Agricultural Development: The Key Link in China's Four Modernizations Program

Mao Tse-tung, the source of legitimacy for the radical leaders of the left-wing of the Chinese Communist Party, died in September of 1976. The radical left-wing leaders were arrested and removed from their positions of power within the month following Mao's death and a new, post-Mao leadership coalition under the control of the right wing slowly emerged during the course of 1977. Thus, in early 1978, Chairman Hua Kuo-feng's "Report on the Work of The Government," delivered to the National People's Congress, announced that the solution of China's economic problems would now take precedence over the ideological objectives of Mao's social and political revolution (Hua, 1978). To solve those problems, the National People's Congress adopted the Ten-Year Plan (1976-1985) for the Development of the National Economy, which Hua had summarized in his report. Utilizing themes originally put forth by Chou En-lai in the early 1970s, this Ten-Year Plan was to be the first stage in achieving the modernization of China's agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology-the four modernizations-by the end of the twentieth century. Ever since Hua's speech which announced the plan for achieving the Four Modernizations, Chinese leaders and press reports have emphasized continuously that "agriculture is the foundation of the national economy," and that "the development of agriculture at a high speed is the most important guarantee of success in modernization" (FBIS, 25 Oct. 1979). Furthermore, in the post-Mao spirit of respect for the facts, it is admitted that "China has difficulties in feeding the urban population and in ensuring a rational development of industries using farm products as raw materials" (FBIS, 6 Mar. 1979). According to a Renmin Ribao (6 Mar. 1979) editorial, "modernization will quite simply be out of the question if this state of affairs continues." Few Western