Warlords, State Failures, and the Rise of Communism in China

This paper documents that the spread of communism in China was partly caused by state failures in the early 20th century. It finds that famines became more frequent after China fell into warlord fragmentation, especially for prefectures with less rugged borders and those facing stronger military thr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Huang, Zhangkai
Other Authors: Xu, Lixin Colin, Miao, Meng, Shao, Yi
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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653 |a Conflict and Development 
653 |a Armed Conflict 
653 |a Governance 
653 |a Food Security 
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653 |a Warlord 
653 |a State Failure 
653 |a Inequality 
653 |a Famine 
653 |a Agriculture 
653 |a Communism 
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700 1 |a Miao, Meng 
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520 |a This paper documents that the spread of communism in China was partly caused by state failures in the early 20th century. It finds that famines became more frequent after China fell into warlord fragmentation, especially for prefectures with less rugged borders and those facing stronger military threat. The relation between topography and famines holds when using historical border changes to instrument border ruggedness. More people from famine-inflicted prefectures died in the subsequent decades for the communist movement, but not for the Nationalist Army. There is evidence that famines exacerbated rural inequality, which pushed more peasants to the side of the communists