Production and consumption of forest products in China (Mainland)

S. D. RICHARDSON

S. D. RICHARDSON, Director of Research, New Zealand Forest Service, made an extensive tour of China (Mainland) in May and June 1963 and made his report available to FAO. This annex was presented to the seventh session of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission.

The derivation and evaluation of statistics relating to forest production in China (Mainland) is fraught with difficulties. Official Chinese sources are apparently conflicting, and terminology is seldom sufficiently defined to enable cross-checking. Since 1959, no official statistics relating to the production and utilization of forest produce have been published. In the paragraphs which follow, selected data are presented and their validity assessed. Until such time as the Chinese publish formal statistics, they may be of some value; they should, however, be treated with the greatest reserve and regarded only as giving an indication of probable orders of magnitude.

National forest resources

Data relating to forest areas and timber volumes which have been taken from selected sources are presented in Table 1. The area covered by forest has been variously estimated at from 5 percent (Premezov, 1955) to 10 percent (Kuo et al., 1959) of the total land surface area, and from 46.5 million hectares (Premezov, 1955) to 100 million hectares (National China News Agency, 7/4/58). The lower values were compiled by the Nationalist Government before the war and provisionally accepted in 1955 by Russian and Chinese writers (see Solecki, 1964). In its publications FAO uses an estimate of the area of 76.6 million hectares (FAO, 1960 and 1961, from Messines, 1958), and has also referred to an earlier figure of 66.8 million hectares (FAO, 1961, based on data quoted by Deng, 1959, and relating to 1955). Several sources cite an area of about 10 percent (Lin, 1956; NCNA, 7/4/58; Red Flag, 16/12/58; Kuo et al., 1959), and of the order of 100 million hectares. In June 1963, the Ministry of Forestry informed the writer that China's forest area was 96.38 million hectares (representing 9.9 percent of the land surface area), of which some 46 million hectares was said to be secondary forest following partial or complete exploitation and therefore of low productivity. Of this forest area 75 percent was held to be potentially accessible.

TABLE 1. - FOREST RESOURCE STATISTICS FOR CHINA (MAINLAND) FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

National forest area, in million hectares	Percentage of total land surface	Volumetric timber resource, in million m³	Source
46.50	5.0	5 150	Premezov, 1955; Solecki, 1964
66.80	6.8	6 540	FAO, 1961 (referring to 1955)
66.83	-	4 615	Deng, 1959
76.60	7.9	5 000	Messines, 1958; FAO, 1960 and 1961
97.00	10.1	6 300	Kuo et al., 1959
100.00	10.0	-	NCNA, 7/4/59
96.38	9.9	7 460	Ministry of Forestry, 1963
-	7.0	-	ECMM, 1956
-	8.0	4 900	Foreign trade pub., 1959 (cited by Solecki, 1964)
-	10.0	-	Lin, 1956; Red Flag, 16/12/58
-	7.9	4 900	Wen, 1958
-	-	5 400	Wang and Chi, 1957
-	-	6 300	ECMM, 1959; Hsu, 1959; Red Flag, 16/12/58
-	-	6 000	NCNA, 7/4/58; Carter, 1958

Statistics relating to the volumetric timber resource are equally variable, ranging from 4,615 million cubic meters (Deng, 1959) to 7,460 million cubic meters (Ministry of Forestry, 1963). The afforestation program set out in the National Plan for Agriculture, 1956-57, was based on an assumed resource of 5,400 million cubic meters (Wang and Chi, 1957, NCNA, 5/2/58); though shortly afterward, the official estimate was revised (NCNA, 7/4/58) and a figure of 6,300 million cubic meters has since been widely quoted (Kuo et al., 1959; Extracts from China (Mainland) magazines, 1959; Hsu, 1959; Red Flag, 16/12/58).

The higher estimates of forest area and volume postdate extensive surveys carried out jointly by Russian and Chinese technicians, of resources in the more remote parts of China (see e.g., Kuo et al., 1959; Pobedinsky, 1961; Murzayev et al., 1960), also follow preliminary results from a national forest inventory begun in 1954 and originally scheduled for completion in 1962. This survey is ambitious and, at the present rate of progress, is unlikely to be concluded before 1970. Concentrating initially on the forest areas of greatest economic value (Heilungkiang, Kirin and Inner - Mongolia) it aims at 100 percent area survey in all provinces with a varying sampling fraction for volume estimation. For example, in Heilungkiang province, 10 percent of the forest area has been assessed, allegedly down to a breast-height diameter of 5 centimeters, and the percentage is now being increased to 25. In Kwangtung, 100 percent of natural forests (except mangroves) is being measured and plantations sampled to the extent of between 5 and 10 percent; some 300 men are said to be employed on survey work in that province alone.

