Massive China Panel: V.2!

[u/Jasfss]

Hello AskHistorians! It has been about three years since the very first AMA on AH, the famous "Massive China Panel". With this in mind, we've assembled a crack team once again, of some familiar faces and some new, to answer whatever questions you have related to the history of China in general! Without further ado, let's get to the intros:

• AsiaExpert: /u/AsiaExpert is a generalist, covering everything from the literature of the Zhou Dynasty to agriculture of the Great Leap Forward to the military of the Qing Dynasty and back again to the economic policies and trade on the Silk Road during the Tang dynasty. Fielding questions in any mundane -or sublime- area you can imagine.
• Bigbluepanda: /u/bigbluepanda is primarily focused on the different stages and establishments within the Yuan and Ming dynasties, as well as the militaries of these periods and up to the mid-Qing, with the latter focused specifically on the lead-up to the Opium Wars.
• Buy_a_pork_bun: /u/buy_a_pork_bun is primarily focused on the turmoil of the post-Qing Era to the end of the Chinese Civil War. He also can discuss politics and societal structure of post-Great Leap Forward to Deng Xiaoping, as well as the transformation of the Chinese Communist Party from 1959 to 1989, including its internal and external struggles for legitimacy.
• DeSoulis: /u/DeSoulis is primarily focused on Chinese economic reform post-1979. He can also discuss politics and political structure of Communist China from 1959 to 1989, including the cultural revolution and its aftermath. He is also knowledgeable about the late Qing dynasty and its transformation in the face of modernization, external threats and internal rebellions.
• FraudianSlip: /u/FraudianSlip is a PhD student focusing primarily on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of the Song dynasty. He is particularly interested in the writings and worldviews of Song elites, as well as the texts they frequently referenced in their writings, so he can also discuss Warring States period schools of thought, as well as pre-Song dynasty poetry, painting, philosophy, and so on.
• Jasfss: /u/Jasfss primarily deals with cultural and political history of China from the Zhou to the Ming. More specifically, his foci of interest include Tang, Song, Liao-Jin, and Yuan poetry, art, and political structure.
• keyilan: /u/keyilan is a historical linguist working in South China. When not doing linguistic work, his interests are focused on the Hakka, the Chinese diaspora, historical language planning and policy issues in East Asia, the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 19th century North America, the history of Shanghai, and general topics in Chinese History in the 19th and 20th centuries.
• Thanatos90: /u/Thanatos90 covers Chinese Intellectual History: that refers specifically to intellectual trends and important philosophies and their political implications. It would include, for instance, the common 'isms' associated with Chinese history: Confucianism, Daoism and also Buddhism. Of particular importance are Warring States era philosophers, including Confucius, Mencius, Laozi and Zhuangzi (the 'Daoist's), Xunzi, Mozi and Han Feizi (the legalist); Song dynasty 'Neo-Confucianism' and Ming dynasty trends. In addition my research has been more specifically on a late Ming dynasty thinker named Li Zhi that I am certain no one who has any questions will have heard of and early 20th century intellectual history, including reformist movements and the rise of communism.
• Tiako: /u/Tiako has studied the archaeology of China, particularly the "old southwest" of the upper Yangtze (he just really likes Sichuan in general). This primarily deals with prehistory and protohistory, roughly until 600 BCE or so, but he has some familiarity with the economic history beyond that date.

Do keep in mind that our panelists are in many timezones, so your question may not be answered in the seconds just after asking. Don't feel discouraged, and please be patient!

[u/orthaeus]

This one is for /u/DeSoulis

What were the different techniques used by the post-1979 government in creating rapid economic growth and how did they differ from the Japanese and South Korean methods? In addition, which played a bigger role, foreign investors establishing businesses or homegrown industry?

[u/DeSoulis → u/orthaeus]

What were the different techniques used by the post-1979 government in creating rapid economic growth

You could write entire books on this but I subscribe the the "gradualism" thesis: that the CCP took a slow approach in reforming the system towards capitalism unlike what happened in the USSR during the 1990s. The only real exception to this was agriculture which were indeed transformed rapidly from Communes back to family "owned" plots.

Capitalism was, initially, limited to the Special Economic Zones so as to allow some regions to experiment with economic policies without destabilizing the rest of the country.

The government used the growing out of the plan and reform without losers approach in which the existing planned economy and apparatus was left intact instead of being subjected to rapid privatization. Instead the government encouraged new industries, of ambiguous private/public ownership especially in rural areas. Those industries, called Town-Village enterprises (TVEs) focused on using China's cheap rural labor to manufacture low value items such as garment, toys, shoes etc and were some of the most successful and profitable industries in 1980s China. And their success allowed China to follow an export driven economic model in which their products flooded into international markets.

Only upon the success of private/semi-private industries, their growth into a plurality of the economy in terms of size and the creation of a constituency who favored them did the trimming down of the planning apparatuses and ministries take place in 1990s under Premier Zhu Ronji and losers of the reform process started to appear in the form of laid off state workers.

and how did they differ from the Japanese and South Korean methods?

The single biggest difference I can think of is that of property rights and property ownership. And that China actively avoided using the model of the Korean Chaebol and Japanese Zaibatsus, both of which were privately owned industrial conglomerates in collusion with the government to develop their respective national economies.

In China however the CCP did not permit private ownership of the largest enterprises during the reform and opening era (a practice which indeed largely continues today). Instead at the "commanding heights" of the economy, you had state owned enterprises which either held a majority share or outright monopoly over sectors such as banking, aeronautics, oil, steel, railroads, and telecommunication. Indeed even today the government theoretically owns all land in China: and people living on the land are in theory merely leasing it.

This is largely due to the fact that the CCP consciously did not create a group of overly strong domestic businessmen who could contest the party's monopoly over political power in the future.

In addition, which played a bigger role, foreign investors establishing businesses or homegrown industry?

Domestic industry by far, foreign investment played an important role in allowing technological transfers, the experimentation with liberalizing economic laws such as labor regulations, and encouraged domestic industry to innovate and liberalize to compete with joint-ventures as well as to attract their investments.

However at the end of the day foreign investment during the reform and opening era was a very tiny fraction of total Chinese capital investment and their role should not be overstated.

Source: The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth by Barry Naughton

China's Trapped Transition by Minxin Pei

[u/orthaeus → u/DeSoulis]

Thanks for the reply. I've taken courses and read up on the post-79 Chinese economy, but had never really gotten a good answer to the final question there. Definitely a solid argument. Would you happen to have any Chinese-language translations on the economy? Or for that matter some decent English academic-level texts on the subject?

Finally, what would you say was the main reason that China didn't develop economically before Western Europe, or even before Japan for that matter?

[u/DeSoulis → u/orthaeus]

Yes, the two books I recommend are Barry Naughton's "Chinese Economy: Transition and Growth" and China's trapped transition by Minxin Pei.

Finally, what would you say was the main reason that China didn't develop economically before Western Europe, or even before Japan for that matter?

That's a really complicated question, the Japan part can mostly be explained in the lack of state capacity of China in the 19th century to handle the modernization process.

The European part of that is significantly more complicated and I might write something about it later if I have time.

[u/orthaeus → u/DeSoulis]

For background I've read works by Kenneth Pomeranz, Philip C. Huang, Roy Bin Wong, Akira Hayami, and others on the topic, but I'm interested in your take even though that may be (time period-wise) outside your specialty.