Unsettled Lands
Labour and land cultivation in western China during the War of Resistance (1937-1945)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3632151 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joseph Lawson (0000-0002-8811-5245, Newcastle University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1442-1484 |
| Publication date | 2015-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0026749x14000274 |
| OpenAlex | W2056946167 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 26 |
Before the 1937 Japanese invasion of China, almost all Chinese leaders and intellectuals believed that the large-scale agricultural settlement of China's western peripheries would rapidly deliver extensive economic and social benefits. At the onset of the war, many officials from the western provinces pressed the central government to fund programmes to allow millions of refugees from Japanese-occupied territory to settle on and cultivate 'wasteland' (huang) on the peripheries of their jurisdictions. Influenced more by pre-War ideology than the demands of the War, central and provincial governments established 'land settlement and cultivation zones' (kenzhiqu) in these provinces. However, these ventures were much less well supported than their proponents had hoped. This was not only because the War strained government finances-funding forkenzhiquwas always limited relative to support for agricultural cooperatives-but also partly becausekenzhiquattempts to recruit settlers clashed with the acute labour shortage in core zones of unoccupied China, which led to the abandonment of already cultivated land there, and partly because of the mistrust between central and regional governments. Nonetheless, wartime advocacy for more land cultivation in the Northwest did have important repercussions, leading to a renewed interest in penal colonies
Abandonment (legal · Agriculture · Archaeology · Business · China · Development economics · Economic growth · Economic shortage · Economics · Economy · Geography · Government (linguistics · Ideology · Payment · Political science · Politics · Resistance (ecology · Settlement (finance · Spanish Civil War · World War II · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Exhausting the Earth
Seeds of Destruction
Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism
Beyond the Pass
Swallows and Settlers
Wuhan, 1938
War and Nationalism in China
Constructing Suiyuan
Two Revolutions
China Marches West
In a Sea of Bitterness
The Myth of Desertification at China’s Northwestern Frontier
Crisis and the Development of China’s Southwestern Periphery
Taming the Khampas
Dreams of Oil and Fertile Fields
The May Fourth Movement and Provincial Warlords
An Agricultural Survey of Szechwan Provine, China
Building the Nation, Serving the Frontier
Warlord Colonialism
Refugees, Land Reclamation, and Militarized Landscapes in Wartime China
China's Bitter Victory
An Agricultural Survey of Szechwan Province, China
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2017 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |