82 SOCIAL SCIENTIST population growth of 2 per cent (now estimated at 1.7 per cent or even lower).1 Very few countries, developed and developing, have done so well. TAI ?LE I CHINA'S G» LOWTH RATES (In percentages based on 1957 prices ( Industry Agriculture GDP 1952-57 12.1 6.8 7.8 1957-65 7.2 1.2 3.7 1965-70 10.3 4.1 7.2 1970-74 11.1 1.9 6.1 1952-74 9.7 3.2 6.1 SOURCE: Dwight H Perkins, The Central Features of China3 ^ Economic Development, paper presented to a research conference on 'The Lessons of China's Development Experience," Puerto Rico, January 1976, sponsored by the Sub-committee on Research on the Chinese Economy of the Joint Committee on Contemporary China. FOOD AND JOBS FOR ALL One of the most important manifestations of China's progress is its success in feeding its large population estimated at 800 million in 1975. Total grain production has more than doubled between 1949 and 1975, from 108 to 285 million million tons. Since the population increase for the same period has been about 50 per cent (from 550 million to over 800 million) the per capita availability of cereals has increased from an annual per capita of 200 to over 300 kilogrammes.2 Partly because of a sustained increase in grain production and partly due to the equitable distribution of available food supply, the proportion of under-nourished population is very small.8 In addition, the Chinese have pursued an active food security policy. Following Chairman Mao's instructions in 1966 to "dig tunnels deep, store grain everywhere and never exercise hegemony", the Chinese have been building food stocks, partly through surplus production and partly from imports. In 1975, total government-controlled food stocks in China were estimated at 40 million tons. This did not include the stocks held by the communes and the brigades to meet their own fluctuations in production. Most of the stocks at comune and brigade levels and the government stocks held at county level out of the agricultural tax p