China's Agricultural Economy Research Articles

The sequencing of reform policies in China's agricultural transition*

AbstractThis paper provides evidence regarding gains due to agricultural market liberalization in China. We empirically identify the different effects that incentive and farm restructuring reforms and gradual market liberalization have on China's agricultural economy during its transition period. We find that average gains within the agricultural sector due to reforms that improved incentives and increased decision‐making authority of producers exceed gains due to market liberalization by a large margin. Our method of analyzing the effects of transition policies on economic performance can be generalized to other reform paths in other transition economies.

Trade policy, biotechnology and grain self‐sufficiency in China

AbstractOver the past 20 years the growth of China's agricultural economy has been extraordinary. However, it seems unlikely that China will maintain self‐sufficiency in grains by 2005 without substantial intervention. We develop a CGE model to assess the options available to Chinese policy makers. We compare the welfare effects of import tariffs and domestic support, and explore the potential of biotechnology as a means to achieve self‐sufficiency through improvements in agricultural productivity. Our results indicate that the price interventions that would be required to maintain China's desired self‐sufficiency ratios are considerable, and are unlikely to be compatible with WTO accession. The productivity improvements required are also significant, and likely beyond the current potential of biotechnology.

Sequencing and the Success of Gradualism: Empirical Evidence from China's Agricultural Reform

This paper provides evidence regarding gains to agricultural market liberalization in China. We empirically identify the different effects that incentive reforms and gradual market liberalization have on China's agricultural economy during its transition period. We find that average gains within the agricultural sector to incentive reform exceed gains to market liberalization by a factor of ten. Our method of analyzing the effects of transition policies on economic performance can be generalized to other reform paths in other transition economies.

Stagnation Without Equity: Patterns of Growth and Inequality in China's Rural Economy

When China's leaders launched rural reforms in the late 1970s, they acknowledged the nation's need to modify its commitment to egalitarianism.1 Slogans such as Tt is glorious to be rich!' and 'Some areas will lead; others will follow!' signalled this fundamental shift in ideology. Leaders backed up these exhortations with a series of concrete policy actions ? establishing the Special Economic Zones and implementing the East Coast-first policy, introducing financial reforms, and initiating the rural industrialization movement. In China's version of the 'trickle down' theory, certain core areas were to take the lead in the modernization process and provide models for other areas to later emulate. Adopting strategies that had been employed

Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo jingji dituji (National economic atlas of the People's Republic of China), and: National Economic Atlas of China (review)

