Privatisation by stealth: The case of Chinese Public Sector Agriculture

This paper examines China's gradual transition from public sector agriculture to market-oriented farming through privatisation through the Chinese Communist Party never used this word.Beginning with the catastrophic failures of the People's Commune System , which resulted in widespread famine and rural poverty affecting over 95% of the population, the study traces the transformative impact of the Household Responsibility System (HRS) introduced in 1978.Through systematic analysis of agricultural output data, rural income statistics, and policy evolution, we demonstrate how China dismantled public sector agriculture without explicitly using privatisation terminology.The HRS catalysed successive reforms including Township and Village Enterprises, market liberalisation, land tenure reforms, and the contemporary Rural Revitalisation Strategy.These stealth privatisation measures increased grain production from 305 million tonnes (1978) to 657 million tonnes (2023) while reducing rural poverty from 30.7% to official elimination by 2021, offering valuable lessons for public enterprise reform globally.