2. The Third Line Construction and Jinjiang Factory

There are three recognized end dates of the Third Line program. Some argue for 1978, taking the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee as the mark; some opt for 1980, which marks the end of the fifth Five-Year Plan; while others contend that 1983 should be the end date because in this year the central government finalized the policy for the adjustment and reorganization of the Third Line Enterprises (Li and Jiang 2005).

In “The Third Front”, Naughton (1988) provides some estimated data on capital investment in the Third Line. David Bachman (2001) offers some estimates of the scale of Third Line investment in Guangdong province, while Ding (1997) gives some data on the conversion of Third Line industries in Guizhou province. All of them fail to provide any data on the scale of nationwide investment in the Third Line. Prior to the 1980s, there were no reports on the Third line Construction. According to the rules, copying any Third Line Construction documents was prohibited; neither could the term “Third Line” be used either orally or in writing. All information on the transfer of factories and workers was forbidden from being reported in newspapers, journals, and even in-house publications (Secrecy Committee of Shanghai, the Planning Committee of Shanghai and the Industrial Production Committee of Shanghai 1965).

Not all workers in remote mountain areas were relocated to nearby cities. Naughton (1988, p. 383) argued that “some factories gradually move out of the mountains by expanding into other locations…some factories have been dismantled and moved to nearby cities; some remain tied to raw material sources and struggle to succeed in production; and others have simply been abandoned”.

Material-oriented processing companies moved to well-resourced cities such as Xiaogan (Hubei), Xianyang (Shaanxi), and Baoji (Shaanxi); companies producing appliances and goods for everyday consumption moved to highly populated cities such as Xiangfan (Hubei), Hanzhong (Shaanxi), and Mianyang (Sichuan); while high-tech companies moved to larger cities such as Wuhan (Hubei), Zhengzhou (Henan), Chongqing, Changsha (Hunan), and Chengdu (Sichuan) (Chen 2004).

There is no specific figure for transferred workers in Sichuan from 1964 to 1978. It is only recorded that in 1964 and 1965, 37,000 ordinary workers and technicians were transferred from the east coast area and the northeastern industrial base to Sichuan (the Federation of Trade Unions of Sichuan Province 1993, p. 34).

Nearly all works on the Third Line focus on the origin, scale, and legacy of this massive program. The “relocated workers” are not taken as their subjects. Studies on labor in China do not differentiate these workers from workers in other SOEs. William Hurst (2009) is one of the few scholars who took these workers as a group with a unique historical experience. Nevertheless, in his work he did not point out the scale of these workers.