al. , Theoretical Investigations.Google Scholar

28. Bai, Lin et al. , The Rise of Wenzhou, pp. 229–252Google Scholar; Zhengui, Liu and Jianfa, Chen, “Pragmatic thinking.”Google Scholar

29. See Renmin ribao, 30 06 1988, p. 3Google Scholar. According to a Chinese official from a policy research institute under the State Council (1990), the passing of temporary regulations on private enterprises seems to have no substantial effect in increasing the entrepreneurs' confidence in state policy or in reducing political discrimination against the private sector. The majority of peasant entrepreneurs would therefore not bother to change the registration of their enterprise from collective to private.

30. Wenzhoushi xiangzhen gongye guanliju, Wenzhoushi xiangzhen qiye zhengce huibian (Collections of Policies on Wenzhou Rural Industry) (Wenzhou: Wenzhoushi xiangzhen gongye guanliju, 1987), p. 18.Google Scholar

31. In fact, anxious about the politically risky capitalist tendency in the local economy, the municipal government of Wenzhou has been encouraging joint ventures rather than individually-owned large enterprises.

32. Rongfei, He, The Economic Structure of Wenzhou, p. 152.Google Scholar

33. Xiaojun, Xia, “Wenzhou moshi yu changzhenhua: dui Wenzhou jizhen fazhan de diaocha he sikao” (“The Wenzhou model and urbanization”), Nongcun jingji wengao (Articles of Rural Economy), No. 4, pp. 19–27.Google Scholar

34. This figure was provided by a local cadre when I took a tour of Qianku township.

35. For instance, a cadre left his job as a township Party secretary in Yongjia county, and undertook a business in a commercial orchard instead. See Bai, Lin et al. , (eds.), Wenzhou duihualu (The Dialogues in Wenzhou), (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chu-banshe), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

36. This indeed happened in the 1982 campaign “Cracking down on economic criminals,” and in the 1986 campaign “Against bourgeois liberalization.” In the 1982 case, eight of the richest peasant entrepreneurs in Liushi township were indicted and subsequently seven of them were arrested on the charge of “fraudulent capitalist activities.” In the 1986 case, many rich entrepreneurs of Wenzhou fled as far as Eastern Europe. After so many political campaigns against the private economy, the local peasant entrepreneurs' confidence in state policies has been shaken, despite subsequent reversals by the state.

37. Oksenberg, Michel, “Local leaders in rural China, 1962–65: individual attributes, bureaucratic positions, and political recruitment,” in Barnett, A. Doak (ed.), Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Shue, Vivienne, The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Burns, John P., Political Participation in Rural China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar

38. Burns, John P., “Rural Guangdong's ‘second economy’ 1962–1974,” The China Quarterly, No. 88 (12 1981), pp. 629–644Google Scholar; Chan, Anita and Unger, Jonathan, “Grey and black: the hidden economy of rural China,” Pacific Affairs (Autumn 1982), pp. 452–471Google Scholar; Shue, , The Reach of the State.Google Scholar

39. Watson, Andrew, “Agriculture looks for ‘shoes that fit’: the production responsibility system and its implications,” in Maxwell, N. and McFarlane, B. (eds.), China's Changed Road to Development (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1984).Google Scholar

40. From 1966 to 1973, small household farming was found among villages in Yongjia county until the local cadres who tolerated it were purged in 1973 and 1976. For details see Bai, Lin et al. (eds.), Wenzhou de ganbu (Cadres of Wenzhou), (Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 1987), p. 85.Google Scholar

41. Xiaohan, Zhou, “A comparison between south Jiangsu and Wenzhou models,” p. 5.Google Scholar

42. According to a Yishan peasant, many Yishan cadres and their families had been engaged in the local textile industry in the past 40 years. Moreover, cadres could always make more money from their business than peasants because they could get higher prices when they sold their products to the local supply and marketing companies because of their position in the local hierarchy.

43. Bai, Lin et al. , The Rise of Wenzhou, pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

44. According to the recollection of a local specialized household member, when she worked for a local collective enterprise in Wenzhou city in 1975, she contracted production from the enterprise and worked at home instead. When political control tightened later on, she closed the household enterprise and returned to the shop floor of the collective enterprise.

45. Dabing, Ye, Zhenan nongmin baodong he hongshisanjun (Peasant Uprisings in South Zhejiang and the Thirteenth Red Corps) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1982.Google Scholar

46. Ibid.

47. Xianhe, Huang, “Zhenan diqu renmin baizhe bunao hongqi budao: qi 1930 zhi 1937 nan zhenan de dixiadang he hongjun youjidui” (“The Communist Party and guerrilla force in South Zhejiang, 1930–1937”), Zhejiang geming shiliao xuanji (Selections of the History of the Revolution in Zhejiang, No. 7 ( 1982), pp. 71–88 at p. 87Google Scholar; Jin, Yang, “Zhenan hongjun youjidui he Shanghai dangzuzhi lianxi de jingguo” (“The liaison between the South Zhejiang guerrillas and the Communist Party in Shanghai”), Dangshi ziliao congkan (The Journal of Party History, No. 3 (1981), pp. 44–48.Google Scholar

48. The “advance division” was originally the advance guard of the Tenth Red Corps, which had engaged in the guerrilla wars on the border between Zhejiang and Jiangxi after the main force of the Red Army left Jiangxi on the Long March. The advance division first came to the mountainous areas in south-western Zhejiang and built up a guerrilla base there before it was defeated by the Nationalist public security forces. It then moved to south Wenzhou on the border between Zhejiang and Fujian, attempting to build a new base. See Yu, Su, “Huiyi zhenan sannian youji zhanzheng” (“Recollecting guerrilla wars in South Zhejiang”), in Junqu, Zhejiangsheng (ed.), Zhenan Sannian (Three Years in South Zhejiang) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 1–42.Google Scholar

