The modernization of contemporary China began in 1978, immediately after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution.

Authors Avatar

I. Introduction

The modernization of contemporary China began in 1978, immediately after the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping summarized the modernization of China into four programs: the modernization of agriculture, the modernization of industry, the modernization of science and technology, and lastly, the modernization of military and defense industry and technology. The first three themes aim to improve the overall living standards of the people and the material wealth of the society. 

The modernization programs are closely related to the reforms of the relevant sectors. The core of the modernization of agriculture is the rural reform; the urban reform is introduced to facilitate the modernization of industry; and the education reform is the key to the modernization of science and technology standard in China. These reforms do not run smooth, however, particularly the rural and urban reforms, which require the introduction of market mechanism and object the planned economy system under the socialist ideology. Furthermore, the partial modernization of the country has created tremendous problems in wealth distributions and relative deprivations, which have created many social problems that the Chinese authority must handle them with great care in order to maintain stability and continuous growth in China’s economy.

In this paper, I would discuss the most recent policies in China’s rural, urban and education reform, the policies adopted, and the problems arise under these reforms.

II. Rural Reform Policies

Recovering the catastrophic consequences from the Cultural Revolution, the rural reform aims to increase productions of grain by dismantling the People’s Communes. The responsibility system is based on Liu Shaoqi’s “Three Freedoms and One Contract” system. This 1960’s policy included the free markets, private plots and peasant responsibility for managing their own farms on the basis of contracts for fixed output quotas for each household. This policy was an incentive system which attempted to encourage productions by allowing the peasants to retain some of their productions and let them decide the faith of those retained. While this policy at that time was considered as “revisionist” and “capitalist”, the main features of his policy was retained by Deng Xiaoping at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee as the base stone for the nowadays responsibility system.

The Party has approved a number of methods which could be used under the responsibility system. “Baochan Daohu” (“to fix farm output quota for each household”) is one of these methods, which permits a township to make land available to each household, usually a family, in accordance with its labor capacity. The production team and the household signs a contract fixing the quota the household is obligated to fulfill. The rest of the production is retained by the household. Another type of rural responsibility system is the concept of full responsibility to the household. Under this method, the household signs a contract with the village, instead of the township, to assume all responsibility for work on the land and to bear the entire responsibility for its own profit and loss. Land is contracted to the household on a per capita basis by the village. Farm implements and draft animals are permanently assigned to the household under contract. The household has to meet both the state procurement requirements as well as to assume full responsibility for managing the land and fulfilling all its obligations to the village. Again, the remainder of its production could be retained by the household. The implementation of the responsibility system follows the incremental approach, that is, it was first tried out in a number of test points before implementing to the entire country nowadays. The tests were of great success: from 1978 to 1984, grain production had increased by 45%.

The price of the food is no longer determined by the state, instead the price is determined by the free market. The market system allows the peasants to know what goods are in need by the market, and thus the peasants move into production of those needed marketable goods.

Join now!

The success of the responsibility system in the countryside enabled Deng to further legitimize and institutionalize the “Baogan Daohu”, the system of leasing land owned collectively by the township under contract. The duration of household contracts are 30 years. This gives the peasants a sense of permanence and stability in their contracts, thus making them more willing to investigate and cultivate on their contracted lands. Furthermore, those who are less successful at farming are encouraged to lease and even sell their land to others to start up services sorely needed in the countryside. This has encouraged the emergence of rural industries.

...

This is a preview of the whole essay