Unintended consequences of Ze Ren Zhi reforms in China: Interplay of agricultural reform and population control policy

Abstract

National policies, however innovative, well intentioned, and even apparently successful, can sometimes produce consequences almost as serious as the problems they were designed to solve. Troublesome policy “side-effects” are neither always the result of chance, nor are they inevitable. Modern policy solutions often begin by “isolating the problem,” but in this very isolation can lurk the causes of serious unforeseen difficulties. The following paper treats precisely such a situation. It will show how an apparently effective solution to agricultural under-production in China has led to serious, but unintended, consequences in the form of a resurgence of population growth. In addition, the paper will trace in some detail the history of agricultural policy in the PRC from 1949 to present.