China’s Migration Movements And Urbanization Studies:1955-1980

This thesis studies from the phenomenon of the derailment between the China’s urbanization and industrialization during the three decades after the founding of P. R. China. The rapid development of industrialization in this period did not improved urbanization at the same time, on the contrary, the level of urbanization was at a standstill, and was farther from industrialization. In general wave of urbanization in developing countries after World War Ⅱ, this phenomenon of urban development in China is very special. And when our vision extends to modern times, we will find that from its inception to date, the overall trend of urbanization in China was following the development of modern industry, so as in the modern times and in the period after the reform and opening up, except in three decades after the founding of P. R. China. And from the perspective of the history of the development of our cities, the standstill during this period was also seemed unusual.Through literature review, we found that the stagnant state was closely related to national control of urban population growth consciously. The household registration system and urban-rural dual system of separation made the free flow of population become difficult, especially, the migration from rural to urban was almost completely blocking off. The migration in this period was mainly organized by government administrative, typically include 1955-1956 Urban Population Austerity Movement, the Great Leap Forward and Streamline Workers, Rustication Movement of Educated Youth, The Third Front Construction.From the perspective of urbanization, we reanalysis the migration to the above four major events. We found that in 1955-1956 years, the urban austerity movement evacuated "non-productive population," including foreign farmers, unemployed workers, correctional officers, the homeless and other to the countryside, engaged them in land reclamation and agricultural production, in order to alleviate the burden on the food supply and to address urban surplus labor. Great Leap Forward had led to tens of millions of population between urban and rural areas in a large circulation. The Great Leap Forward economic overheating caused the initial false labor shortage in the city, thousands of farmers moved to the cities, but the subsequent outbreak of the economic crisis, forced those farmers and many urban workers move to the rural areas. Since then, the state’s efforts to control the urban population with the unprecedented strengthening, and subsequently, began the period of urbanization stagnation in nearly two decades. The Rustication Movement initiated by ideological factors, but urban unemployment problem is the direct cause of the movement initiated, which makes the countryside has to mobilize youth unemployment to the rural. And difference from other immigrant movement, the Rustication is targeted the youth population of the city. The leaving of the youth not only took their own, but also took away their upcoming exuberant fertility, not only directly reduces the urban population, also reduces the natural growth of the urban population, which greatly restricted the improvement of the urban population proportion. For the purposes of combat readiness, the three-line construction movement migrated the workers of a lot of the first-tier cities, factories and industrial to the inland. Three-line construction was a major adjustment of the layout of the industrial economy, resulted a rapid upsurge of development of the inland industrial economy. From the perspective of migration and urbanization, in three-line construction period, industries, factories and workers migrated from east to west. For the eastern part of the city, the three-line construction was not only the migration of plants, but also the reducing of the investment, resulting in a negative impact on the development of the city; while in the inland, due to the emphasization "patron, dispersion, concealment", a number of new industrial cities were appeared, but overall, huge capital investments and industry migration to the inland did not significantly improve the level of urbanization. We can say that the three-line construction is one of the important factors that lead to the stagnation of the development of urbanization sixties and seventies.Despite the difference between the previous immigrant movements in the object, goals, motivation, and scale, but they had the same result, migration of the urban population to the countryside and the inland, weakening the urban population growth, and they were all mainly by administrative means. This thesis summarized the preventing of farmers into the city and migration of the urban population to the rural in conscious, in order to control the growth of the urban population by means of country’s social control and mobilization force as "anti-urbanization." Anti-urbanization is not a natural outgrowth of the economic development, but the process of the peel off between urbanization and industrialization artificially.In the implementation of the anti-urbanization policy, it was usually not using the means of implementing the system, but through political mobilization manner by country. By means of the media rendering, organizational learning, repeated persuasion, political criticism, "with a hat", etc., it was to create a strong political and moral pressure to make people give up personal interests considerations and packed up to go to the countryside. It could set off a nationwide mobilization way in a very short time to mobilize large numbers of the population left the city, however, could not be sustained enthusiasm for long, which also makes the movement showing drop features. The previous migratory movements above were very apparent in this feature. In the process of previous migration of the urban population to the countryside, without exception, it was resisted by people. Although this resistance does not hinder the execution and implementation of national policies, but the willingness to return to the city was hidden in the countryside people’s heart. We found that in the urban-rural dual structure, whether farmers or those who have been mobilized to the countryside for urban residents, they were always with a strong desire to flock to the city. This desire has been controlled under political pressure, but wishes would immediately be converted to realistic action once a little lax. From this point that the country strong social mobilization and control are the important guarantee for the anti-urbanization migration of population.