一九七〇年代の中国における食糧増産メカニズムの変化―「改革開放」前後の政策転換との関係に着目して―

Between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, there was an unprecedented increase in China’s grain production. This exponential increase enabled a shift within the domestic labor force from grain production to industrial production, thereby supporting economic growth during the era of “reform and opening- up”. However, it remains unclear as to why grain production increased at the end of the 1970s. This paper examines the mechanism of grain production, with a focus on the government’s policy of expanding food supplies in rural areas. The introduction of new types of agricultural inputs, such as chemical fertilizers and electric pumps, characteristically occurred in rural villages that successfully increased their grain production in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1970s, these agricultural inputs became widely available in rural areas, but they were costly. To purchase them, peasants needed to acquire large amounts of capital through a strategy of diversified management, which included rural industries. Against this background, the following mechanism behind increased grain production in rural villages in the 1970s can be observed. Villages that successfully increased their grain production first achieved a minimum level of food self-sufficiency and subsequently diverted part of their labor force from grain production to diversified management. A portion of the profits accrued through diversified management were then used to purchase agricultural inputs. This strategy promoted an increase in grain production and a further shift of the labor force from grain production to diversified management. In this way, a cycle was initiated, wherein increased grain production led to the expansion of diversified management, which, in turn, prompted further increases in grain production. The mechanism behind increased grain production in rural areas was closely followed by the government of the People’s Republic of China. To widen its application at a larger scale, in 1977, the government initiated a policy of expanding food supplies in rural areas. As this paper shows, to some extent, this policy contributed to increased grain production. It can be argued that the intention behind this policy was to increase grain production in ways that augmented the wealth of rich peasants, thereby anticipating the “getting rich first” (xianfu lun 先富論) paradigm.