Factor Endowments, Value Trade-offs, and State Power: The Basic Logic of Early Explorations of China's Economic Modernization Ideas

Economic modernization is the core clue and key proposition of economic and social development in modern China. By constructing the analytical framework of “factor endowment-value trade-offs-national power”, this paper comprehends and analyzes the content of the discussion and ideological lineage of economic modernization in Chinese intellectual circles in the 1930s and 1940s. The study finds that scholars in this period took the basic knowledge of China's economic endowment conditions as the logical starting point, and the proposed paths of China's economic modernization, such as the strategy of giving priority to agriculture, the strategy of industrialization, and the strategy of catching up with heavy industry, were based on the trade-offs among multiple value goals, such as improving people's livelihood, transforming the development model, and guaranteeing economic security, etc., and they also took into account the importance of the state's power in the economic modernization process and its ability requirements. It also takes into account the important role of national power in the process of economic modernization and the capacity requirements it should possess, and has its own internal basic logic. The in-depth thinking of intellectuals on economic modernization during this period not only constituted an early theoretical exploration of the modernization path with Chinese characteristics, but also provided valuable ideological reference and historical inspiration for the historical process of promoting Chinese-style modernization in the new era.