Speaker:  Koji Hirata, Monash University

This presentation examines the city of Anshan in Liaoning Province as a case study to explore the interactions between large state-owned enterprises and local governments in Mao-era China. Anshan was home to China’s largest steel enterprise at the time, Anshan Iron and Steel Works (Angang). Although Angang was primarily controlled by the central government, the Chinese Communist Party Anshan City Committee and the Anshan City Government still exerted a degree of influence over its operations.

The relationship between Angang and city authorities of Anshan underwent changes throughout the Mao era. During the First Five-Year Plan (1953-57), China adopted a centralized governance model based on the Soviet example, and Angang often disregarded city government policies, such as urban planning. However, during the Great Leap Forward and the early Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong decentralized economic decision-making, granting greater power to local governments. This shift significantly increased the influence of the city’s CCP committee and government on Angang—a transformation reflected in the so-called “Angang Constitution,” authored by the CCP Anshan City Committee and praised by Chairman Mao.

The study highlights the complexities of Maoist China’s planned economy, demonstrating the dynamic interactions between industrial and urban authorities. These interactions reflected competing visions within the CCP leadership on how China should be governed.

Koji Hirata is a Senior Research Fellow (Senior Lecturer) in History at Monash University in Australia. He earned his Ph.D. in history at Stanford University. Before joining Monash, he was a Research Fellow (JRF) at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. His research focuses on modern China, Japan, and Russia/Soviet Union with broader implications for the global history of capitalism and socialism. His new book, Making Mao’s Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism, was recently published by Cambridge University Press in December 2024. He is currently working on a new book project about Mao-era China’s foreign economic relations.

We would like to thank the MIT Sustainable Urbanization Lab, the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning, and the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies for supporting this event. Please subscribe to our mailing list if you’d like to receive e-mail notifications: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/urbanchinaseminar.

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