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NUMBER GAMES REJECTED: THE MISLEADING ALLURE OF TENANCY ESTIMATES by Randy Stross Journalists and sociologists, Marxists and non-Marxists, Chinese and Westerners, all gave considerable attention during the 1930s to China's rural problems. In the many articles and books that took up discussion of the Chinese peasantry, a fierce debate was waged around the question of tenancy: How extensive was the problem? Was major redistribution of existing landholdings needed? A game of numbers commenced. Drawn to the appealing precision of sociology's survey method, commentators on the rural crisis, whether pro-land reform or not, invariably included references to a rural survey, which provided neat breakdowns of a tripartite categorization of peasants: owners/cultivators, semi-tenants, and tenants. Authors were most concerned with finding survey conclusions that fit th~ir own arguments, not with examining the validity of the results themselves. In some cases, tables of findings contradicted the author's own arguments. In others, the levels providing evidence and the level of generalization were grossly mismatched. An article on the •nation•s• rural problem might cite only a modest survey of a single locality. Or an expose of the rural crisis in a particular village would inexplicably rely upon nationwide estimates for evidentiary support. Regardless of origin, the cited survey's methodology and sample were rarely discussed, even in footnotes. What mattered was the sense of authority conferred by the numbers that were the surveys' final products. Authors were often painstaking in mentioning hundredths of a percent in the breakdown of tenants and other classes. Who would be so churlish as to question the authority of such precision? China historians today share the same interest in the tenancy question as Chinese commentators of the 1930s. With the triumph of the Communist-led revolution and subsequent implementation of radical land reform in the intervening years, the old question concerning pre-revolution tenancy has taken on fresh significance. Should the revolution be seen as a social response to a serious problem of maldistributed land? Or should it be seen as an essentially political phenomenon, detached from the tenancy question, because tenancy was never as serious a problem as the Communists claimed? These questions have sparked renewed interest in the 1930s. Today's secondary literature on the land problem of the 1930s contains the old numbers game, for the quantitative imperative continues to operate, with stronger force than ever before. China historians seem imprisoned by the imperative and search with blind 1 narrowness for numbers gauging the extent of tenancy in Republican China. The problem, of course, is that reliable numbers do not exist, except in a handful of scattered village surveys. These are too sparse and limited to be useful to the historian who wants to comment about provincial, regional, or national conditions. So broader surveys are summoned, which claim to measure entire counties, or, even more preposterous, conditions for an entire province. Rarely do these surveys disclose which villages, precisely, formed the sample, and even more rarely do they disclose how the sample was selected, how the survey was conducted, how the findings should be weighted, or any other information necessary for evaluating the validity of the survey. Historians have known that the surveys were riddled with shortcomings. But normal standards and tests for evidence have be~n disregarded and the 1930s surveys are cited again and again in today's secondary literature on China. The rationale is that the surveys, though flawed, are better than no surveys at all. As one prescient Chinese scholar put it, quite poetically, the survey data •are like the only spring in a desert--regardless of whether the water is sweet or salty, dirty or clean, it remains very precious• (Qian, 1934:93). I disagree, however. To use the same metaphor, •salty• water--even in a desert--is not precious to the thirsty wanderer. In fact, physicians tell us that drinking salty water when dehydrated is worse than drinking no water at all. Similarly, unsound surveys should not be treasured by thirsty historians, even if the surveys are the best at hand. If unsound, the validity of their empirical claims remains unestablished. They do not deserve cita~ion, period. China historians, I would...

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