The Political Economy of Cropping in Maoist and Dengist China: Hebei Province and Shulu County, 1949–90

Abstract

Chinese state socialism has, for many years, politicized what crops the country's farmers plant. By doing so, it has transformed the agriculture radically and repeatedly. The state has adopted some strikingly different policy directions and modalities during both the Maoist and Dengist periods. Cleavages between the state and rural society have been opened, closed and re-opened more than once. The political importance and role of intermediate levels of the Chinese state – in particular, provincial and county governments – in affecting policy, mediating between society and the central state, and pursuing their own interests has long been sensed by scholars and Chinese politicians. But they remain largely unspecified.