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J. Rowinski (Poland)

ON THE QUESTION OF CHINA’S INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT
IN THE 1970s

p Any analysis of the tendency of China’s further development should proceed from due orientation in the arrangement of the internal forces in the country, the motive forces behind the development of social relations, the ideological orientation of various classes and strata, their political attitudes, and also from a knowledge of the activity of the centres and members of the leadership displaying scepticism about or expressing opposition to Mao Tse-tung’s strategic line. Unfortunately, however, very little is known about all these things. The absence of the starting point for analysis tends to complicate any forecast of China’s further development to any optimal degree of probability. That being so, my task will be merely to formulate some of the working propositions concerning the possible consequences of the Chinese leadership’s present line on the strength of the very meagre information which has reached us along various channels and also on the basis of the foreign writings containing more extensive information on this question.

p It looks as though no fundamental changes are likely to take place in China in the immediate period ahead. The urge for accelerated development, for the purpose of acquiring the status of great power and leader in Asia, will continue to determine the domestic and foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China. If this goal is to be attained, there is need to eliminate the basic contradiction between the task that has been set and the highly limited potentialities in the 237 sphere of the country’s economic and military development. In practice this means continued struggle for the adoption of a model of development which could yield in the shortest period maximum accumulations for the country’s industrialisation and the development of its military potential.

p Considering the real balance of strength in the Chinese leadership, it may be assumed that the main line in China’s economic policy will be one aimed to ensure accumulation and development of industrialisation based on the principle of “walking on both feet”. In practice this means:

p —adoption of a iine of compromise between the advocates of priority development for the heavy industry and the advocates of maintaining the leading role for agriculture, that is, emphasis on the development of military industry and agriculture and postponement of a development of the light industry;

p —adaptation to this line of the structure of foreign trade, which is to import above all strategic raw materials, grain and chemical fertilisers, while considerably increasing the export of raw materials and incresaing the export of consumer goods to the utmost;

p —parallel development of industries financed by the state, and a line towards intensified regional industrialisation in accordance with the “reliance on one’s strength" principle;

p —emphasis on a simultaneous application of the most modern technology and primitive forms of production on a massive scale.

p A component part of the incipient strategy will be a programme for consolidating the current egalitarian system of remuneration for labour, abolition of material incentives and a freeze on the people’s living standards. Such a policy should result in definite changes in the structure of society. These changes will take place with the realisation of the urge to make the maximum use of China’s natural resources, above all its vast manpower resources, the instrument of development. This will then pose the problem of effective organisation and control of society for the purpose of imposing on the country a military model in accordance with Mao Tse-tung’s conception. The Chinese leadership will, most probably, make the economic basis of this model a 238 programme providing for the “independence” of some sectors of the national economy and the services from state financing (agriculture, manufacture of consumer goods and public health service), that is, a shift of the main burden of social security and capital investment in industry on the shoulders of the population. In the light of this, one may expect a strengthening of the tendency towards the economic independence of the “people’s communes" and local industry, relative decentralisation of planning in the main economic and social units in accordance with the slogans of “reliance on one’s own strength" and “not taking from the state a single feng”, and also a strengthening of direct leadership and control of the central authority over the leading sectors of production, connected with the arms industry, especially the development of the nuclear-missile potential.

p The need to right the grave economic disruptions caused by the “cultural revolution" (above all those in industry and transport) gives ground to assume that the most important programme task over the immediate period ahead will be to re-establish and then to surpass the 1966 level of gross industrial output.

p By the mid-1970s, given political stability, China could surpass the 1970 gross industrial output by roughly 40-60 per cent. This means that growth rate will be slower than that in the first five-year period or in some years of the “ordering" period. But this may affect only the heavy industries which do not turn out arms. The existing tendency to continue the policy of holding down growth rate in the civilian industries and the line to mobilise everything for the maximum use of existing productive facilities and to complete the use of funds in capital construction frozen in 1961 and 1962 will, apparently, have an influence on the further development of Chinese industry.

p Concerning new industrial enterprises, the advantages for building enterprises servicing agriculture or located in rural areas (power stations, chemical fertiliser plants and farming machinery plants) will most probably be maintained. The cost of building these enterprises will be covered mainly from local funds; their technical equipment will be fairly simple, with a low productive capacity. This suggests that China will not be able to overcome the difficulties caused by 239 the scarcity of machinery and equipment, spare parts and raw materials.

p However, this assessment does not deny that in some sectors of the national economy China could score marked successes in a fairly short time. An example is provided not only by the achievements in the development of nuclear weapons and rockets, but also by the fact that despite the large requirements in investments into fixed assets, China has adopted, according to Western sources, a “research coefficient" on Japan’s level, and a national defence budget percentage almost as high as that of the United States. China’s military budget is estimated”to consume over 20 per cent of gross output, the bulk of these resources, probably, going into the development of rocketry and the construction of a navy, to which much attention has been given in the recent period.

p As for agriculture, to which the “cultural revolution" did relatively small damage, it may be assumed that its output growth will not be very fast, roughly 10-15 per cent. According to foreign assessments, gross grain output in 1969 was in excess of 180-190 million tons, that is, on the 1957 level. The present policy of stimulating agricultural development may (if the weather is good) yield a considerable effect only in the mid-1970s. What is highly important, but relatively unknown, is the question of the advance made in the research into or application of foreign achievements in the introduction of the higher-yield strains of cereals.^^1^^ This question is largely connected not only with the productivity of agriculture, but also with the natural growth of China’s population. If the present line of stimulating agricultural development is maintained, the most that can be expected in the next fiveyear period in agricultural production (account being taken of the population growth) is an increase of agricultural out’ put of no more than 2 per cent. This will, apparently, not make it possible to obtain enough food to abolish the rationing system for the staple foodstuffs and manufactured goods. Any further investments into agriculture will, possibly, go above all into plans for developing new lands, irrigation programmes, construction of chemical fertiliser plants and improvement of the soil tillage system.

