The relevance of the Chinese experience for third world economic development

Conclusion

If the ten elements of Chinese development strategy discussed earlier are to provide object lessons relevant for other third world nations, they must be potentially transferable to other societies. The extent to which each element of the strategy is transferable depends on the conditions under which it can be successfully implemented, and on the degree to which these conditions are satisfied in other third world nations. I had also sought to determine what political-economic, geographical, and historical conditions are required for the successful implementation of each of the ten elements of strategy. The results of this analysis are summarized in the form of a matrix in Table 1. Each of the ten elements of strategy under discussion requires at least one - and often many more - of the major features of China's political-economic system. In all cases an effective and extensive system of public administration and/or a massoriented class structure are required, and in most cases a considerable degree of public ownership of the means of production and administrative control of resource allocation is either necessary or helpful. Less often required, but crucial in a few cases, are a central government with the power to mobilize resources on a large scale, a political leadership capable of influencing and involving people on a wide scale, and a ruraloriented class structure.

Among the key geographic characteristics considered, large size is necessary or helpful for the successful implementation of two of the ten elements of strategy, but is disadvantageous in many cases because it is then more difficult for the political leadership to establish an effective system of public administration and to influence and involve people on a wide scale. An abundance of labor and scarcity of land is quite generally disadvantageous because it makes the achievement of rapid economic growth more difficult under any development strategy. But ethnological unity can be very helpful for the establishment of a strong state in all three respects I have distinguished.

A cultural tradition oriented to cooperative work is quite helpful - if not strictly necessary - for three of the elements of strategy. A heritage of educational and administrative experience is helpful - but not absolutely essential - for all ten elements, since it improves the operation of those basic economic institutions and those characteristics of the state which have played an important role in the success of the Chinese development strategy. The less a society has been subject to foreign domination, the more its environment is likely to be conducive to the success of many elements of the Chinese strategy. And, finally, a profound social revolution would appear to be necessary in most instances for the development of three features of the Chinese political-economic system which as a group are indispensable for the success of all ten elements of the Chinese development strategy.

These conclusions suggest that most of the elements of strategy described are currently applicable in only a few third world nations at best. Only a handful of nations have experienced a social revolution of any kind, and not all of these revolutions have been strongly rooted in the rural masses. Moreover, many of the revolutionary societies (e.g., Cuba, Mozambique, Vietnam) have a bitter history of Western imperialist domination to overcome, and most have only a limited heritage of educational and administrative experience to draw upon (e.g., the African nations). Some do not have a cultural tradition conducive to collective modes of operation (most notably Cuba), and many are ethnologically heterogeneous (e.g., Angola, Mozambique). Of all contemporary third world nations, North Korea would appear to come closest to meeting the historical, geographical, and political-economic conditions that have played a significant (and in many cases an essential) role in the success of the Chinese development strategy. But even in the case of North Korea the match is far from perfect in many respects.

Do these observations imply that the Chinese experience is essentially unique and therefore largely irrelevant for the rest of the third world? I think not. First of all, the Chinese experience has set new and higher standards for the evaluation of development performance and policy throughout the world: it is no longer enough to promote rapid economic growth, but development planners can and will be held accountable for achieving a balanced pattern of development in which non-growth objectives such as greater equity and self-reliance are promoted along with faster growth.

Second, certain elements of the Chinese development strategy do lend themselves to successful application - at least to a certain extent - in other societies which differ considerably from China in their political-economic, geographical, and historical conditions. For example, the promotion of mass-oriented human resource development could be carried out with some success in a nation with a reasonably strong state (in terms of its capacity for resource mobilization and public administration) and a political leadership somewhat oriented to the masses. A strategy of restriction of luxury consumption is potentially more widely transferable, for it requires mainly a mass-oriented political leadership and, up to a point, does not depend on an unusually effective state apparatus. Some degree of economic diversification of regions and localities, as well as some degree of amelioration of rural-urban imbalance, can be successfully accomplished provided that the political leadership is sufficiently rural-oriented and can rely upon an effective and extensive administrative system. In all these cases the necessary configuration of political-economic conditions is possible (if not very likely) in a society that has not undergone a profound social revolution and that operates within a predominantly capitalist institutional framework. More revolutionary change would be more conducive to success, but not absolutely essential for some progress to be made.

Third, and more important, some of the key conditions required for the successful implementation of much of the Chinese development strategy can be realized in the future even if they do not obtain at present in most third world societies. Here it is important to distinguish between those aspects of the setting of any given society which are virtually immutable and those aspects which are amenable to change under appropriate historical circumstances. The key geographical characteristics that I have discussed clearly involve stable features of a society's environment; nothing short of massive territorial annexation, massive migration, or genocide could alter the size, the resource endowment, or the ethnological structure of contemporary third world nations. The historical characteristics I have cited vary considerably in their susceptibility to change. Cultural traditions built up over centuries (and in some cases millenia) cannot be transformed within a generation. The amount of time it takes to overcome the effects of Western imperialism depends of course on the force and the longevity of its imposition, but in many areas at least a generation might be needed. And a substantial degree of educational and administrative experience can only be built up with several decades of concerted effort. The possibility of significant change in any of these three historical characteristics hinges on some kind of decisive break with the past which ushers in new political leadership determined to bring about large-scale change. Such a decisive break need not involve a revolutionary redistribution of power from dominating to oppressed classes, but it does require at least the accession to power of strongly nationalist forces determined to “modernize” their country (i.e., to increase its resemblance to the powerful industrialized nations of the modern world). Social revolution is the most fundamental historical characteristic of all, for it underlies the establishment of many of the key features of China's political-economic system and (not incidentally) also creates a context in which the needed changes in the other three historical characteristics become more readily achievable. Profound social revolutions, in which formerly oppressed classes do succeed in wresting power from formerly privileged classes, are not made overnight, but they can be brought about after a period of revolutionary organization and struggle. If the revolutionary movement is to be truly rooted in the masses (and the rural masses in particular), and if it is to succeed in a contemporary international context in which privileged classes in third world nations can often count on support from major foreign powers, it is bound to take a great deal of time and effort. But the point I am making here is that it has been done in some countries in the past, and there is every likelihood that it will eventually be done in some other countries in the future.

At present it would be foolhardy to attempt to predict where Chinese-style revolutions might succeed in generating historical and political-economic conditions approximating those which have contributed to the success of the Chinese strategy of development. But there are many third world nations with one or more relevant geographic and historical characteristics already similar to China's. For example, India, Indonesia, and Brazil share China's large size, some of the Latin American nations are ethnologically quite homogeneous, many East and Southeast Asian nations have cultural traditions resembling those of the Chinese, the people of India and some of the other semi-industrialized nations of the third world have already acquired a substantial degree of educational and administrative skills, and nations such as Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan were not thoroughly restructured by foreign powers. Profound social revolutions in any of these nations - however distant the prospect may now appear- would go a long way toward establishing the conditions under which many of the lessons from the Chinese strategy of development could indeed be successfully applied. As for the immediate future, there is little likelihood that the Chinese experience will be of much relevance to development planning in the rest of the third world. For the great majority of third world nations are still dominated by propertied or otherwise privileged elites, and, as one observer has put it, “revolution is precisely the fate which [they] are striving to avert through their development.”¹