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Zhao's policies q uickly turned
food shortages to bumper har–
vests. He restored peasants' prí–
vate plots, raised farm prices,
revived bonuses and told factory
managers to think in terms of
profits and losses. By 1979
Sichuan's farm output was up 25
percent and ind ustrial production
up 81 percent.
" People should free their minds
from the straitjacket and
Jet economic levers push
the economy a head ac–
cording to economic
law," announced Zhao.
(Perhaps his most
quoted economic princi–
pie is: " We must not
bind ourselves as silk–
worms do within co–
coons. All economic pat–
terns which hold back
development of produc–
tion should be abo l–
ished. ")
As Deng won the
leading role within the
party after the death of
Mao Tse-tung in 1976,
Zhao's star ascended. In
1980 he was brought to
Peking as a member of
the Politburo and a Vice–
Premier, and six months
later he was named Pre–
mier, the third since the
Communist Party took
power on the Chinese
mainland in 1949.
Turnabout in Agriculture
On the national level, Premier
Zhao has been able to put his pro–
vincial experiences to the biggest
test of all.
Armed with the rationale lhat
"production is to improve the
people's livelihood," rather than
with the earlier dictate that "pro–
duction is for the revolution," Zhao
first tackled the restructuring of
Chinese agriculture.
The policy of the "people's com–
mune" system of farming begun by
Mao 25 years ago has now been
abandoned. For China's 800 mil–
l ion peasants Zhao encourages,
instead, family farming , the estab–
lishment of cottage industries and
the development of free t rade in
most agricultura! commodities.
These agricultura! reforms paid
April 1984
off handsomely in 1983 with a
record grain production of 370
mi l lion metric tons- despite
floods in the south and drought in
the north.
The bumper harvests are, re–
ported a Reuters dispatch from
Peking, "widely atlributed lo lhe
introduction of profit incentives
for peasants." Sorne farmers are
actually said to be wondering what
lo do with all the money
they are earning.
lndustry and Bureauc racy
1ndustrial reform has
proven to be more diffi–
cult to implement. In
industry, Zhao originally
pushed for greater au–
tonomy for enter prise
managers, bu t he soon
encountered roadblocks.
As far as industrial workers are
concerned, Zhao has maintained
that they should be paid according
to their work, not just because
they have a job. State employ–
ment, furthermore, should no lon–
ger be guaranteed. Bonuses, Zhao
insisls, must be paid generously
for increased productivity or
otherwise nol at all.
T he bureaucracy is a favorite lar-
Few managers were
u p to the challenge,
mainly because they
were politi cal l y ap–
pointed bureaucrats, not
entrepreneurs willing to
Premier Zhao Ziyang and President Ronald
Reagan in Washington, D.C., forge new links
between China and the United States.
take risks to increase efficiency
and profits. Zhao readily admits
that much has yet to be done in
the industrial sector.
get in Zhao's reform drive. He has
boldly trimmed central government
agencies and personnel by more than
a quarter and is forcing the stream-
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