China: Great Dragon Rising - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 298

Worried about the lack of revolutionary zeal within
the party apparatus, among young people, and within the
educational system, Mao ordered a Socialist Education
Movement in 1962. Suspected anti-Maoists were “sent
downward” to the countryside to experience peasant liv-
ing and working conditions. This was known as the hsia-
fang ( xiafang in Pinyin) (downward transfer) movement.
Thousands of cadres and intellectuals were “rehabili-
tated” in this manner. In addition, millions of urban-
based middle-school students were dispersed to “strike
roots firmly” in the countryside. By May 1975, nearly
10 million youths had been resettled in rural areas.
Cultural revolutionary groups were established at all
levels to promote Mao' s mass line and class struggle,
which promoted the equality of all members of society .
The youthful Red Guards saw themselves as true revolu-
tionaries, dedicated to the obliteration of old thought,
customs, and habits. Knowledge was deemed the source
of reactionary and bourgeois thought and action. Elimi-
nating their perceived enemies, the Red Guards ram-
paged cities, ransacked private property , and attacked
anything remotely modern. Ultimately , Mao employed
the army to restore order.
Although the Maoists proclaimed the Cultural Revolu-
tion a great victory , it actually ushered in a decade of tur-
moil and civil strife that drove the country to the edge of
bankruptcy . The CCP was decimated through purges.
Members were killed or imprisoned. Industrial and agricul-
tural production suffered major setbacks, and disruptions
in education reduced the availability of trained workers. It
is estimated that nearly 100 million people were targeted
during the Cultural Revolution. T Tens of thousands were

killed. Added to this was a series of natural disasters. The
Huang He flooded seven times, and a major earthquake
wiped out Tangshan and killed some 470,000 people.
Mao Zedong' s death in 1976 set off a scramble for
succession. Purges, including that of Mao' s wife Jiang
Qing and her associates, culminated in 1977 with the in-
stallment of Deng Xiaoping as party chairman. Deng, a
colleague of Mao and a survivor of the Long March
(Chapter 10), had been purged twice during the Cultural
Revolution. His “rehabilitation” ushered in a new era for
the PRC. But the China inherited by Deng exhibited
widespread changes in light of agricultural and industrial
policies pursued since 1949.

AL TERED SPATIAL PATTERNS
Spatial change was evident in both rural and urban land-
scapes. Communes, although reduced in size, had trans-
formed the face of agriculture. Significantly , private plots
were producing the bulk of vegetables and pork. Rice
acreage had been dramatically increased, acknowledging
rice' s significance as China' s most important crop of pro-
duction and consumption (Figure 11-2). However, as
peasants devoted more energy to private plots, rice had
begun to decline as a preferred crop in favor of more
profitable cash crops. The most important cash crops are
cotton and tobacco (for both of which China is the
world' s leading producer), as well as silk, tea, ramie, jute,
hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.
Industrial expansion resulted in changing spatial
patterns in the distribution of both industry and infrastruc-
ture. From 1949, the government sought to decentralize

Figure 11-2
Threshing rice. Rice and other grain quotas are
set by the government. Farmers work in groups to
fulfill these quotas before spending time on their
personal agricultural pursuits. While many farm-
ers use gas-powered rice threshers, manually oper-
ated machines remain common, especially in
poorer regions. This machine is operated by a foot
pedal. The harvesting operation involves cutting
the rice stalks; threshing to remove the grain;
bundling the stalks for animal feed and other uses;
sacking the rice kernels; and carrying the sacked
rice to the road for truck pickup to a rice mill.
Photograph courtesy of B. A. Weightman.