Agricultural Instability in China, 1931-1991: Weather, Technology, and Institutions (review)

Abstract

Reviews 465© 1996 by University ofHawai'i Press James Scott in Weapons ofthe Weak To this reviewer, what happened during the early 1980s does not deviate in any significant way from China's ancient, ifoften misunderstood, tradition ofpeasant tricks, pressure, and disturbances. As for the myth ofrevolutionary peasants, I had hoped it had long been buried. As far as China is concerned, I am at a loss to discover any striking inconsistency in the behavior ofthe northern (Border Regions) peasants in 1937-1949, their late Qing and early Republic fathers and grandfathers, and their 1980s grandsons. Lucien Bianco Lucien Bianco is Professor ofHistory and specializes at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris. UE Y. Y. Kueh. Agricultural Instability in China, 1931-1991: Weather, Technology , and Institutions. Studies on Contemporary China series. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. xxv, 387 pp. Hardcover $75.00, isbn 019-828777-1. Y. Y. Kueh's study offluctuations in agricultural output and average yields over a sixty-year period began with a somewhat less ambitious desire to untangle the contributing factors behind the disastrous food shortages ofdie "three hard years" of1959-1961, in which millions of Chinese peasants died ofhunger and malnutrition -related illnesses. During Mao's lifetime, especiallyduring the Cultural Revolution , the official Chinese evaluation of the causes of the disaster allocated blame according to a ratio in which 70 percent oflosses were attributable to unusually severe and extensive drought and flooding, while 30 percent were seen as caused by policy errors. In the post-Mao era a fuller picture ofthe extent ofthe crisis and, in particular, the appalling scale ofthe demographic impact was made public . From the perspective of the new policy context, the debacle was reevaluated by Chinese analysts, who generally concluded that policy errors were by far the most important factor contributing to the disastrous decline in grain production. Both before and since the réévaluation inside China, Western commentators have also tended to focus on policy errors. While Professor Kueh does not deny the significance ofthe policy errors, he wanted to know just how serious and extensive were the natural disasters. He set out to develop a methodology that would enable him to evaluate what might have been the impact ofthe weather if the policies had not been imposed and whatwould have been the impact ifthe 466 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 policies had been imposed but the weather had been favorable. This required an analysis of agricultural instability over a much longer period to provide a database of statistics on precipitation, area affected by flooding or drought, grain output , grain-sown area, grain yield per sown hectare, and gross value of agricultural output. In order to isolate the impact ofweather, it was necessary to factor in the impact of the introduction of new agricultural technologies as well as institutional and policy innovations. A major effort was required to develop a weather index based on the analysis of the sown area affected by natural disasters. In order to draw out the impact of technological, institutional, and/or policy innovations, Kueh has organized his data into periods differentiated by such shifts. This has enabled him to draw comparisons of output and yield stability and the influence ofweather relative to policy, institutional, or technological factors. Analysis ofyear-by-year fluctuations in output and average yields, weather conditions , and policy and institutional innovations has also enabled him to draw comparisons between particular years of crisis or exceptionally good results. Thus, for example, he contrasts the impact of major policy shifts in 1959-1960 and 1985. Kueh's analysis yields some surprising conclusions that challenge prevailing interpretations inside and outside China. For example, from his comparison of the 1930s and the 1950s, periods in which there was little change in traditional methods of cultivation, he concludes that collectivization had a stabilizing impact on agricultural output by eliminating rural migration in the face of natural disasters and providing an institutional framework for the mobilization ofpeasants to cope with bad weather. Kueh also notes the impact of the policy bias in favor of grain production. This became most pronounced during the Cultural Revolution. One problem with the...