Urban Population Growth and Urbanization in China Since 1949: Reconstructing a Baseline*

The China Quarterly

Volumn 104, Issue , 1985, Pages 583-613

  Chan, Kam Wing ^a   Xu, Xueqiang ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

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EID: 84971159987     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741000033324     Document Type: Article

References (60)

1. For example, Rhoads Murphey, “Aspects of urbanisation in contemporary China: a revolutionary model,” Proceedings of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 7 (1975), pp. 165-68; Reiitsu Kojima (ed.), Chugoku no toshika to nō son kensetsu (Urbaniza
2. Laurence J. C. “Preliminary results of the 1982 Census in China,” Geographical Review. Vol. 73, No. 2 (April 1983), pp. 189-210.
3. Leo A. Orleans, “China's urban population: concepts, conglomeration and concerns,” in Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, China Under the Four Modernisations, Pt I (Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1982), pp. 268–302. Another more
4. State Statistical Bureau (SSB), Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1981 (TJNJ 1981) (Statistical Yearbook of China 1981) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1982), p. 89.
5. State Council Population Census Office and SSB Population Statistics Division (SCPCO and SSBPSD), Zhongguo disanci renkou pucha de zhuyao shuzi (Important Figures from China's Third Population Census) (Hong Kong: Jingji daobao she, 1982), p. 2.
6. See United Nations Population Division (UNPD), Pattern of Urban and Rural Population Growth (New York: Department of International Economic and Social Affairs. Population Studies No. 68, 1980), p. 136.
7. See for example, Zhang Changgen, “Shanghai: Population developments since 1949, “in Liu Zheng et al., China's Population: Problems and Prospect (Beijing: New World Press, 1980), p. 129.
8. Zhang Zehou and Chen Yuguang, “Shilun woguo renkou jiegou yu guomin jingji fanzhan de guanxi” (“On the relationship between the population structure and national economic develoment in China”) Zhongguo shehui kexue (Social Sciences in China), No. 4 (July 1981), pp. 29-49; TJNJ 1981, p. 89; and Ma Hong et al. (eds), Xiandai Zhongguo jingji shidian (Dictionary of Economic Events in Modern China) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982), p. 14.
9. This series was cited in J. S. Aird, “Population studies and population policy in China,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (June 1982), p. 280, Table 2; A. J. Jowett, “The growth of China's population, 1964-1982,” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 150, No. 2 (July 1984), pp. 156, Table II; Shigeru Ishikawa, “China's economic growth since 1949-an assessment,” The China Quarterly, No. 94 (June 1983), pp. 242–281.
10. See for example, Tian Xueyuan, Xinshiqi renkoulun (Theory on Population of the New Era) (Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 1982), p. 25; and Zhang Chunyuan et al. (eds.), Renkou jingjixue (Population Economics) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1983), pp. 329–30, Table 17–23.
11. Thomas G. Rawski, Economic Growth and Employment in China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 25–28. One must, however, be aware that some of the data in his Table 2–3 are not comparable.
12. Wu Youren, “Guanyu woguo shehuizhuyi chengshihua wenti” (“Questions on China's urbanization”), in Beijing College of Economics (ed.), Zhongguo renkou kexue lunji (Symposium on Chinese Population Science) (Beijing: Zhongguo xushu chubanshe, 1981), p. 96; Hu Xuwei, “Dui woguo chengzhen hua shuiping de pouxi” (“Analysis of China's urbanization level”), Chengshi guihua (City Planning Review), No. 2 (1983), p. 24; and Orleans, “China's urban population.”
13. For definition of urban places published in 1955, refer to State Council Legal System Bureau (ed.), Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo fagui huibian July-December, 1955 (Collection of Legal Documents of People's Republic of China, July-December, 1955) (Beijing: Falu chubanshe, 1980), pp. 409-417; for the current one, see SCPCO and SSBPSD, Third Population Census, p. 2.
14. Li Chengrui, “Zong renkou pucha gongbao kan zhongguo renkou tongji shuzi de zhunquexing” (“The Chinese population as shown by the population census communiqué -some comments on the accuracy of Chinese population statistics”), Jingji yanjiu (Economic ResearchNo. 12 (December 1982), pp. 35–37.
15. Chen Dao et al., Jingji da cidian: nongye jingji Juan (Dictionary of Economics: Agricultural Economics) (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1983), pp. 127-28; Kam Wing Chan, “Zhongguo nongye renkou ji dayuejin shiqi jihuang siwan renshu” (China's agricultural population and the death toll due to famines in the Great Leap Forward Period,” Jiushi niandai (The Nineties), No. 179 (December 1984), pp. 101–103.
