• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

China - 4th Five-Year Plan 1971-1975

In 1971, Mao charged Premier Zhou with the responsibility of accelerating development of the national economy. Zhou realized that economic development required modernizing the aging machinery and equipment used by Chinese industry. In particular, he realized that Chinese industry couid not be modernized without imports of foreign technology ... Zhou decided to import the needed. foreign technology and to improve China's economic relations with Western countries, especially with the United States. In February 1972, President Nixon paid a historic visit to Pekiing and. signed the Shanghai Conununique, which paved th~ way for China to import US technology. On th~ basis of his forward looking strategy, Zhou prepared his four modernizations proposal which was designed to develop the nationaleconomy through modernizing China's agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense. This proposal constituted the top guideline for subsequent economic plans.

During the period of the Fourth Five Year Plan, the Cultural Revolution and the power struggle continued. Lin Biao, Mao's designated successor, died in 1971, and Premier Zhou took over the day-to-day management of the Government. In 1974, the "Gang of Four" launched an all-out attack on Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. The impact of these political events on the economy was unfavorable. During the same period, two new economic policies, the open door and the four modernizations, were formulated.

The general emphasis after 1969 was on reconstruction through rebuilding of the party, economic stabilization, and greater sensitivity to foreign affairs. Pragmatism gained momentum as a central theme of the years following the Ninth National Party Congress, but this tendency was paralleled by efforts of the radical group to reassert itself. The radical group—Kang Sheng, Xie Fuzhi, Jiang Qing, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen — no longer had Mao's unqualified support. By 1970 Mao viewed his role more as that of the supreme elder statesman than of an activist in the policy-making process. This was probably the result as much of his declining health as of his view that a stabilizing influence should be brought to bear on a divided nation. As Mao saw it, China needed both pragmatism and revolutionary enthusiasm, each acting as a check on the other.

In 1970, the workers, managers, and technical people had settled down to work again. Great new military and civilian industrial facilities-petroleum refineries, electric power plants, metallurgical plants, and so forth-were coming into operation, many in new industrial centers in the interior. The import of advanced machinery and materials from Western Europe and, especially, Japan was bringing China into the age of petrochemicals, computers, and cryogenics.

In Peking, the economic planners were back in business, but no public announcement of the resumption of regular economic planning was made until Premier Chou En-lai's speech on the eve of National Day in late 1970. Chou exhorted China's workers and peasants to make 1970 a banner end year for the Third Five-Year Plan (1966-70)13 and a strong base for a new Fourth Five-Year Plan (1971-75). Subsequent discussions in the official press, while furnishing no hard figures, made it clear that the new plan called for sharp rates of increase in industrial and agricultural production and for accelerated progress in achieving independence in industrial technology. Chou's theme of rapid economic progress was echoed in his long conversation with the American author Edgar Snow in late 1970. Chou partially lifted the 10-year statistical blackout by giving Snow a few preliminary production estimates for 1970.

The general industrial results are clear for the 2 years 1970-71 - substantial increases across the board in the output of major industrial products such as steel, coal, electric power, crude oil and petroleum products, transportation equipment, and a wide variety of modern weapons. Because the large additions to capacity made during the Cultural Revolution were not being fully used at the start of 1970, industrial production shot up by 18 percent through "catch up" gains. In 1971, industrial production advanced another healthy 12 percent. The level of industrial production in 1971 represents an average rate of growth of 61/2 percent compared to 1966, the year before the Red Guards invaded industrial facilities.

Among the most prominent of those rehabilitated was Deng Xiaoping, who was reinstated as a vice premier in April 1973, ostensibly under the aegis of Premier Zhou Enlai but certainly with the concurrence of Mao Zedong. Together, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping came to exert strong influence. Their moderate line favoring modernization of all sectors of the economy was formally confirmed at the Tenth National Party Congress in August 1973, at which time Deng Xiaoping was made a member of the party's Central Committee (but not yet of the Political Bureau).

The radical camp fought back by building an armed urban militia, but its mass base of support was limited to Shanghai and parts of northeastern China—hardly sufficient to arrest what it denounced as "revisionist" and "capitalist" tendencies. In January 1975 Zhou Enlai, speaking before the Fourth National People's Congress, outlined a program of what has come to be known as the Four Modernizations for the four sectors of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology. This program would be reaffirmed at the Eleventh National Party Congress, which convened in August 1977. Also in January 1975, Deng Xiaoping's position was solidified by his election as a vice chairman of the CCP and as a member of the Political Bureau and its Standing Committee. Deng also was installed as China's first civilian chief of the PLA General Staff Department.

The economic growth was relatively stable in the Fourth Five Year period compared with that in the Third Five-Year Plan period. During the Period of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, the growth rate of agricultural output was 3.96 percent, about the same as in the previous years, and the growth rate for industrial output was 9.13 percent, lower than that of the Third Five-Year Plan period. The proportional relations among agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry did not improve. In 1975, the shares of agriculture, light industry, and heavy industry in total gross output were 28.53, 30.93, and 40.54 percent, respectively. Although the plan included years when there were fundamental changes in China's top leadership (such as the fall of Lin Biao and the rehabilitation of many of those who fell from favor earlier), output of agriculture and industry did not fluctuate nearly as much as in those years in which the Red Guard activities were reported. However, the economic planning never ceased, even though most economic plans were not implemented.