5 November 2024

China’s Next ‘Great Leap Forward’

Victoria Herczegh

Following a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and State Council, Beijing issued a new directive to develop an advanced industrial workforce aimed at driving Chinese-style modernization. The plan calls for organizing workers into groups and strengthening ideological and political guidance. To achieve this, central leadership will increase training and support for industrial workers to improve both the quality and quantity of production. Professional educators will lead these groups, providing both technical training and ideological instruction, while efforts will be made to make manufacturing jobs more attractive, especially for young people and migrant workers, potentially including “reeducation” programs.

For months, the government has emphasized boosting industrial production, especially in high-tech and innovation sectors, essential for economic recovery and modernization. This latest announcement, however, provides the first specific strategies from President Xi Jinping’s administration. Some details resemble aspects of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward (1958-61), which tried to boost production through organized working groups and intense political education but ended in disastrous failure, famine, and 30 million to 45 million deaths. Despite this tragic legacy, the current leadership not only has adopted elements from that period but is even using similar language – terms like “great leap” and “leap forward” – to describe its plans. Facing Western export controls and diminished foreign investment, the Chinese government appears as committed as ever to self-sufficiency, and it sees the Great Leap Forward as a model of ambition, innovation and self-reliance.

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