Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development (1949-2020)

539 Pages·2021·4.491 MB·English

by  Tiejun Wen

GLOBAL UNIVERSITY FOR SUSTAINABILITY
BOOK SERIES
Ten Crises
The Political Economy of China’s
Development (1949–2020)
Wen Tiejun
Global University for Sustainability Book Series
Series Editors
Lau Kin Chi, Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan
University, Hong Kong, China
Sit Tsui, Institute of Rural Reconstruction of China,
Southwest University, Chongqing, China
全球大学堂官网：https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/
国仁全球大学堂：https://space.bilibili.com/679619486
微信公众号：Global U
The book series aims to publish books and monographs drawing on the
expertise of the Global U Founding Members by offering a succinct
analysis of global crises affecting the ecological, social, political, and
economic aspects, as well as to explore transformative visions and praxis
for sustainability. Some books may be translated from their original
language into English.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16706
Wen Tiejun
Ten Crises
The Political Economy of China’s
Development (1949–2020)
WenTiejun
Beijing, China
With Contrib. by
Lau Kin Chi SitTsui
Hong Kong, China Chongqing, China
Global University for Sustainability Book Series
ISBN 978-981-16-0454-6 ISBN 978-981-16-0455-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0455-3
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Foreword
ThisbookisthefirstoneoftheGlobalUniversityforSustainabilityBook
Series published with Palgrave Macmillan.
Global University for Sustainability (Global U) is an international
network of around 200 renowned scholars/activists, with a substan-
tial number from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, apart from those
from Europe and North America. They are academic scholars, peace
activists, community workers, food producers, and rural reconstruction
promoters,amongothers(pleaseseehttps://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/
founding-members/).The book series aims to publish books and mono-
graphs drawing on the expertise of Global U Founding Members by
offeringasuccinctanalysisofglobalcrisesaffectingtheecological,social,
political, and economic aspects, as well as to explore transformative
visions and praxis for sustainability.
The three main categories falling under this series are:
•
General analysis (e.g., history of political economy of a country; issue
ofsustainability; issue of nuclear disasters); with a focuson China but
not only on China.
v
vi Foreword
•
Biographies or autobiographies of eminent thinkers from around the
world,especiallyfromAsia,AfricaandLatinAmerica,connectingtheir
personal trajectory to their thought and the larger context.
•
Analysisandinterpretationofon-the-groundexperienceshighlighting
how local communities negotiate with economic and other forces
impacting on them and organize in alternative ways.
Professor Wen Tiejun, the author of this book, has a wide reader-
ship across official institutions, academics, mass media, and grassroots
communities. Apart from being a well-known expert of agrarian issues
and policy advisor, he is a scholar/activist who has initiated the rural
reconstruction movement in contemporary China (2000—the present),
particularly promoting agro-ecology, sustainability, and rural regenera-
tion. He is deeply involved in defending the livelihoods of small peas-
antryinhiswholelife.In1968,whenhewas17yearsold,hewassentto
mountainareasinShanxiProvincetoworkasapeasant.Thenheworked
as a truck driver for 2 years and later as service worker for 4 years. He
entered university when he turned 28 years old. His world vision has
beenshapedby11yearsofworkingwithandlearningfrompeasantsand
workers. These grassroots experiences have great influence on his rural
sustainabilityexperimentsandpolicyresearch.Heisnamedbythemedia
as an expert of sannong issues (three agrarian issues: peasant, village, and
agriculture),whois“doingstudiesbyfoot”.Hehasdeliveredlecturesand
provided training programs to tens of thousands of students, peasants,
peasantworkers,andgovernmentofficers.Hehasalsodelivereddozensof
lectures and interviews overseas. Recently, ProfessorWen won the award
of FAO-China food hero (one of five winners) through online popular
voting. One live-streamed lecture he delivered in August 2020 attracted
550,000 online watchers. Global U is organizing the English translation
project of his biography: A Life with No Regrets: Life andThought ofWen
Tiejun, translated by Alice Chan.
The book, Ten Crises: The Political Economy of China’s Development
(1949–2020), that presents itself to the readers here is a collective
endeavour,theculminationofover12yearsofresearch,discussion,trans-
lation,andwriting.Soonafterthe2008globalfinancialcrisis,theproject
team headed by ProfessorWenTiejun and Professor Lau Kin Chi began
Foreword vii
a comparative study of the impact of the financial crisis on developing
countries, which included empirical trips to a dozen countries in Asia,
Africa and Latin America, apart from Europe and North America, as
well as many academic conferences and forums to discuss and debate
the theme. In February 2011, a project on comparing Seven Emerging
Countries, namely China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela, South
Africa and Turkey, was launched, which had the support of UNDP-
China, Renmin University of China, Lingnan University, along with a
couple of institutions. In December of the same year, the first South
South Forum on Sustainability was organized, inviting most of the 100
participants from over 40 countries to one of the four 10-day field trips
to different regions of China before or after the Forum which was held
in Lingnan University in Hong Kong. (see https://our-global-u.org/ogu
org/en/the-first-south-south-forum-on-sustainability/) The South South
Forum on Sustainability has become an annual activity since 2016,
and the Seventh Forum was convened in July 2020. The Global U,
