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Rural Industry—A Traveller's View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Jon Sigurdson
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Extract

News of industrialization in China contains two special features which indicate that Chinese efforts in this field differ significantly from those in many other developing countries. The first is the strong emphasis on local industries and the other is the importance given to small and medium enterprises. Local industries include all industrial branches not attached to the central industrial departments, and all industrial enterprises run by provinces, administrative regions, counties, people's communes or production brigades. A number of these industries are attached to schools and hospitals, but the majority are small or medium enterprises run by counties, people's communes or production brigades. In this report I shall deal mainly with these enterprises, only discussing those at higher levels in so far as they have important relations with the lower level enterprises.

Type
Report from China
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 50 , April 1972 , pp. 315 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1972

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References

1. “Local industry in China,” Peking Review (PR), No. 39, 24 09 1971, pp. 9–11.Google ScholarPubMed

2. This paper was originally presented at a study group on Science and Technology in China's Development which was held at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, Brighton, from 10 to 14 01 1972. The study group was sponsored by the Joint Committee on Contemporary China in New York, and the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa.Google Scholar

3. This preliminary article is mainly based on information obtained when visiting two counties in December 1971. A monograph study is under preparation.Google Scholar

4. See for example “Running industry in the ‘pauper spirit’,” China Reconstructs, No. 11, 11 1971, pp. 6–10.Google ScholarPubMed

5. Iron and steel plant (460 employees); cement plant I; cement plant II (97 employees); chemical fertilizer plant (338 employees); sulphuric acid plant (89 employees); medicine plant I; medicine plant II; plastics factory; paper mill (90 employees); printing factory; cotton oil plant; food plant (230 employees); glass factory; porcelain factory; textile mill (275 employees); knitting mill, “shoe” factory; blacksmith shop; tinsmith shop; bicycle co-op; rubber wheel repair shop; tractor repair plant (90 employees); farming machinery plant; electromechanic factory (210 employees); gold purifying plant; mines; brickplants, etc.Google Scholar

6. Iron plant (207 employees); cement plant (250 employees); chemical fertilizer plant I (285 employees); chemical fertilizer plant II (planned); coal mine (1,400 employees); explosives factory; medicine plant; textile mill; Dongfanghong machinery plant (267 employees); Linyan repair and manufacturing plant; August First repair and manufacturing plant (208 employees); bearing repair factory (planned for 1972); motor repair factory (planned for 1972); cart manufacturing factory (planned); strip light factory (85 employees); brick plant I; brick plant II.Google Scholar

7. New China News Agency (NCNA) 28 November 1971 (BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, Part 3, The Far East (FE), No. W652); “New leap in China's national economy,” PR, No. 2, 14 01 1972, p. 8.Google Scholar

8. “Local industry in China,” pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

9. Information given in December 1971 by a cadre from Shanghai City Farming Bureau.Google Scholar

10. “Agricultural mechanization in Hopei,” Hopei radio, 30 09 1971 (FE/3814).Google Scholar

11. “Follow Chairman Mao's directives for the road forward of agricultural mechanization,” by a writing group of the First Ministry of Industry, People's Daily, 17 09 1971.Google Scholar

12. The planned pricing of raw materials, intermediate products and industrial equipment in China makes it possible to achieve almost any relation between costs and prices. However, the information supplied may indicate the importance given to light industry in accumulating funds.Google Scholar

13. “Development of China's light industry,” by a writing group of the Ministry of Light Industry, Peking radio, 1 11 1971 (FE/3831).Google Scholar

14. Ibid.

15. “China's road of socialist industrialization,” by the writing group of the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, PR, No. 43, 24 10 1969, pp. 7–13.Google Scholar

16. Revolutionize planting of good paddy rice, compiled by the Crop Seed Cultivation Research Institute of the Chinese Agricultural Academy, Peking, Agriculture Publishing House, 02 1971.Google Scholar

17. “Some basic facts about the people's communes,” China Reconstructs, No. 1, 01 1972, pp. 10–13.Google Scholar

18. See “Follow Chairman Mao's directives for the road forward of agricultural mechanization.” An interpretation of the emphasis on the county-run industries and the three-level repair and manufacture network is that these activities are relatively capital-intensive in producing equipment which will later make it possible to employ people in relatively labour-intensive activities within the agricultural sector. In answer to questions about employment policy it was clearly explained to me that any really substantial increase of industrial employment in county-run enterprises was not contemplated for the next few years either in Tsunhua County or in Lin County. The question of employment absorption as well as choice of technique will be discussed in more detail in my forthcoming monograph.Google Scholar

19. “Importance of agricultural mechanization in Shansi,” Shansi radio, 22 10 1971 (FE/3825).Google Scholar

20. See “Follow Chairman Mao's directives for the road forward of agricultural mechanization.”Google Scholar

21. “Simultaneously develop big and small and medium enterprises,” by the writing group of the State Capital Construction Commission, PR, No. 48, 27 11 1970, pp. 14–17.Google Scholar

22. “First Machinebuilding Ministry's further views on the value of indigenous methods” (FE/3476).Google Scholar