Battle for China's Past : Mao and the Cultural Revolution

CHALLENGING THE HEGEMONY II
that launched the Cultural Revolution. Mao also refused to approve
Chen Yonggui’s (the Party Secretary of Dazhai Brigade who was
promoted to be a vice-premier of the State Council) suggestion of
making the production brigade, instead of the production team, as the
basic accounting unit. 4
One important evidence for the argument that economy stagnated
during the Cultural Revolution was that workers’ salaries actually went
down over ten years, from an average of 583 yuan a year in 1966 to 573
yuan a year in 1976. However, Chu points out that during the same
period the total expenditure on salaries in China went up by 65 per cent.
What happened was that while the salaries were kept down, more
people became employed. Obviously in a country where there was no
inflation and where prices of all the daily life goods were capped by the
state, salary increases are not as important as full employment for equality
and for ensuring the livelihood of all. In another contribution, Chu
(2007) lists detailed figures of how China developed high-tech national
defence science, how Chinese petroleum and electronic industries developed
and how local industries and irrigation infrastructure expanded
during the Cultural Revolution period.
The strategic significance of the third-line industry and the cold
war
Apart from listing evidence and statistics that show the economic
development and technical achievements during the Cultural Revolution,
Chu presents two points directed at the critics of Mao and the
Cultural Revolution. One was the development of the third-line
industry, which used a lot of capital and resources to build up industrial
bases such as the satellite-launching base in China’s remote south
and northwest. Chu quotes Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin to show
that with hindsight, especially since the Iraq war, the third-line policy
was far-sighted and strategically significant for China.
Chu’s other point concerns the accepted wisdom that the Mao era
chose to close itself off from the outside world and that China opened up
only after Mao’s death. Chu points out that as early as 1964 and 1965
Mao raised the prospect of allowing the Japanese to open up factories in
China. It was not Mao or China that refused to open to the West. Instead,
it was the West that imposed economic sanctions against China. It was
Mao who initiated the re-establishment of relationship with the United
States The US government led by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger
responded to Mao’s initiative only because they hoped to play the China
card to balance the perceived threat of the Soviet Union and wanted
China to help end the Vietnam War. It was the US strategic shift that
made it possible for China to be more open to the outside world. Coun-
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