d. The conclusion of the Opium Wars in1860 formally initiated a period of Western exploitation of China from the coastal treatyports. Railroads and highways were constructed, and some industrial development wasbegun. Such activity had little impact, however, on the overall Chinese economy. Ineffect, China was set up into a number of competing colonial spheres of influence.“Japan, which tried to attach China to its East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, was able tocreate only isolated nodes of a modern economy” (Butler/Encarta 1996). This laid thefoundation for a China that was to be exploited by other nations.The Chinese Communist party emerged in the 1920s in the midst of amounting economic crisis caused by foreign intervention and increased landlordinfluence in the countryside. For more than two decades, it expanded its control overlarge rural areas by introducing an agrarian program based on the control of rent andusury, and by giving power to peasant associations. On October 1, 1949, the Communistparty successfully established a unified national government and economy on themainland for the first time since the end of the imperial period in 1912. There wasattention specifically paid to dealing with problems ranging from inflation, foodshortages, unemployment, and land reform. Under the first five-year plan (1953-1957),92 percent of the agricultural population was organized into cooperative farms. In 1958the rural people's communes were established, and these dominated agriculture in Chinauntil the early 1980s. State ownership of property and of industrial and commercial enterpriseswas gradually extended in the urban-industrial sector. The second five-year plan wasintroduced in 1958, and in the summer of that year the regime initiated the Great LeapForward. This program was characterized by large investments in heavy industry and theestablishment of small-scale versions of such industries as steel refining. The program,however...