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p Foreign trade will develop along the lines corresponding to the economic development programme. China will, quite possibly, make some changes in the structure of trade and in the selection of its trade partners, something that has already partially been done. In the future China will look to foreign trade mainly as a source of replenishing its own scarce resources. Consequently, apart from a tendency towards more vigorous trade with the rest of the world, no radical activisation of foreign trade can be expected so long, at any rate, as the programme for doing away with China’s backwardness through a system of partial autarky is maintained. This status of foreign trade in the economy gives ground to assume that China’s share of world trade will differ only very slightly from the present level, which comes to only 1 per cent. Realisation of China’s far-reaching aims will confirm the present tendency towards growing imports of scarce strategic raw materials and smaller purchases of machinery and steel. The purchases of grain, chemical fertilisers, metalwares and raw materials (copper, rubber, cotton and zinc) will reach a high level. Foodstuffs and agricultural and also manufactured consumer goods will predominate in export.

p It may be assumed that the question of China’s partners in foreign trade will in the future also be decided in the light of the primacy of politics over economics. This means a line of increasing trade with the capitalist countries in the so-called intermediate zone and some invigoration of trade with the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and also relatively broad expansion in the markets of South-East Asia.

p China’s development in the next few years will go hand in hand with a search for forms of state organisation best corresponding to the adopted conception. This implies continued manipulation of manpower resources (programmes of forced migration of urban population into the countryside), consolidation of new centralised organs of power in the form of revolutionary committees, development of a situation in which even the re-established party will have the role not so much of the centre of power as of an executive and control instrument, and also transformation of the organisational and production structure of the communes and state enterprises on military lines. This means continued mobilisation of 241 forces for the purpose of eliminating the negative consequences of the “cultural revolution”, notably the disruption of the economy, law and order, and labour discipline, the division of society, etc. There is no doubt that in the 1970s, China’s leadership will go on to the second stage of the “cultural revolution" providing for the implementation of Mao Tse-tung’s strategic plan. (The first stage of the “cultural revolution" provided for the rout of the opposition in organisational terms, undermining of the authority of its representatives and denigration of their alternative programme for China’s development, establishment of a new leadership and preparation of ideological, political and organisational conditions for the practical implementation of Mao Tse-tung’s strategic plan.) The main task in these conditions will be a striving to complete the construction of the new model of the state-power apparatus at every echelon and in every sector of social life.

p It will be fairly difficult to fulfil this task, if only because of the differences between the various groupings and strata of society, and also because of the rivalry between the forces seeking to dominate the apparatus of power (the army, the administrative personnel, the executives and the government officials, the forces which appeared during the “cultural revolution”, representing the so-called revolutionary “Left” mass organisations). But the army will, most probably, be the motive force and mainstay of this process. The main blow will be directed at the ultra-Left, who played the decisive role at the first stage of the “cultural revolution”, and whom the Chinese leadership is now vigorously removing, believing them to be dangerous for the process of consolidation.

p The complexity of the question is rooted not only in the objective difficulties arising from the actual arrangement of forces and the problem of power in the provinces. Doubts about the real possibility of consolidating the apparatus of power and society itself spring from other causes as well. First of all, there is the contradiction between the aim of consolidation and the main method of achieving this, which consists in an urge to maintain internal tension. This may well produce a situation which is the very opposite of what the Maoist leadership had intended, that is, instead of consolidation a growing number of social conflicts, and then a 242 gradual polarisation in the Chinese leadership between the orthodox Maoists (extreme nationalists) and the “realist”-nationalists (administrative and economic apparatus, the bulk of the army apparatus, now exercising administrative, control and repressive functions). A clash between these forces could, of course, result in a gradual modification of economic and social policy and with time in a review of the programme itself, but not a change of its aims. This process may grow as Mao Tse-tung’s influence weakens and social discontent grows. This, for its part, could well lead to the emergence of Centrists, vacillating between Mao Tse-tung’s programme propositions and a more moderate policy borrowing some elements from the alternative programme of those who are considered opponents of the “cultural revolution”. It is also quite possible that with the departure of the present leadership this pragmatic centre will be strengthened and may to some extent entail the implementation of an “opposition without opposition" programme and also a new interpretation of “Mao Tse-tung’s thoughts”.

p Thus, the main problems of internal policy facing China over the next five-year period will, apparently, bear on these questions:

p The problem of Mao Tse-tung’s successor (in 1980 Mao Tse-tung will be 86) and of successors for virtually the whole present leading group (the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee). This problem has become most acute in the recent period, since the dismissal of Lin Piao. There is need to reckon with the sharp struggle for power in which, assuming a continuation of the present arrangement of forces, the army (provided it remains united) will have the decisive say. An analysis of the make-up of the Politburo and the CPC Central Committee warrants the assumption of a take-over by a group with the same kind of nationalistic mentality but more practical-minded and realistic. This could result in a gradual change in the programme: the strategic aims could remain the same, but the methods of realising the line could be radically different.

p Problems arising from the socio-political structure of the apparatus, above all the question of relations between the army and the re-establishment of the Party, and possible internal strife on this basis.

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p Questions of proportions in the development of the national economy together with the primacy of the policy of intensive armament.

p Social conflicts in connection with the realisation of the economic policy in town and countryside (the contradiction between the rate of accumulation and the people’s living standards).

p The problem of high-skilled personnel for the national economy.

The problem of population growth.

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^^1^^ The latest data indicate considerable effort in this direction. This involves chemical preparation No. 702 and research being carried on at institutes in Peking, Shanghai and Kwangchow.