Abstract

"Feeding China after the Great Leap Famine: Australian and Canadian Businesses and the Restoration of the PRC’s Grain System"

Koji Hirata, Monash University (hiratakoji83@gmail.com)

By 1960, Chinese leaders admitted the extreme lack of food in China, even in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. Under Liu Shaoqi’s leadership, recovery measures were taken to heal the country from the damage caused by the Great Leap Forward (GLF). The most urgent crisis to address was the devastating food shortage caused by the GLF. Facing this situation, the PRC needed to import grain from abroad. Given the Sino-Soviet Split, China turned to capitalist countries, especially Australia and Canada, for grain import. China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade identified these two countries because they were both major grain producers and had had better harvests in 1960. Australia and Canada also had alternating growing seasons, which meant that China could import grain throughout the year. China was a net exporter of grain in the 1950s but became a net importer for the first time in 1961. The numbers fluctuated annually, but after 1961, China remained a net importer of grain for decades. Population growth outpaced the recovery and growth of grain production, forcing China to continue importing grain. The GLF thus turned China from a major food exporter into a major importer.

Using sources from Chinese, Australian, Canadian, and other archives, this paper explores the origins, processes, and consequences of China’s grain import from Australia and Canada during the 1960s. In doing so, I elucidate how Chinese leaders developed contacts with Australian and Canadian grain businesses, how the new trade relationship with these countries fundamentally changed China’s relationship with the capitalist world economy, and how this ultimately transformed China’s grain production and distribution system at home.