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A Closer View of China's Problems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Francis L. K. Hsu
Francis L. K. Hsu
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

The current belief is that China is a country where most land belongs to landlords who do not till their soil but suck the blood of their tenants. Dr. Sun, founder of the Chinese Republic, was under this impression when he specified in his program that “all tillers must own their soil.” The Chinese Communists took this as one of their most basic points of attack. To quote Edgar Snow:

Now, wherever the Reds went there is no doubt they radically changed the situation for the tenant fanner, the poor farmer, the middle farmer, and all the “havenot” elements. All forms of taxation were abolished in the new districts for the first year…. Secondly, they gave land to the land-hungry peasants…. Thirdly, they took land and livestock from the wealthy classes and redistributed among the poor. Redistribution of land was a fundamental of Red policy.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , November 1946, pp. 50 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1946

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References

1 Red star over China (New York: Random House, 1938), p. 216Google Scholar.

2 Report/ram red China (New York: Henry Holt, 1945), p. 178Google Scholar.

3 Land utilization in China (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1937), pp. 194—95Google Scholar. While accepting these figures on their face value one must exercise caution in using them for purposes of comparison from region to region as well as with other countries, such as the United States. The percentages of tenancy in China and in America may approximate each other, but the meaning of tenancy as well as the size of farm, amount of rent, standard of living, etc. are so different in the two countries that the effects of tenancy are quite different. See Fei, H. T. and Chang, T. Y.: Earthbound China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945), pp. 2–3Google Scholar. In the case of the amount of rent paid by tenants the picture is just as varied, but there is no indication anywhere that the amount ever reaches 80% of the produce. In Buck's, J. L.Chinese/arm economy (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1930)Google Scholar we find that rents vary between 24.6% in Kiangning Hsien, Kiangsu to 66.6% at Wutai Hsien, Shansi. The average of 11 localities in seven provinces is 40.5% (p. 148 and p. 149). In Kwangtung province, where the percentage of tenancy is highest for all China, rents range from 40 to 60% of the produce. In poor land the rent drops to a little over 20% (Chen, H. S.: Landlord and peasant in China [New York: International Publishers, 1936], pp. 54–72)Google Scholar.

4 Snow, op. cit., p. 216.

5 For a brief summary see Kung-lu, Ch'en, Chung-kuo chin-tai shih [Chinese history in modern times] (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934), vol. 1, pp. 8–12Google Scholar.

6 ibid., vol. 1, pp. 8–9.

7 ibid., vol. l.p. 8.

8 Meng, T. P. and Gamble, Sidney D.: “Prices, wages and the standard of living in Peking, 1900–1924,” Chinese social and political science review (Special supplement, July 1926), 96 and 99; the value of the tael was greater than the dollarGoogle Scholar.

9 Parkcs, Henry B., Recent America (New York: Thomas Crowell Company, 1941), pp. 641 and 647Google Scholar.

10 Tung-chi chi poo [Quarterly journal of statistics], no. 8 (Dec. 1936), 108. The third character should be chi, Giles no. 944.

11 Quarterly journal of economics of the Chinese economic society (Dec. 1932), 71.

12 Investigations of the Ministry of Industries, quoted in Lowe, C. H., Facing labor issues in China (London, 1934), p. 13Google Scholar.

13 Kia-ngau, Chang: “Some economic symptoms in China,” China critic, 5 (Oct. 6, 1932), no. 40Google Scholar.

14 Kann, E.: “How much silver is there in China?”, Chinese economic journal, 8 (April, 1931), no. 4.Google Scholar

15 China among the powers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1945), pp. 32–33Google ScholarPubMed.

16 Fei and Chang, op. cit., pp. 306–10.

17 For definition of the two categories see Anderson, W. A., Population trend in New York state, Cornell University bulletin, no. 786, Nov. 1942 (Ithaca, 1942), pp. 3 and 6.Google Scholar

18 Fei and Chang did not include any detailed figures for all of China. G. B. Cressey's summary shows that agricultural China (omitting the Khingan Mountains, Central Asiatic Steppes and Deserts, and Tibetan Borderland) has a total of 206,833,061 acres of cultivated land. The population for this area is 477,474,149, thus giving a per person holding of 0.43 acre (China's geographic foundations [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1934], p. 395Google Scholar). If we take five persons as the average size of Chinese family this means a per family holding of about 2.15 acres. Now let us use the higher estimate and suppose that 80 per cent of China's population is rural. Also let us suppose with Fei, that 60 or 70 years hence China will be industrialized to the same extent as the United States. Then 50 per cent and not 30 per cent more of China's population will leave the farm, while only 30 per cent of the total population (or about 143,250,000) will then depend primarily upon land. Not counting increase of population or of cultivated land, this will mean an average per person holding of 1.44 acres or a per family holding of 7.2 acres.

19 Without the psychological urge for a raised standard of living there will be no incentive to birth control. All data on the Chinese family in rural areas show that its size increases with size of farm holding. On the other hand, it is generally accepted that, in Britain and the United States higher class parents produce fewer children than lower class ones.

20 Fei and Chang, op. cit., p. 311.

21 Fei and Chang, op. cit., pp. 308–309.

22 See Walker, C. Lester: “The China legend,” Harper's magazine (March 1946), 239Google Scholar.

23 The growing importance of Soviet Russia in Chinese affairs must be recognized. Where Soviet Russia will come in and what part she will play in the scheme of things is a question which is outside the scope of the present paper, but which must be given full and careful consideration.