To understand a country as vast and complex as China is the study of a lifetime. China has changed dramatically within living memory, and continues to change at a pace and scale which is difficult to grasp. And yet many parts of China exemplify a way of life that seems, from a distance, timeless. To understand the reasons why certain traditions have persisted while others have been ruthlessly cast aside, to disentangle the seemingly contradictory impulses which have precipitated the far-reaching convulsions which the country has undergone in the twentieth century, to tease out the issues China confronts today and to identify with the thoughts, beliefs and aspirations of its peoples, is a massive task. Yet China repays study: it exemplifies many of the issues facing both the developed and the developing world, and the way it tackles its problems and the solutions it attempts are fascinating. The Changing China programmes, supported by these Net Notes, offer a way to come to grips with some of these issues.
The five programmes explore the following themes:
Programme 1
Farming North and South
A day in the lives of two families farming in contrasting environments: differences in land ownership and farming practices; response to different climatic conditions and economic policies.
Programme 2
The Three Gorges Dam
The costs, benefits and risks of building the world’s largest dam: reasons for development; predicted improvements and advantages; human and environmental costs.
Programme 3
Forestry, Flooding and Farming
Deforestation, reforestation and sustainable development high in the Yangtze Basin: the effects of changing policies and practices, and attempts to repair environmental damage.
Programme 4
Township Enterprises and Migration
A study of the Beibei Shoe Company: changes in the structure of townships and communes; patterns of industrial development and employment.
Programme 5
Urban Development in Shanghai
The regeneration of Pudong: China’s response to the international market; the rapid development of financial and technological industries in the Asian economic corridor.
These Net Notes include details of Internet links, recommended resources and useful organisations to support work on other topics relevant to a study of China, including ethnic and other minorities, women, migration, population policies, the role of foreign investment, the issue of Tibet, and the impact of Chinese peoples and traditions on contemporary British society.
Development Education
These resources combine the study of geography with a broader study of development education. The Net Notes provide a brief summary of the material covered and its relevance to the curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4 and Scottish Standard Grade, background information, classroom activities, and useful Internet links. To provide a structure for students studying the issues tackled by the programmes, it is suggested that the ‘development compass rose’, designed by Teachers in Development Education (TIDE) in Birmingham, be used. Students could be asked to consider the questions raised by the diagram in relation to:
- their own society
- a developed Western society they are familiar with or have studied
- China
Before viewing the programmes, the questions should be addressed in the light of the students’ current knowledge. They should be addressed again after viewing the programmes and after completing some of the suggested activities, to see how their perceptions have changed. To derive maximum benefit from this approach, a brainstorming session should precede viewing of the programmes, perhaps using the following activity.
Behind the Bamboo Curtain
Aims: to expose media stereotypes of China and Chinese people, and look at how these affect attitudes and behaviour.
The students should be divided into groups. Invite each group to draw or write on an outline map of China everything they know about China or associate with it. Results from all groups should be compared, examining similarities and differences, the sources of the ideas represented, and the kinds of media representations of China that the students are aware of. Stereotypical views and images can be challenged, and an assessment made of the balance between positive and negative perceptions of China in the West. Discussion should focus on the following questions:
- What stereotypes can we identify in our view of China and its people?
- Why are these stereotypes so persistent?
- How accurate are they?
- How do we know?
- How might they affect the lives of Chinese people living in Britain?
- Why do we stereotype other cultures?
- How is stereotyping linked to prejudice about others?
- Can we identify stereotypical views held by others about our own country?
- Are they accurate?
- Are they positive or negative?
- Where do they come from?
After this discussion, students should consider the questions raised by the development compass rose, and use it to organise their knowledge.
The question marks on the diagram are meant to stimulate other questions: for example, what are the relationships between the issues in the different boxes? How do economic factors influence the social sphere? How does the natural environment affect the economy?
These discussions should move on to consider how rapidly and fundamentally China is changing as a result of recent changes in government policies. To a non-specialist, the changes which have convulsed Chinese society since the establishment of the communist state in 1949 can appear complex and contradictory. The Further Information section lists some sources which will explain some of these changes in greater detail. They are summarised below.
Before 1949
All land was owned by landlords, which were families or trusts, and some of the richer peasants. Most peasants lived in poverty and were bound to their landlords.
