50 YEARS ON, 20 YEARS ON: REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN GUANGDONG

Abstract

Throughout Chinese history Guangdong province has always been somewhat different, of ten marginal to the interests of the Chinese state, and typically troublesome and unruly. After 1949, Guangdong was marginalized by the new Chinese government. Its historical commercial prominence was compromised and its role in China's foreign trade, was severely limited. The province was given an agricultural focus, and it languished for thirty years under the firm control of the central state. The reforms of 1978 gave Guangdong an unexpected role to play. The liabilities of the thirty years after 1949, not least its proximity to foreign-controlled and capitalist-oriented Hong Kong, became advantages. The province was granted a flexibility to act after 1979 and took advantage of it to retrieve the commercial eminence that policies of the first 30 years of People's Republic of China had so severely limited. It restructured the provincial economy to create a flourishing industrial economy precisely in the regions of the province that had been central to its agricultural performance. Guangdong was greatly assisted in its economic transformation, and the reassertion of its commercial supremacy by its Hong Kong émigrés.

Keywords:

• China
• Guangdong
• Regionalism
• revolution
• reform
• economic change