TNAG-1458-FCO40-1982-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1986 — Page 116

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CONFIDENTIAL

(c) What are the parameters within which implementation of

this part of the programme is taking place;

(d) What are the areas in which difficulties have arisen,

or may arise, over its implementation.

WHY THE PROGRAMME

5. The new leadership of 1978 embarked on the reform programme

because it wanted to galvanise China's economic development,

but was convinced that neither a reversion to economic Maoism

nor retention of the system introduced, under Soviet inspiration

and guidance, during the 1950s would do the trick. It is not

difficult to understand why Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues

rejected economic Maoism. As Mr Wye says, the Maoist path had

proved a dismal failure. It only was tried for a short time,

the period of the Great Leap Forward

of mass mobilisation and

of relentless exhortation to go all out for faster and better

results

-

from the spring of 1958 to the summer of 1959. But

its results were a disaster, for the economy and for the Chinese

people. Three sets of statistics about the population reveal

its extent. The crude birth rate in China fell from 43 per

thousand in 1957 to 22 per thousand in 1961. The crude death

rate rose from 18 per thousand in 1957 to 45 per thousand in

1960. Infant mortality rose from 132 per thousand in 1957 to

284 per thousand in 1960. Economically, the Great Leap Forward

was much more of a disaster than the Cultural Revolution, when

Maoism was in the ascendant politically.

CONFIDENTIAL

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