16. Other studies also confirm the same point, see Alan L. Eyre, “Shanghai-world's second city?” Professional Geographer, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 1971), pp. 28-30; and Norman A. Chance, China's Urban Village: Life in a Beijing Commune (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), Chap. 2. Indeed, the surburban counties are often referred to as nongcun (rural villages).
17. See, for example, Morris B. Ullman, Cities of Mainland China: 1953 and 1958 (Washington, D.C. US Department of Commerce, International Reports Series P-95, No. 59, 1961), p. 4.
18. Peter G. Goheen, “Metropolitan area definition: a re-evaluation of concept and statistical practice,” in Larry S. Bourne (ed.), Internal Structure of City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 47-58; and James W. Simmons and Larry S. Bourne, “Defining urban places: differing concepts of the urban system,” in Bourne and Simmons (eds.), Systems of Cities: Readings on Structure, Growth, and Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 28-41.
19. According to this definition, which has been used in many UN studies, China's urban population would have totalled 167 million (22% of the nation's total) and 195 million (23%) in 1970 and 1975, respectively. UNPD, Pattern of Urban and Rural Population Growth, p. 136.
20. Ministry of Domestic Affairs, Zhongguo xingzheng quhua jiance (A Handbook of Administrative Districts in China) (Beijing: Ditu chubanshe, 1982).
21. This programme was first initiated in the late 1950s. A renewed emphasis has been made since the early 1980s. Mingbao (Ming Pao, Hong Kong), 1 January 1983, p. 5. At the end of 1981, only 56 municipalities, out of a total of 230, included one or more counties under their administration. This number has increased to 121, out of a total of 286, in 1984. Dagongbao (Ta Kung Pao, American ed.), 21 March 1984, p. 1.
22. Zhang Tingwei, “Dui chengshihua fazhan dongli de tantao” (“Discussion on the driving force of urbanization”), Chengshi guihua, No. 5 (1983), pp. 59-60; Hu Xuwei, “Analysis of China's urbanization level,” pp. 25-26: see also supra fn. 17.
23. Owing to the incompleteness of enumeration, most national census figures under-estimate the number of urban residents by about 5 to 10%.
24. Orleans, “China's urban population,” pp. 273-77; and J. Aird, “Population studies and population policy in China,” pp. 279–282.
25. State Council (ed.), Collection of Legal Documents, 1955, p. 413.
26. Reproduced in ibid. pp. 409–417.
27. See State Council (ed.), Collection of Legal Documents, 1955, p. 413. Some of these small settlements were, instead, reclassified as “urban-type residential areas.” However, they probably remained in the “urban” category.
28. Hu Xuwei, “Analysis of China's urbanization level,” p. 25.
29. SCPCO and SSBPSD, China's Third Population Census, p. 2.
30. Of course, there are also some “movements” between the two categories of “cities” and “towns.” Towns might expand to become cities, and cities might decline to become towns.
31. Calculated from 1964 data reported in SCPCO and SSBPSD, China's Third Population Census, p. 1.
32. Hu Xuwei, “Analysis of China's urbanization level,” p. 24; and Wu Youren and Zhuang Linde, “Guanyu woguo chengshi jiaoqu fanwei de wenti” (“Questions on the boundary of urban suburbs”), in Geographical Society of China (ed.), Gongye buju yu chengshi guihua (Industrial Location and City Planning) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1981), pp. 144— 49.
33. For example, see Wang Shiqing and Qi Hanbing, “Xianzhen guihua zhong jige wenti de fujian” (“Some preliminary views on planning of county towns”), Chengxiang jianshe (Urban and Rural Construction), No. 7 (July 1983), pp. 6–8.
34. There are more than 300 county towns (xian zhen) which, though they have attained the conditions suitable for urban designation, are still excluded from the urban category. See Li Mengbai “Woguo chengzhen fazhan de zhanwan” (“Prospect of urban development in China”), Chengxiang jianshe, No. 12 (December 1983), p. 17; also Hu Xuwei, “Analysis of China's urbanization level.”
35. Li Chengrui, “The Chinese population,” pp. 31–32.
36. See the Explanatory Notes of TJNJ 1981, p. 495. A recent confirmation of the above is in Hu Kaihua and Chen Wei, “Woguo chengzhen renkou tongji de youguan wenti” (“Questions related to China's urban population statistics”), Renkou yu jingji, No. 3 (June 1984), pp. 39–42 and 24.
37. Li Chengrui, “The Chinese population,” pp. 31–32.
38. Examples of the NPCT and the TPCT not being differentiated can be found in Ma Hong et al., Dictionary of Economic Events, p. 14; and Zhang Chunyuan et al. (eds), Renkou jingjixue (Population Economics) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanxue, 1983), p. 330.
