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Handicrafts in Communist China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Peter Schran
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Extract

Even though it is a truism, it is worth pointing out that with relatively little foreign trade and even less foreign aid, Communist China's economic growth must in the main result directly from the development of her indigenous resources. In her comparatively backward economy, most of those resources were to be found initially in two traditional sectors of production: in agriculture, and in various crafts and trades. Due to limited division of labour, these two traditional sectors were not separated sharply from each other, but overlapped in the person of the peasant-craftsman who was relatively common in the countryside.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 17 , March 1964 , pp. 151 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1964

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References

1 For a discussion of the rationality of such a choice see Patrick, Hugh T.and Schran, Peter, “Economic Contrasts: China, India, and Japan,” Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 2, 1963, pp. 168–184.Google Scholar

2 For a comprehensive study of the problems of definition see C. T. Lu. An Interim Understanding of the Concept of Handicraft as the Term is Used in Communist China, Prepared for the First Research Conference of the Social Science Research Council Committee on the Economy of China, Berkeley, California, 1963 (mimeographed manuscript).

3 Cf. I-wen, Chao, Hsin Chung-kuo ti Kung-yeh (New China's Industry)(Peking: T'ung-chi Publishing Co., 1957), pp. 87–99, for a discussion of these types.Google Scholar

4 For a summary presentation of Mao Tse-tung's rationalisation of the “new democratic revolution” or “people's democratic revolution” cf. Po-ta, Ch'en, Mao Tse-tung on the Chinese Revolution(Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1953), esp. pp. 14–30.Google Scholar

5 A summary of the more relevant findings is presented in the statistical appendix. Subsequent references to tables in the appendix will be given in Roman numerals in the text.

6 Derived from State Statistical Bureau, Ten Great Years(Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), pp. 34–35.Google ScholarPubMed

7 There are indications that the gross value of production of part-time craftsmen was estimated on the basis of rural trade statistics and that the number of part-time craftsmen was not ascertained in most provinces. Cf.Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., e.g., p. 205.

8 Cf. Choh-ming Li, op. cit., p. 94.Google Scholar

9 Correspondingly, it is related negatively to the relative contribution of handicrafts to the gross value of production of industry plus handicrafts (IV).

10 For a crude inter-regional cost of living index cf. Schran, Peter, The Structure of Income in Communist China (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation; Berkeley: University of California, 1961), p. 61.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., pp. 142 et seq.

12 Cf.Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., pp. 62, 111, 195, and Chu-yuan, Cheng, Income and Standard of Living in Mainland China(Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 2nd ed., 1958), I, pp. 151–152.Google Scholar

13 Urban-rural productivity differences are in part attributable to urban-rural price and cost of living differences. Cf.Peter Schran, op. cit., pp. 54 et seq.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Peter Schran, op. cit., pp. 272 et seq., Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., pp. 62, 86, 213, 214, and Cheng Chu-yuan, op. cit., I, pp. 161, 162.Google Scholar

15 For an extensive discussion of many unrelated bits of evidence on capital formation and earnings, cf. Chu-yuan, Cheng, op. cit., I, pp. 148 et seq.Google Scholar

16 Cheng asserts a decrease in the level of earnings as a result of collectivisation. Cf. ibid., pp. 158–162.

17 For comparison, note that private industry as a whole produced on the average 5,757 yuan gross value per person in 1954. The value of net assets per person was 1,094 yuan in 1954. Cf. Hua, Ch'ienet al., Ch'i Nien lai Wo Kuo Ssu-ying Kung-shang-yeh ti Pien-hua(1949–1956 nien) (Peking: Ts'ai-cheng Publishing Co., 1957), p. 8.Google Scholar

18 Practically all available data concern private industry as a whole which may not be representative of handicraft workshops that accounted for the majority of establishments but only for a small share of output. Cf. ibid., p. 88.

19 Derived from data in the above tabulation and from household data implicit in State Statistical Bureau, Ten Great Years, pp. 42–43. 1957 value equal to average of 1956 and 1958 values.

20 Cf.Cheng Chu-yuan, op. cit., p. 162. Note that according to most indications, the earnings of rural craftsmen did not exceed those of peasants by much on the average.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Far Eastern Economic Review, No. 23 (12 4, 1958), p. 715, for a note on a report of a national handicraft conference in Peking in September 1958 which dealt with the subject of co-operative factories.Google Scholar

22 f. Chi-hua yü T'ung-chi, No. 4 (04 1960), p. 11.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., contains various references to the state of controlled marketing of handicraft products in 1954.

26 Cf. Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., p. 73 (Heilungkiang), for the assertion that handicraft earnings were too high relative to earnings in state and co-operative enterprises.

27 Note that the adjustment of earnings levels may have occurred on the pattern typical for private industry which concentrated on consumer goods production, too. Earnings stagnated during the course of socialist transformation in 1955 and 1956, relatively speaking, while earnings in state industries increased as a result of the 1956 wage reform. Cf. Peter Schran, op. cit., pp. 272 et seq.

28 The general rule seems to be that 80 per cent. of the raw material inputs of consumer goods industries originate in agriculture. See also Chao I-wen, op. cit., p. 27.

29 Cf.Chinese Academy of Sciences, op. cit., especially p. 21, for the assertion that handicraft development in other areas diminishes both commodity markets and raw material markets for Shanghai handicrafts.