China's Economic Relations with the West and Japan, 1949-1979: Grain, Trade and Diplomacy

by Mitcham; Chad

• ISBN13: 9780415314817
• ISBN10: 041531481X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-09
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Farm and business lobby groups played a vital role in the erosion of the American-led trade embargo against China from 1949-79. In this comprehensive study, based on recently declassified primary source material, trade negotiations and agreements are examined and a detailed account of developing economic links between East and West is also provided. Developing economic relations and tensions with US policy are discussed in the context of PRC and Western economic and agricultural problems, Beijing's development strategies, Sino-Soviet relations and the backdrop of War in Asia. The story starts with regional grain shortages as a result of Mao's self-sufficiency policies. Washington failed to prevent its allies from stopping politically influential private and semi-official trade promotion organizations from maintaining more stringent trade restrictions aimed at preventing China's economic development. Mitcham also charts the rise and fall of the Great Leap Forward and China's eventual recovery, capped byrapprochement, the re-opening of important diplomatic and trade relations and Beijing's readjustment policies. By the late seventies, the stage was set for the rise of the Chinese economic engine, and a shift in economic thinking that continues to have repercussions both within China and around the world today. For historians, economists, political scientists, government officials, business representatives and others with an interest in Chinese economics and history, China's Economic Relations with the West and Japan will be essential reading.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Foreword	xi
Acknowledgements	xiv
List of abbreviations and acronyms used in text	xvi
Introduction	xix
Statistical note	xxii
PART I 1949-August 1960	1	(48)
1 Grain imbalances, CHINCOM and China's evolving economic and foreign trade strategy, 1949-June 1957	3	(24)
2 China's 'Great Leap' famine, 'test purchases' of Western grain and return to 'readjustment', July 1957-August 1960	27	(22)
PART II September 1960-September 1962	49	(42)
3 Chinese-Western grain trade diplomacy: credits and famine relief, September 1960-August 1961	51	(19)
4 Aircraft, grain and the Kennedy Administration's China policy debate, September 1961-September 1962	70	(21)
PART III September 1962-July 1964	91	(46)
5 Japanese-Western China trade competition: POL, chemical fertilizer, equipment and technology, September 1962-August 1963	93	(19)
6 China market rivalries intensify: Washington and Taibei's response, September 1963-July 1964	112	(25)
PART IV August 1964-October 1965	137	(38)
7 The 'Third Front', Vietnam and China's foreign trade, August 1964-February 1965	139	(15)
8 Vietnam escalation and the non-strategic China trade: Washington's position reconsidered, March-October 1965	154	(21)
PART V October 1965-79	175	(41)
9 Cultural Revolution delays: steel complex negotiations and US-allied trade policy, October 1965-November 1966	177	(19)
10 Emergence from Cultural Revolution: trade negotiations resumed, US trade controls relaxed, November 1966-79	196	(20)
Conclusion	216	(4)
List of abbreviations in notes	220	(2)
Notes	222	(34)
Bibliography	256	(15)
Index	271