1949—1952
Under the first communist government, land was confiscated from landlords and the richer peasants and distributed amongst the poorer peasants. Each family owned a small farmstead.
1952—1955
Mutual aid teams were set up to prevent inequality in land ownership returning: farms were encouraged to work together; labour, tools and farm animals were pooled. The teams comprised up to ten families each, and there were several teams in each village. Individual farms were still family-owned.
In large complexes and cities, a process of heavy industrialisation began, planned by government ministries.
1955—1958
Some farmland was pooled to form ‘agricultural producer co-operatives’. Each member family paid rent; tools and animals were hired to the co-operative, and later sold to it. Very small plots were retained by individual families. Later, all co-operative land was collectivised: the produce was distributed to member families as a basic ration and a share for the work contributed. The families in the co-operative were grouped into ‘brigades’.
1958—1962
To coincide with Mao Tse Tung’s ‘Great Leap Forward’, co-operatives were combined to form ‘people’s communes’, which could include as many as 5,000 households. The aim was to increase the number of small-scale rural industries. The communes were divided into brigades, which were themselves divided into ‘teams’.
Between 1959 and 1961 there was a severe famine in China, in which an estimated 30 million people died: this was seen as the result of unrealistic goals having been set in the Great Leap Forward. People sometimes lacked the motivation to work hard. The policies of the Great Leap Forward were suspended.
1962—1966
Communes were divided into smaller units, and some semi-private enterprises were introduced. Though production increased, Mao and his followers disapproved of what they called ‘capitalist sprouts’, and launched the ‘Socialist Education Movement’ to fight the reforms.
1966—1976
The Cultural Revolution: a massive upheaval, in which basic principles were called into question and people’s lives were radically changed. Communes were strengthened, and became the basic unit of control and administration for the central government. All development, local industry, land improvement, irrigation, welfare and education was financed through the communes. Private plots were abolished, and open markets were banned. Individual enterprise was frowned upon and sometimes punished. Nationwide campaigns were launched to try to make the country self-sufficient in grain, to ensure its future security and reduce its reliance on others. These campaigns often ignored local needs and circumstances; they often failed or caused major problems.
1976—1980
Mao Tse Tung died in 1976. After his death and the arrest of the ‘Gang of Four’ led by his wife Jiang Qing, many of the extremes of Mao’s policies began to be criticised — particularly the system of people’s communes — and reforms began.
After 1980
The ‘responsibility system’ was established by Deng Xiaping and his followers, marking a major change of direction. Farming was again devolved to individual households; rural industries and enterprises were contracted out to the highest bidder; and foreign investment was welcomed. Each family was given a contract with its local collective to sell a quota of grain at a fixed price to state warehouses. Entrepreneurs were encouraged to set up ‘Township and Village Enterprises’ (TVEs): private and co-operative businesses responsible for the profits and losses made by their work. Many small-scale, low-technology and low-wage industries were set up. Millions of jobs were created, and rural incomes and prosperity increased. The increasing demand for consumer goods was satisfied. In some areas, TVEs became joint ventures, using capital from foreign investors attracted to the low wages in China and wishing to produce goods for export.
Current policies of market socialism are bringing about gradual financial and industrial reform, making all state enterprises responsible for their own profits and losses, and bringing about a rapid increase in the diversity, competition, commercialisation and growth of the economy.
Such rapid changes have inevitably produced both problems and opportunities for the Chinese people, and there have been both winners and losers. Policy shifts originating from central government have different impacts on different regions. For example, the population control policy, which has limited Chinese families to a single child, has been enforced more in crowded urban areas than in remoter, less populated rural areas; while the recent ‘open door’ policy of economic liberalisation is promoting massive changes in coastal development areas while leaving agricultural communities in parts of the far northwest of the country largely unaffected.
The primary aim of successive governments has been to provide employment for as many of the country’s people as possible, rather than to promote efficiency savings by means of mechanisation and rationalisation. In the building of the Three Gorges Dam, for example, manual labour has been used in tasks, such as rock cutting, where it might be expected that heavy machinery would be more appropriate. This approach is fundamentally different from that adopted in Western market economies, where efficiency is often defined in terms of savings in manpower and hence labour costs, and goes some way to explaining the complexity and strangeness of Chinese systems to Western eyes. Of course, this approach could change once the influence of foreign capital is more fully felt, and the new factories developed under joint initiative schemes begin to compete more aggressively with the old. Students should be able, once they have viewed the programmes and tried some of the activities in these Net Notes, to explore how these changes and differences affect the lives of the people of China, and to debate both the reasons for change and the value of the changes made.
