[zubat]

It's certainly true that China massively changed its land use policy following the PRC's formation. What I think is most interesting to consider, though, is whether the collectivization process had the same catalyzing action as enclosure in pre-industrial Britain. In both cases villages were pushed from a subsistence-driven existence towards top-down control, trade, and an uprooting of labor that could subsequently move to cities and work in factories. China's development into a modern industrial country may well have been premised on the massive application of violence of the early PRC era.

This prompted me to Google for "enclosure vs collectivization" which brought up this interesting-looking article on the topic [0].

[0] http://praxeology.net/SEK3-AQ-3.htm

[Animats]

China has far less arable land per capita than most large countries.[1] There's not much slack for major screwups in agriculture. This has been a major driving factor in China's history. China had six famines in the 20th century, and a long history of them before that. The Great Leap Forward was the last and worst one.

[1] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.ARBL.HA.PC