THE OVERSEAS CHINESE AREAS OF RURAL GUANGDONG AND SOCIALIST TRANSFORMATION, 1949-1956 by GLEN PETERSON B.A., University of Manitoba, 1979 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES History We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September 1986 ® Glen Peterson, 1986 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of History The University of British Columbia 1956 Main Mall Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Y3 ^ ^ October 10, 1986 Date Abstract This thesis examines the socialist transformation of rural China between 1949-1956 within a particular local context: that of the Overseas Chinease areas of rural Guangdong. It proceeds from a theoretical discussion of the various perspectives and works which have informed western understanding of this period in recent Chinese history, with special emphasis on the need to penetrate beyond China-wide generalizations and cultivate an informed sense of local differentiation. With a view to such, the thesis focusses upon the Overseas Chinese areas of rural Guangdong, which represent at once one of the most significant social realities of South China, as well as one of the Chinese Communist Party's most intractable historical inheritances. The social and economic legacies of mass emigration are first described, and the reader is then introduced to the Party's emerging contradictory view of the Overseas Chinese after 1949. The heart of the thesis examines the conflict and tensions of promoting socialist transformation in the Overseas Chinese areas coincident with the promulgation, beginning in 1954, of a series of privileges for domestic Overseas Chinese ii (returned Overseas Chinese and family dependents) aimed at attracting investment and remittances to the PRC. It is argued that socialist transformation in the Overseas Chinese areas of Guangdong was characterized by a deep-seated ideological uncertainty and confusion surrounding the proper role and status of domestic Overseas Chinese in socialist society. The "united front" aims of domestic Overseas Chinese policy clashed directly with the class-based aims and strategy of socialist transformation, producing not only ideological uncertainties, but considerable bureaucratic confusion on the ground as well. As a group, it is argued, the domestic Overseas Chinese were particularly poorly equipped and ill-disposed to participate in the newly emerging socialist rural order. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Abbreviations v Acknowledgements .vi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: The Economic and Political Background to Socialist Transformation 25 Goals and Rationale 26 Agriculture and the First Five Year Plan: The "Peasants Burden" .35 "Spontaneous Capitalism" and the Resurgence of Rural Inequality after Land Reform 45 CHAPTER II: Chinese Socialism and the Contradictory Image of the Huaqi ao 54 The Historical Legacies of Emigration 54 The CCP's Contradictory View of the Huaqi ao 71 The Emergence of a Policy of Special Privileges for Domestic Overseas Chinese 82 CHAPTER III: Contradictory Aims and Conflicting Interests: The Overseas Chinese Areas of Rural Guangdong and Socialist Transformation, Part I ..97 The Domestic Overseas Chinese Population of Guangdong 97 Land Reform and the Class Status of Domestic Overseas Chinese 100 The Impact of Unified Purchase and Marketing ...ill CHAPTER IV: Contradictory Aims and Conflicting Interests: The Overseas Chinese Areas in Rural Guangdong and Socialist Transformation, Part II I27 Collectivization 127 The Inherent Weaknesses of Domestic Overseas Chinese Policy 144 CONCLUSION 164 BIBLIOGRAPHY 172 iv Abbreviations ACROCA All-China Returned Overseas Chinese Association APC Agricultural Producers1 Cooperative CB Current Background CCP Chinese Communist Party CNS China News Service DGB Dagongbao ECMM Extracts from China Mainland Magazines FJRB Fujian ribao GMRB Guangming ribao GZRB Guangzhou ribao HK Hong Kong MAT Mutual Aid Team NFRB Nanfang ribao OCAC Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission RMRB Renmin ribao SCMP Survey of China Mainland Press WHB Wenhuibao v Acknowledgements I would like to thank the many individuals and institutions who have made this research possible. First, my Thesis Supervisor, Professor Alexander Woodside, for his many crucial insights and numerous suggestions for improving the thesis. I would also like to thank the other members of my Thesis Committee, Professor Edgar Wickberg, Professor Graham Johnson and Chairman Professor James Huzel, for their time and effort, and especially for their helpful comments and suggestions. I would like to acknowledge a special debt to Professor Wickberg and Professor Woodside. Over my years at UBC their friendship, their vast knowledge of Chinese history and culture, and their deep commitment to scholarship have been a source of steady inspiration. My development as a graduate student owes much to them both. This thesis would not have been possible without financial assistance provided by the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the University of British Columbia. In Hong Kong John Dolfin, Director of the Universities Services Centre generously allowed me to make full use of the Centre's vi excellent facilities and resources. Finally, my greatest thanks go to Christine, to whom this thesis is dedicated. vii 1 INTRODUCTION The aim of this study is to assist in establishing a sense of local differentiation with respect to the Overseas Chinese areas of rural Guangdong during the period of the socialist transformation of rural China, 1953-1956. The period of the rural socialist transformation is of major significance in the history of the People's Republic. Within the space of a few years the vastly populated Chinese countryside was utterly transformed, from a land of peasant private producers into a socialist society, wherein agricultural production was organized on a collective basis and most forms of private property abolished. Yet, this is a period and a transformation which has been little studied by western scholars of China's recent past: until now there has been only one English language monograph devoted entirely to the subject, Vivienne Shue's 1980 Peasant China in Transition.* Likewise, the Overseas Chinese areas of rural Guangdong constitute one of the most important and distinctive features of that province's "complicated" rural socioeconomic landscape2, but a feature which has been 1Vivienne Shue, Peasant China in Transition: The Dynami cs of Development Toward Socialism, 1949-1956, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). 20n the distinctive and complicated features of the 2 little studied for the period since 1949. Estimated in the early 1950's at approximately 11 million returned Overseas Chinese (guiguo huaqi ao) and Overseas Chinese family dependents (huaqi ao juan), concentrated overwhelmingly in the two southeastern coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, the "domestic" (guonei) Overseas Chinese constitute not only one of the most significant social realities of South China, but also one of the CCP's most complex and intractable social inheritances. Therefore, the domestic Overseas Chinese factor must, of necessity, figure prominently in any concerted effort to comprehend and assess the nature and results of the CCP's post 1949 experiments in "directed change" as these effected South China and in particular rural Guangdong where the vast majority (8 million) of the domestic Overseas Chinese are found. Thus far, there have been no previous attempts to analyze how socialist transformation was experienced in the domestic Overseas Chinese areas of rural Guangdong. The rural domestic Overseas Chinese are distinguishable from the general peasant population 2(cont'd) rural socioeconomic landscape of Guangdong as these pertained to communist development efforts after 1949, see David F. K. Ip, "The Design of Rural Development: Experiences from South China, 1949-1976" (unpublished Ph. D. Dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1979). 3 upon the basis of their generally superior wealth, strong and consequential "overseas connections" (haiwai guanxi), their dependence on overseas remittances as a primary source of livelihood, a widespread unwillingness or inability to engage in agricultural production, and the age and sex composition of the dependent population (in the 1950's mainly women, elderly and young children). It is particularly interesting and worthwhile to examine the domestic Overseas Chinese areas in the context of the rural socialist transformation, because this period coincides with the erection and demise (by 1957) of a policy of privileged status and treatment for domestic Overseas Chinese, aimed at securing the financial and moral support of the domestic and external huaqi ao and their dependents.3 The various privileges accorded to domestic Overseas Chinese were designed to provide them with a degree of protection, if not immunity, from the radical social