“Many of our county’s TVEs were paired with SOEs. Old equipment from SOEs was passed down to TVEs in a ladder-like transfer.”24 In addition, technicians from SOEs were invited to impart skills to TVE workers. Local cadres also organized young villagers to intern in the SOEs in order to bring knowledge back to the rural enterprises. In other words, as early as the 1980s, the county government began to nurture the collective—and incipient private—sector by tapping into the resources of the formal state sector. This was decades before the concept of upgrading even entered the minds of officials
...more
