Economic Growth Strategy and Urbanization Policies in China, 1949–1982*

China's rapid industrial growth has not been accompanied by comparable levels of urbanization, which remains low even by Third World standards. The paper outlines the major principles governing urbanization in the early stages of socialist industrialization, and demonstrates that China has been consistent in attempting to maximize industrial growth while minimizing urbanization, through measures such as control of urban-rural population and labour mobility, fuller use of urban workers, the suppression of services and personal consumption, and the promotion of rural industrialization. These measures, however, are "urban-biased," reinforcing urban-rural disparities, rather than "anti-urban" as previous interpretations have argued.