39. In fact, the definition of urban population based on a de jure criterion is not particularly unique to the Chinese case; the same thing is found in the USSR, see Cecil Houston, “Administrative control of migration to Moscow, 1959-75,” The Canadian Geographer, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring 1979), pp. 32–44.
40. Hu Xuwei, “Analysis of China's urbanization level,” pp. 23-26; Wu Yuren, “Questions on China's urbanization,” p. 96; and Zhang Tingwei, “The driving force of urbanization,” p. 59.
41. may 55. Refer to the discussion in Section 1. Pi-chao Chen, “Overurbanisation, rustication of urban-educated youths, and politics of rural transformation,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 4, No. 3 (April 1972), pp. 373–74, also cites statements indicating that the Chinese Goverment have hoped to stabilize the urban population at 110 million during the mid 1960s.
42. For example, see Reiitsu Kojima, “Shakaishugi kensetsu to toshika” (“Socialist development and urbanization”), in Kojima (ed.), Chugoku no toshika to noson kensetsu, pp. 19-22; Laurence Ma, “Anti-urbanism in China,” Proceedings of Association of American Geographers, Vol. 8 (1976), pp. 114-18; Charles P. Cell, “The urban-rural contradiction in the Maoist era: the pattern of deurbanisation in China,” Comparative Urban Research, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1980), pp. 48-69; Ishikawa, “China's economic growth since 1949,” pp. 250–251.
43. SSB, Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1983 (TJNJ 1983) (Statistical Yearbook of China 1983) (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1983), pp. 103–105.
44. Li Chengrui, “Shinian neiluan qijian woguo jingji qingkuang fenxi-jianlun zheyi qijian tongji shuzi de kekaoxing” (“An analysis of China's economy in the ten-year internalchaos period and comments on the reliability of statistics of this period”), Jingji yanyiuf No. 1 (1984), pp. 23–31.
45. Based on Ansley J. Coale, Rapid Population Change in China, 1952–1982 (Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1984). pp. 28 and 69, the completeness of birth registration
46. Lardy, Agriculture in China's Development, pp. 196-97; and Yu Hongjun and Ning Yuemin, Chengshi diligailun (Theories of Urban Geography) (Hefei: Anhui keji chubanshe, 1983), pp. 155–156.
47. Examples are: State Council, “Directive on the strict control of the flow of rural labour force into cities to work and the conversion of agricultural population into nonagricultural population,” Guowuyuan gongbao (10 February 1982), pp. 885-87; and “Directive on the strict forbidding unhealthy tendencies in the work of recruiting and assigning state workers and staff,” ibid. 10 June 1982, pp. 339–342.
48. State Council, “Directive on the strict forbidding unhealthy tendencies,” ibid. pp. 339–342.
49. A detailed explanation of these is found in Blecher, “Peasants labour for urban industry.”
50. Ibid.; John Emerson, “The labor force of China 1957-80,” in US Congress, China Under the Four Modernisations, Pt. I, pp. 224-67; Lardy, Agriculture in China's Development, pp. 196-97; and Chance, China's Urban Villages, pp. 51–54.
51. Blecher, “Peasants labour for urban industry.”
52. There are some close parallels here with the problem of “temporary” and “permanent” residence status in the Soviet cities and the associated statistical accounting problems. See C. Houston, “Administrative control of migration to Moscow, 1959-75,” pp. 32–44.
53. Ma Xia, “An exploratory study,” and State Council, “Directive on the strict control of the flow,” Guowuyuart gongbao (10 February 1982), p. 885.
54. This has been widely reported in Chinese media; see Feng Lanrui and Zhao Lukuan, Employment and Wage, pp. 6-7; and also Beijing Review, Vol. 25, No. 39 (27 September 1982), p. 20.
55. Rusticated urban youths legally began to flow back to cities since 1974 under various names, see Feng Lanrui and Zhao Lukuan, ibid. p. 7; also Thomas P. Bernstein, Up to the Mountain and Down to the Village (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), Chap. 6.
56. Wu Yuren and Zhuang Linde, “Questions on the boundary of urban suburbs,” p. 146. Natural increase was not likely the sole contributor of a rapid annual population growth rate as high as 5% a large part of this growth rate must be attributed to in-migration.
57. The definition of various urban size categories is in City Planning Regulations, Art. 2, reproduced in Xinhua yuebao (New China Monthly) (1984), No. 1, pp. 84— 86. The policy
58. According to TJNJ 1981, p. 92, the NPC/TPC ratio for cities with NPC over one million was 0–81, and for those between 0.5 to one million, it was 0.71 (1981 end-year). The overall NPCT/TPCT ratio for all cities and towns was 0.71 in mid 1982 (computed from Table 3).
59. Xu Xueqiang, “Trends and changes of the urban system in China,” Third World Planning Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (February 1984), pp. 47–59.
60. Fei Xiatong, “Xian chengzhen da wenti” (“Small towns, a big issue”), Liaowang (Lookout), No. 2–5 (16–30 January 1984).