Planning China’s future: Liu Guojun's conception of China’s post-war economic recovery

Abstract

Liu Guojun was a Chinese capitalist who owned textile mills in Republican China. During the war against Japan, he wrote essays about the prospects of China’s economic recovery. He developed a fine sense of the postwar world economy and participated in discussions about China’s economic development. In 1949 he decided to stay in the People’s Republic of China, continuing with his work in the textile business and entering the political administration of Jiangsu and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce. During this transitional period, he wrote an economic plan for the development of China’s textile industry, specifying how this industry should nurture other economic sectors and help to improve both the standards of living and the education of the Chinese people. This article aims to discuss China’s late economic development through Liu Guojun’s publications and writings that have recently been available to scholars. The article suggests that Liu Guojun anticipated some key factors that drove China’s economic reform to succeed in 1978, such as the importance of light industries, given the resource endowments of the country, and the necessity of administering an industrial policy able to lead China’s opening to foreign markets.