Huang (1995) remarks
"Disjunctions between official constructions of rural class struggle and social reality, then, occurred on multiple levels. The focal point of class struggle during the Land Reform was the villages, but the biggest landlords were in fact usually absentee, not resident, and many of those escaped class struggle entirely. Within the villages, only some of those struggled against as landlords and as rich peasants were real landlords and real rich peasants by the definition of the Land Reform Law. Millions of others who were neither were nonetheless made into targets, most especially during the radical Civil War period of the Land Reform. Even in the more orderly postvictory Land Reform, many more were falsely classified and struggled. Some were made class enemies because of transgressions other than those of class: working in or sympathizing with the Guomindang, conversion to a foreign religion, collaboration with the Japanese, or bad behavior;(….). The literal application of the Party's macro-structural analysis to each and every microsocietal village created wide disjunctions between representational and objective reality."
Yan (2020) concludes
"Under the First FYP, sectoral achievements exceeded national planning. Between 1953 and 1957, the railway sector was highly centralized under the Ministry of Railways (MOR), and railway production was characterized as highly concentrated, greatly coordinated and semi-militarized. The central government also adopted the Soviet Union’s planned transport and one-man management System to strengthen national planning, which meticulously planned railway production from road construction to locomotive manufacturing and loading capacity."
Peruzzi (2017) lists all the benefits of the special relationship between Hongkong and UK "The ‘special relationship’ between Hong Kong and mainland China
had multiple reasons to exist. Hong Kong’s industry needed low-cost
raw materials and labour, as well as food and water from China; this
soon developed into a decisive dependence on maintaining an ‘open
door’ with Socialist China. However, the PRC also needed the financial
and logistic services which only Hong Kong could provide. The colony
was the operative base for PRC-controlled banks and enterprises
formally registered there,90
which enabled them to bypass embargoes
and other forms of international controls.91
Above all, Hong Kong
represented the most important supplier of sterling for the PRC
economy, both through migrants’ remittances and the direct purchase
of sterling and sterling securities. "
Article 35...
Fig. : Regional allocation of industrial investment, 1953–57 (in millions ¥)
Hirata (2023). Page 1100
"Industrialization in Mao-era China was colored by frequent ruptures brought by
changes in high politics and diplomacy. At the ground level, however, there were strong
continuities across these changes in physical assets, institutions, human resources, and
faith in the state’s capacity to direct the nation’s industrialization. The Japanese and Na-
tionalist legacies in Manchuria influenced the shape of China’s Soviet-style industrialization
in the First Five-Year Plan. In turn, the legacies of Soviet-style industrialization continued
to influence the development of China’s planned economy even after Mao’s expressed de-
parture from the Soviet model. Such continuities and similarities were made possible by the
common “ideology of development” shared by these rival regimes.153"
Article 40...
Ting (1980) concludes
"Notwithstanding the subsequent submission of the industrialists and merchants to nationalization, the fact remains that the Chinese tax system, possibly for good reasons, has favored relatively regressive commodity and trade taxes over what in the West are considered more progressive forms of taxation. The salt tax is the clearest example of a regressive tax which is a heavier burden on the poor than on those with surplus income. Similarly, the industrial and commercial tax both before and after consolidation had the effect of raising consumer prices for all, though the potential regressive effect may be offset somewhat by the preferential rates on foodstuffs and necessary consumer goods. It is difficult to estimate whether the agricultural tax has a progressive or regressive impact."
Shue (1976) "While the activities of private merchants may have sparked
hoarding and speculation by individual peasants, the real roots
of the problem were seen as lying in the very nature of the small
peasant economy. Thus, Unified Purchase was intended not
only to rectify the immediate economic instability, but also to
create the conditions for a quicker transition to socialism in the
village" The Chinese Communist Party's tax law reform, transitioning from localized to centralized systems, effectively integrated local fiscal infrastructures, shaping them into a modern tax framework. Moreover, the party adopted a top-down strategy to establish a standardized and auditable accounting system, overcoming information asymmetry. The integration of centralized tax laws grounded in local structures, coupled with uniform accounting standards, played a crucial role in the rapid fiscal success of the People's Republic of China.
