Prosperity and Conflict in Post-Mao Rural China
- 1 March 1986
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in The China Quarterly
- Vol. 105, 1-18
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741000036742
Abstract
In 1980 thePeople's Dailyreported that 200 million Chinese peasants were living below the poverty line, while in 1982 Vicepremier Wan Li admitted the “for many years in the past, more than 150 million peasants had not solved the problem of not having enough to eat.” To enrich the rural economy, Party leaders called on peasants to pursue numerous private roads to prosperity. The new policy, highlighted by the phrase “permit some peasants to get rich first” (rang yixie nongmin xian fuqilai), allows households who are more industrious, more innovative and, of course, those with better personal and economic ties, to utilize their skills, personal relationships, excess labour power, and comparative advantages to accrue wealth quickly.Keywords
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