49. Ibid. p. 17; Fei, Ye, “Mindong suqu de chuangjian he sannan youji zhanzheng” (“The establishment of soviet government in East Fujian and the three-year guerrilla wars”), in Yi nanfang sannian youji zhanzheng (Recollecting Three-year Guerrilla Wars in the South) (Shanghai: Wenyi chubanshe, 1987), pp. 306–351 at p. 337.Google Scholar

50. Siyi, Yang, “Kangri shiqi zhedongdang pianduan huiyi” (“Scattered memories of the Communist Party in East Zhejiang during the Sino-Japanese war”), in Xinsijun he huazhong genjudi yianjiu shi Zhejiang fenhui (ed.), Zhedong kangzhan chunqiu (The Memoranda of the Sino-Japanese War in East Zhejiang) (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1986), pp. 9–11 at p. 9.Google Scholar

51. Yao, Long, “Huiyi Zhenan youji genjudi de douzheng” (“Recollecting guerrilla wars in the occupied areas of South Zhejiang”) in Zhenan Sannian (Three Years in South Zhejiang) (Hanzhou: Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 43–86.Google Scholar

52. Yu, Su, “Recollecting guerrilla wars in South Zhejiang.”Google Scholar

53. It is true that most communist guerrilla forces in south-east China at this time adopted a more moderate policy toward fiscal and land issues in order to survive and win the support of the locales. See Benton, Gregor, “Communist guerrilla bases in south-east China after the start of the Long March,” in Hartford, Kathleen and Goldstein, Steven M. (eds.), Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1989), pp. 62–91.Google Scholar

54. Only a small scale of land redistribution was implemented earlier by the advance division in the remote border area between Zhejiang, and Fujian, . See Yao, Long, “Recollecting guerrilla wars in the occupied areas.”Google Scholar

55. Yao, Long, “Recollecting guerrilla wars in the occupied areas.”Google Scholar

56. Yu, Su, “Recollecting guerrilla wars in South Zhejiang.”Google Scholar

57. Ze, Zhang, “Wenzhou chuxian gaikuang” (“The early fall of Wenzhou to the communists”), Zhejiang yuekan, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1969), pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

58. Historical resources show that a conflict over the distribution of power in the new local authority took place between the Wenzhou Communist Party and the Twenty-First Corps, which arrived later, straight after the “liberation” of Wenzhou in 1949. Nevertheless, many leading positions in the local authority were taken by the local Party members. For instance, both the first Party secretary and the mayor of municipal Wenzhou, Long Yao and Hu Jingxian, were leaders of the local guerrilla force.

59. Selden, Mark, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

60. Vogel, Ezra F., Canton under Communism: Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949–1968 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

61. The native cadres here refer to those who have Wenzhou origins and those who came from the adjacent districts or provinces but had joined the Wenzhou guerrilla force before 1949. For instance, the outsiders who came with the advance division from Jiangxi province had stayed and worked with the Wenzhou guerrilla force since 1937. The common experience shared by Wenzhou natives and their Jiangxi comrades in their long-term struggle against both Japanese and Nationalist troops had enhanced the outsiders' localization. Those outsiders are therefore loosely regarded as natives because their interest was deeply associated with that of the local people.

62. My explanation of the success of Wenzhou was confirmed in May 1990 by a Chinese official at a policy research institute under the State Council, who said that the cadres of Wenzhou have since 1949 been very proud of their capacity to resist the central government. Their courage in standing up against the central state is based on their ever-remembered glorious history of the 1949 “self-liberation.”

63. Brus, Wlodzimierz, Socialist Ownership and Political System (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975)Google Scholar; Wright, Eric O., “Capitalism's futures,” Socialist Review, No. 68 (1983), pp. 77–126Google Scholar; Bahro, Rudolf, The Alternative in Eastern Europe (London: Verso, 1984)Google Scholar; Tang, Tsou, The Cultural Revolution and Post-Mao Reforms: A Historical Perspective (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986).Google Scholar

64. Feher, Ferenc, Heller, Agnes and Markus, Gyorgy, Dictatorship Over Needs: An Analysis of Soviet Societies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983)Google Scholar; Nove, Alec, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985)Google Scholar; Lieberthal, Kenneth and Oksenberg, Michel, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

65. Walder, Andrew G., Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Chan, Anita, Madsen, Richard and Unger, Jonathan, Chen Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Nee, Victor, “Between center and locality: state militia, and village,” in Nee, Victor and Mozingo, David (eds.), State and Society in Contemporary China (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 223–243.Google Scholar

66. Oi, Jean, “Communism and clientelism: rural politics in China,” World Politics, Vol. XXVLL, No. 2 (01, 1986), pp. 238–266Google Scholar; Nee, Victor, “Peasant entrepreneur-ship and the politics of regulation in China,” in Nee, Victor and Stark, David (eds.), Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 169–207.Google Scholar

67. Shue, , The Reach of the State.Google Scholar The tendency toward cellularization of Chinese villages after the socialist transformation was earlier discussed by Parish, William L. and Whyte, Martin King in Village and Family in Contemporary China (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978).Google Scholar But Shue's characterization of the local autonomy of the peasant periphery in socialist China is much more extreme than what Parish and Whyte had described.

68. Both concepts are derived from Michael Mann's analysis of state power. See his “The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results,” Archives of European Sociology, No. xxv (1984), pp. 185–213.Google Scholar

69. Oi, Jean, State and Peasants in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).Google Scholar

70. World Journal, 29 12 1989, p. 1.Google Scholar

71. Bai, Lin et al. , Cadres of Wenzhou, p. 51.Google Scholar