Understanding the failure of China’s specialized cooperatives in China

• Main Authors: HU, Zhanping, ZHANG, Qian Forrest, John A. DONALDSON
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2016
• Subjects: Agribusiness; Asian Studies; Political Science; Rural Sociology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2110; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3367/viewcontent/BY_ZHANPING_HU.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

At first blush, contemporary China seems ripe for the rapid development of agricultural cooperatives. After all, cooperatives have not only enjoyed a long history in China, but the country’s recent experience with agricultural communes should make it more amenable to the reestablishment of joint production and spontaneous bottom-up cooperation. Agricultural cooperatives in China date to the 1930s, as Rural Reconstruction Movement advocates promoted cooperatives as a “third road” between capitalism and socialism. Although Mao’s regime disbanded most bottom-up cooperatives, rural cooperatives began to reemerge in rural China by the end of the 20th century, particularly after 1998, when farmer cooperatives at the grassroots level began increasing markedly in number (Jia, Huang & Xu, 2012). Since the 1990s, agricultural cooperatives — particularly Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives (FSCs) — have been reinvigorated and experienced rapid expansion in rural China.