Both Taiwan and mainland China have developed extremely quickly. The reasons do not seem to lie solely in the form of government, for the pre-conditions for a "take-off" existed in China as early as the 1920's, if not earlier. That is, the quick development of China could have started forty years ago but was prevented, primarily for political reasons. One of the main pre-conditions for quick development is that a large part of the population is inured to hard and repetitive work. The Chinese farmer was accustomed to such work; he put more time and energy into his land than any other farmer. He and his fellows were the industrial workers of the future: reliable, hard-working, tractable, intelligent. To train them was easy, and absenteeism was never a serious problem, as it is in other developing nations. Another pre-condition is the existence of sufficient trained people to manage industry. Forty years ago China had enough such men to start modernization; foreign assistance would have been necessary in some fields, but only briefly.
Another requirement (at least in the period before radio and television) is general literacy. Meaningful statistical data on literacy in China before 1937 are lacking. Some authors remark that before 1800 probably all upper-class sons and most daughters were educated, and that men in the middle and even in the lower classes often had some degree of literacy. In this context "educated" means that these persons could read classical poetry and essays written in literary Chinese, which was not the language of daily conversation. "Literacy," however, might mean only that a person could read and write some 600 characters, enough to conduct a business and to read simple stories. Although newspapers today have a stock of about 6,000 characters, only some 600 characters are commonly used, and a farmer or worker can manage well with a knowledge of about 100 characters. Statements to the effect that in 1935 some 70 per cent of all men and 95 per cent of all women were illiterate must include the last category in these figures. In any case, the literacy program of the Nationalist government had penetrated the countryside and had reached even outlying villages before the Pacific War.
The transportation system in China before the war was not highly developed, but numerous railroads connecting the main industrial centers did exist, and bus and truck services connected small towns
with the larger centers. What were missing in the pre-war years were laws to protect the investor, efficient credit facilities, an insurance system supported by law, and a modern tax structure. In addition, the monetary system was inflation-prone. Although sufficient capital probably could have been mobilized within the country, the available resources either went into foreign banks or were invested in enterprises providing a quick return.
The failure to capitalize on existing means of development before the War resulted from the chronic unrest caused by warlordism, revolutionaries and foreign invaders, which occupied the energies of the Nationalist government from its establishment to its fall. Once a stable government free from internal troubles arose, national development, whether private or socialist, could proceed at a rapid pace.
Thus, the development of Communist China is not a miracle, possible only because of its form of government. What is unusual about Communist China is the fact that it is the only nation possessing a highly developed culture of its own to have jettisoned it in favor of a foreign one. What missionaries had dreamed of for centuries and knew they would never accomplish, Mao Tse-tung achieved; he imposed an ideology created by Europeans and understandable only in the context of Central Europe in the nineteenth century. How long his success will last is uncertain. One school of analysts believes that the friction between Soviet Russia and Communist China indicates that China's communism has become Chinese. These men point out that Communist Chinese practices are often direct continuations of earlier Chinese practices, customs, and attitudes. And they predict that this trend will continue, resulting in a form of socialism or communism distinctly different from that found in any other country. Another school, however, believes that communism precedes "Sinism," and that the regime will slowly eliminate traits which once were typical of China and replace them with institutions developed out of Marxist thinking. In any case, for the present, although the Communist government's aim is to impose communist thought and institutions in the country, typically Chinese traits are still omnipresent.
Soon after the establishment of the Peking regime, a pact of friendship and alliance with the Soviet Union was concluded (February 1950), and Soviet specialists and civil and military products poured into China to speed its development. China had to pay for this assistance as well as for the loans it received from Russia, but the application of Russian experience, often involving the duplication of whole factories, was successful. In a few years, China developed
its heavy industry, just as Russia had done. It should not be forgotten that Manchuria, as well as other parts of China, had had modern heavy industries long before 1949. The Manchurian factories ceased production because, when the Russians invaded Manchuria at the end of the war, they removed the machinery to Russia.
Russian aid to Communist China continued to 1960. Its termination slowed development briefly but was not disastrous. Russian assistance was a "shot in the arm," as stimulating and about as lasting as American aid to Taiwan or to European countries. The stress laid upon heavy industry, in imitation of Russia, increased China's military strength quickly, but the consumer had to wait for goods which would make his life more enjoyable. One cause of friction in China today concerns the relative desirability of heavy industry versus consumer industry, a problem which arose in Russia after the death of Stalin.
China's military strength was first demonstrated in the Korean War when Chinese armies entered Korea (October 1950). Their successes contributed to the prestige of the Peking regime at home and abroad, but they also foreshadowed a conflict with Soviet Russia, which regarded North Korea as lying within its own sphere of influence.