Privatization—China
China has a long and rich history of private enterprise during the time of the dynasties. By the early part of the twentieth century, however, Chinese private industry had become foreign dominated. Most firms were small, with less than five hundred employees, and produced consumer goods, such as textiles, cigarettes, and flour, owing to the exclusive concessions on manufactured and processed goods ceded to the Western powers under military coercion. In short, the lion's share of the financial benefit of Chinese private industry did not accrue to the Chinese themselves.
As for private agriculture, most peasants subsisted on tiny tracts of land (in the 1930s, 73 percent of peasants owned one hectare of land or less), and a relatively very small number of people owned large pieces of land (in the 1930s, 0.015 percent of rural residents owned 66 hectares or more), which were parceled up and leased to the landless. Here again, the Chinese experience of private ownership was not one of general prosperity.
After the Chinese Communist victory in 1949, the new rulers did not immediately forsake private ownership. Agricultural land was not organized into communes but rather redistributed (in 1950 71.74 percent of peasants owned more than one hectare).
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