fermenting since 2008 and officially launched in 2015, has been the
keyinstitutioncoordinatingtheseforumsandresearchprojects.Through
the Global U network, Professor Wen and his team have continuously
presented new insights and new findings on China’s development.
In the comparative study of Seven Emerging Countries, we had a
country research team for each country. For China, the core research
team members were Professor Wen Tiejun, Professor Dong Xiaodan,
Professor Lau Kin Chi, Professor Sit Tsui, and Dr. Erebus Wong. A
basic framework and ample materials were taken from a project that
ProfessorWenTiejun began in 1998–2000.At that time, he returned to
researchworkintheMinistryofAgricultureafterbeingtransferredfrom
his on-the-ground work to promote institutional changes in rural areas
in China, and after the completion of his Ph.D. on “A Research on the
Basic Economic System of Rural China”. He received a grant from the
deputy director of a Chinese state-owned financial corporation to take
up research and writing of the part on Economic History of a four-part
“History of 20th Century China” project. After three years of research,
the outline of the research report that he presented was considered inap-
propriateforcontinuationandpublicationduetoitbeingtoofrankand
blunt as regards the presentation of this history. The entire project was
viii Foreword
shelved. A short paper on the findings of this project was published in
the Chinese journal Dushu, no. 3, 2001, titled “China’s Century-Long
Quest for Industrialization: Four Bends in a River”.
Thus, when the country report on China was initiated for the Seven
Emerging Countries project, the research team based itself on these
materials, conducted further research, and produced the Chinese book
EightCrises:TheRealExperienceofChina’sEconomicHistory1949–2009.
Published in January 2013, this became a bestseller, rather rare for an
academic book, and had 25 prints as of June 2020.
English translation of the book Eight Crises began in 2013, and was
planned to be completed by 2016. However, on further discussion
amongtheresearchteam,itwasfeltthatpresentationofthecrisis1949–
1950 would be necessary for it gives an analysis on how new China
responded to the economic problems inherited from the Nationalist
Party regime.The first crisis written in Chinese, a lengthy book version,
was published in 2019 entitled Delinking: The True Experiences of How
China Resolved the First Economic Crisis 1949–1952.With the first crisis
being added to the original eight crises, and the global and domestic
conditions taking a new turn towards crisis, it was then decided that the
post-2013 period should be added as the tenth crisis. To support the
team’s research and articulation, Professor Wen Tiejun came to Hong
Kong in 2017 to video record, initially in English, and subsequently in
Chinese (in 2017–2019), ten lectures of the ten crises, plus an overall
introduction. (see https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/series-no-5-chi
nas-real-experiences-professor-wen-tiejun-on-ten-cyclical-economic-cri
ses-in-china-1949-2016/) The English subtitled edition of the lecture
series will accompany the publication of this book.
The book sets to debunk a highly simplistic but prevalent method-
ologicalorideologicalperspectiveofreadingChina’sdevelopment,which
generally divides the nation’s economic development by 1978 or the so-
called Reform and Opening Up. By this view, before the Reform, China
was caught up with the idea of socialism and was underdeveloped. After
the Reform, economic vitality was unleashed by the force of market and
hence the legacy of its dazzling development. Contradicting this view,
thisbookcontextualizesChina’s70yearsofcontemporaryhistoryagainst
one coherent backdrop: a late developing country endeavouring at all
Foreword ix
coststoindustrialize,beitnamedsocialismorcapitalism.China’sdefacto
ideology is indeed developmentalism. We can see a red thread running
through China’s torrential path of development: a series of crises arising
out of its developmentalist effort. This path is complicated by China
getting caught in the geo-political confrontation of two superpowers in
the twentieth century: The Soviet Union and the USA. It illuminates
howChinahasdealtwiththecrisesbyresolvingthemordeferringtothe
next ones. Unlike developed countries which transferred their costs of
development to others in less favourable status, China, the book argues,
could only cope with these costs by internalizing them. As Professor
Wen has been one of the leading researchers of the agrarian problem in
China,heemphasizestheroleoftheruralsectorbeingasourceofsurplus
extractionforindustrializationandreceptorofcostofdevelopmentbeing
transferred by the urban sector.
Ten Crises: A Summary
Some mainstream grand narrative would divide China’s development
into two periods marked by the year 1978. According to this narra-
tive, the Chinese economy before 1978 had been strangled by insti-
tutional constraints; afterwards, China took off because of the Reform
and Open Up as its developmental momentum was released.This book
does not take this mainstream narrative, but instead looks into China’s
development as a process with various disruptions. As a late developing
country with below average per capita resources, China has taken the
path of introvert accumulation whereas the western model of expan-
sionary and predatory development could not be followed. Under a
condition of capital scarcity, China has relied on foreign investment
in different periods with varied manners and therefore had to bear the
cost, both financial and institutional, including foreign debts and insti-
tutional contradictions (urban-rural dual structure, conflicts of interests
between central and local governments, institutional adaption and tran-
sitioninordertoaccommodateforeigninvestment, beitsovietisationin
the 1950s or Americanization since the 1980s).These costs and contra-
dictionswereexpressedassocial,economicandsocialtensions,aswellas