First Year Of The New China Financial And Economic Commission

This paper studies the economic and financial decision-making and practice by the Economic and Financial Committee of the Government Administration Council (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) in the first year of the People's Republic. It seeks to demonstrate, through such a study, the efforts by the Communist Party of China to embark on a path of development, set up a brand new economic order and prepare for economic development in the process of historical evolution. It starts with a brief introduction of the socio-economic conditions and theoretical background surrounding the establishment of the Committee and its organizational set-up. On this basis, the paper proceeds to recount the major economic activities the Committee undertook in the first year of the People's Republic under the leadership of the Party Central Committee and the Government Administration Council. These activities included: bringing order to the economic environment by resolving fiscal deficit; unifying management of economic and financial matters nationwide; establishing the predominant role of state-owned enterprises in the national economy; and exploring a path of economic development. The process whereby these activities were undertaken was at the same time a historical period when the Committee pushed forward the transition and evolution from an old to a new society through resolving issue after issue in the country's socio-economic life. Through the analysis of the historical events that occurred in the first year of the People's Republic under the watch of the Committee, the paper profiles the shift from an economy in a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society to an economy in a new democratic society, from an economy that was dominated by ensuring wartime military supplies to the recovery and growth of a peacetime economy, and from an economic management system that was dispersed among pockets of liberated areas to unified management of a national economy. The focus of the analysis is on the Committee's work in terms of elimination of the old economic model and system and exploration and gradual introduction of a new model and system.