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IFPRI ForumDu Runsheng was a key architect of the rural economic reforms that brought sweeping changes to China's rural structure starting in 1979 and paved the way for strong economic growth in the decades that followed. Below is an excerpt of an essay by Mr. Du, who today is in his nineties, describing how these reforms emerged and evolved, and giving his perspective as a key player of the time. The full essay will be printed shortly and will be available on IFPRI's website.
[By the time] the Cultural Revolution ended, China's economy had been placed in difficulty and an agricultural crisis induced.. When I first proposed the household responsibility system (HRS), I was criticized as follows: Chairman Mao had been dead only a few years. Supporting the HRS, a system he opposed, meant forsaking his principles. This was the severe environment that reform faced at first. Our support of the HRS, of institutional innovation, and of transformation of the agents of the rural microeconomy would inevitably involve adjusting a number of interests.
Three measures to reduce resistance were conceived: First, the reform would not initially call for abandoning the people's communes, but rather would implement a production responsibility system within them.. Second, the responsibility system could take a number of forms, among which the populace could choose.. Third, the reform began with a limited region, where it received popular support, and then widened step by step.
After its release, HRS spread nationwide, liberating both land and labor. In 1978, China's grain yield was approximately 300 billion kilograms.. With system reform, grain output increased to 400 billion kilograms by 1984. At the same time, the value of gross agricultural output grew by 68 percent and the peasants' average income per person grew 166 percent. This achievement, which attracted worldwide attention, convinced cadres who held opposing views and unified the way people thought.