Reviews 291© 1995 by University ofHawai'i Press China was not even a feudal society. Likewise he assumes that Mao could and would have successfully defended the Jiangxi Soviet against Chiang Kai-shek's Fifth Extermination Campaign had it not been for Wang Ming's "disastrous leadership" (p. 16). There are other similar mistakes, but there is no point in listing them. One hopes they reflect slips on the part ofthe author and not any ideological position. Steve Tsang St. Antony's College, Oxford ISl Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguojingji dituji (National economic atlas ofthe People's Republic ofChina). Beijing: China Cartographical Publications, 1993.373 pp. 34 ? 50 cm. 620 yuan. National Economic Atlas ofChina. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.350 pp. 34 ? 50 cm. $375.00. For many years prior to the 1990s, maps and charts were considered confidential materials for internal use only in China. Except for simple tourist maps, foreign travelers and visitors were not allowed to take maps out of the country. In view of such restrictive measures in the recent past, the publication ofthe National Economic Atlas is indeed a milestone. The English version of the atlas issued by Oxford University Press should be particularly welcomed by scholars outside China. The adas is a collective product ofseveral government research agencies, in particular , the Institute ofGeography ofthe Chinese Academy ofSciences, the National Economic Information Center, and tiie Statistical Science Research Institute ofthe National Statistical Bureau. Ithad been in preparation for several years, as the preface ofthe adas was written by the Compilation and Editing Com-mittee in November 1988 and the calligraphynoting die significance ofthe adas was made by die premier Li Peng in August 1989. The adas was not published until 1993, probably due to the need for more time to include the final tabulation of the 1990 population census data, one ofthe key types ofsource material employed in this enormous volume. The atlas starts with a lengthy editorial statement describing its composition, including the number ofmaps in each sector, the major source materials employed , procedures ofquantitative analysis, the application ofcomputer mapping methods, die character ofbase maps and map projections, systems and classification ofeconomic indicators, the design and selection ofmap symbols, and the 292 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 construction and printing ofmaps in color. This useful statement was contributed by Liu Yue, the Chief ofthe Editorial Committee for the atlas. The atlas is composed often major sections: (1) Resources, (2) Population, (3) Economic Indicators, (4) Agriculture, (5) Industry, (6) Communication and Transportation, (7) Infrastructure and Environmental Protection, (8) Commerce, Trade Finance, and Tourism, (9) Education, Scientific Research, Sports, and Medical Care, and (10) Comprehensive Economy of Provinces. Emphasis is placed on industry, which accounts for eighty-four maps, 31.7 percent of the total maps in the atlas. There are also thirty-two maps portraying the spatial distribution of China's agricultural economy, ranging from crop composition and per capita and per acre output values to the frequency of natural disasters. These informative maps have very little overlap with the National Agricultural Atlas ofthe People's Republic ofChina, compiled by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and published by Cartographic Publications in 1989. The latter is also a collaborative work, involving forty-six national research institutes and universities and based on 1983 statistics. Readers may wish to look at both atlases to get a more complete picture of China's agricultural economy in a spatial perspective. Relatively weak is the section on environmental quality, with only three maps depicting the quantity and disposal of three types ofwaste—solid, liquid, and gaseous —produced by Chinese cities. No information is given on the pollution of rivers, lakes, or coastal waters. The environmental quality ofrural areas is not mentioned. The relative importance ofdifferent sections ofthe atlas appears to coincide widi die priority China has given to national development in recent years. A commendable feature of this atlas is that the cartographic technology is state-of-the-art. China's geographic location is effectively portrayed by an Orthographic Azimuthal projection, with the center near the middle ofdie Sichuan Basin at 300N and 1050E, showing a minimum distortion in shape and area and maintaining a nearly conformai...

The Agricultural Sector in China: Performance and Policy Dilemmas during the 1990s

The varied experience of China's agricultural economy during the 1980s highlights the challenges and opportunities facing the farm sector during the present decade. Until 1985 agriculture's performance was widely regarded as an unqualified success. Decollectivization and institutional initiatives provided a framework which allowed, for the majority of farmers, an unprecedented degree of independence in decision-making. Farming was once more practised on a household basis, peasants' activities were increasingly geared towards market signals and their economic relationship with the state defined by legal contracts. Large increases in the purchase prices of major farm products provided the material incentive for the expansion of all branches of the agricultural economy. These same increases were the source of substantial gains in income, which contained the wherewithal for large-scale investment in agricultural production.

China and the World: Self-Reliance or Interdependence?

China's principle of self-reliance appears to have 4 sources: 1) having known the pain of dependence in the period of the Manchu Dynasty's encounter with the West, the Chinese are determined to be totally independent; 2) self-reliance appears to be related to China's long tradition of cultural self-containment; 3) a key tenet of Marxism to which history and culture pushed Mao is that internal factors are always decisive in a country's affairs; and 4) objective facts of China's great size and agricultural economy have made self-reliance in part the rationalization of necessity. The first 3 of these 4 sources of the principle of self-reliance are not immutable. In fact, self-reliance is being severely modified economically and politically, although not as yet militarily. China's trade with the world increased markedly in value during the 1970s, from U.S. $3.86 billion in 1969 to about U.S. $15 billion in 1975. A certain institutionalization of the country's international economic involvement also seems to be taking place. Behind all these developments is an apparent rejection of strict self-reliance in the sense of buying only what cannot be made and selling only waht is left over in favor of tentative acceptance of the law of comparative advantage in international economic relationships. On the political level a certain acceptance of an interdependent world is evident. The Chinese leadership, however has not been compltely united on these departures from self-reliance. Certain specific natural and socio-political factors that bear on the fate of self-reliance are identified. The 4th source of self-reliance--objective facts of China's size and agricultural character--appears the most persistent and will continue to be the major constraint against any clear-cut abandonment of self-reliance.