Agriculture in China
China can be considered as being made up of five broad areas, defined by landscape and meteorological conditions which determine the types of agriculture prevailing. The following map illustrates these divisions:
Area 1: double cropping of rice
Area 2: ‘winter’ wheat or oilseed rape or vegetables; some rice also grown
Area 3: wheat
Area 4: soya beans and millet
Area 5: pasture
It should be noted that in practice there is much overlapping of food crops between these regions. The two villages profiled in Programme 1 represent the two extremes of Area 1 (Da Meizi) and Area 4 (Xiao Wanghu).
Ethnic Minorities in China
Around 92% of China’s population is comprised of Han Chinese.
However, the remaining 8% — around 91 million people — make up about 55 minority peoples distributed over 63% of the country’s territory. About 18 million, in ten ethnic groups including the Uighur and the Hui, are Muslims. There are about 13 million Zhuang and over 4 million Tibetans. There are many smaller groups, such as the Miao, the Yi, the Yao, the Wa and the Lahu peoples.
Many of these minority peoples, most of whom live in border areas and have ethnic and cultural links with groups in neighbouring countries, face the problems of isolation, economic deprivation, social neglect, and dominance by the Han majority. The Tibetans, in addition, have faced personal and religious persecution since an independence movement was violently suppressed.
Many of the areas where minorities are found are thinly populated; and are often largely unaffected by the political, economic and social developments which are transforming Chinese society. For example, among most minority groups the ‘single child’ population-control policy has not been enforced — with the result that between 1982 and 1990 minority populations increased by between 35% and 52% (compared with about 10% in the Han population), bringing problems of poverty and poor housing. Although the State Council decided to introduce family planning into minority areas in order to improve economic conditions, it brings many problems and has been difficult to implement successfully.
Minorities generally have a lower per-capita income than their Han neighbours, and few new enterprises have been introduced to change traditional patterns and types of employment. Although liberalisation in other areas has brought benefits to many people, it has arguably disadvantaged some minorities, who have lost the previous support of State-provided rations and guaranteed employment but have been unable to substitute them with adequate new sources of food or income.
Many of these difficult issues have received increasing international and media attention, and China has been under pressure to improve the living conditions and prospects of its minority peoples. Perhaps the most active and high-profile campaign has been on behalf of the Tibetan peoples, but a worldwide increase in Muslim activism, particularly in Central Asia and Afghanistan, has also brought pressure to bear on the Chinese government.
The Changing China programmes contain references to both the Han majority and the minority peoples. Some of the families interviewed in the films belong to minority ethnic groups. More information about minorities, and about resources available from other organisations concerned with their welfare, can be found in the Further Resources section.
Chinese Pronunciation: A Simple Guide
All names used in the programmes and in the Net Notes are transcribed from Chinese characters into Pinyin, a Westernised spelling system. The following guide should help students in their pronunciation of vowels and consonants in Pinyin:
Vowels
a as in ‘father’
ai as in ‘buy’
ao as in ‘now’
e as in ‘fur’
ei as in ‘day’
i as in ‘see’, but like the ‘e’ in ‘her’ before c, ch, r, s, sh, z or zh
ian as in ‘yen’
ie as in ‘yes’
iu as in ‘yeoman’
o as in ‘or’
ou as in ‘low’
u as in ‘flute’
ui as in ‘way’
uo as in ‘war’
Consonants
c as in ‘cats’
h a sound like the ‘ch’ in ‘loch’
j as in ‘jeans’
q as in ‘cheque’
r as in English, but much softer, almost like the ‘s’ in ‘pleasure’
x as in ‘sock’
z as in ‘fads’
zh as in ‘jewel’
Land Measurement in China
The unit of land measurement used in Programme 1 is the mu, which is about one-fifteenth of a hectare or one-sixth of an acre. In the northern village of Xiaowanghu each person is allocated three mu, while in the southern village of Da Meizi the allocation is half a mu per person.