In general, apart from the remote and inaccessible areas of Tibet, Yunnan, Sinkiang, etc., area survey appears to be complete in most provinces; volumetric assessments, however, are likely to continue for several years, and an accurate knowledge of the country's resources will be available only when the inventory has been completed.

Revision of volumetric statistics has also resulted from recent advances in closer utilization of forest produce. As is discussed elsewhere in this report, logging operations in China provide an object lesson in complete harvesting; in Manchuria, after clear felling and sawlog extraction, branch wood down to 3 centimeters in diameter is harvested for mining timber, pulpwood, handicrafts, charcoal and, in the case of hardwoods, manufacture into blocks for tractor fuel; twigs and foliage are collected and dried for fuel. A recent article (People's Daily, 9/6/63) claims an increase in utilization of 10 cubic meters per hectare as a result of such practices, which are undoubtedly widespread, even in forest-rich areas. Under these circumstances, conventional volumetric assessments are likely to underestimate the resources significantly.

In the light of these factors, the statistics given by the Ministry of Forestry to the writer in June 1963 are not unreasonable, and it is suggested that a total forest area of 96 million hectares, with volumetric resource of 7,500 million cubic meters, can safely be used for purposes of global resource development planning. It is not possible to evaluate the Chinese claim that 75 percent of the forest area will ultimately be accessible. The fact that the Ministry of Forestry is using a figure of this order in forecasting the available timber supply, however, gives it some weight. If these statistics are accepted and the population of China is taken to be of the order of 700 million (United Nations, 1964), the forest area per caput amounts to 0.137 hectare and the available timber resource to 8 cubic meters.

Regional statistics

From time to time, statistics of forest areas and volumes relating to individual provinces or regions have been published by Communist sources (see e.g., Kuo et al., 1959; Premezov, 1955; NCNA, 091107, 1962-P NCNA, 082202, 1962; NCNA, 020313, 1962; NCNA, 021309, 1963; Chu, 1959; Wang and Chi, 1957). They are of little intrinsic value, since they are invariably described as "incomplete."

All that can be stated with certainty is that the majority of China's natural forest resource is located in the northeast - in the horseshoe of mountains formed by the Greater and Lesser Khingan range and the Changpaishan massif. Elsewhere, significant reserves occur in Fukien, Szechwan, Kiangsi, Kweichow, Yunnan and Kwantung; in the Tsinling mountains; and on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. The densely populated provinces of Kiangsu (533 inhabitants per square kilometer in 1953), Shantung (407 inhabitants per square kilometer) and Hopeh (192 inhabitants per square kilometer) have less than 0.5 percent of their land surface under forest (Deng, 1959); while those provinces where the most active industrial development is occurring (Shansi, western Inner Mongolia, Shensi, Kansu, Tsinghai and Sinkiang) are also virtually devoid of forest resources.

Timber production, 1957-62

As with forest resource estimates, there is a variety of statistics available from Chinese and other sources, relating to industrial wood production during 1957 and 1958. Since 1958, however, no official statistics have been released through the press; the problem of interpreting such data as are available is not easy.

Table 2 presents various total production statistics for 1957 and 1958, together with their sources.

TABLE 2. - TOTAL TIMBER PRODUCTION STATISTICS, 1957 AND 1958

Year	Total industrial wood production, in million m³	Source
1957	20.00	Carter, 1958
	26.00	Tass, Peking, 23/11/60
	26.50	NCNA, 111242, 1958
	26.58	NCNA, 2/1/58 Rev. Int. du Bois, Dec. 1958 FAO, 1959
	26.70	Biki, 2/4/59
	27.87	SSB, 1960 Solecki, 1964
	31.00	FAO, 1960a
1958	26.63b	NCNA, 12/11/58
	27.40	Red Flag, 1959
	31.00	Biki, 2/4/59 FAO, 1959
	34.91	Peking Review, 26/1/60
	35.00	Tass, Peking, 23/11/60 Solecki, 1964 NCNA, 111242, 1958 SSB, 1960

^a Includes an estimate for unrecorded removals.

^b To third week of October 1958.

There are reasons, which cannot be detailed here, for accepting figures of 28 million cubic meters in 1957 and 35 million cubic meters in 1958 as reasonable approximations to actual industrial wood (i.e., excluding fuel) removals. For 1959, a volume of 41.2 million cubic meters has been claimed (see Peking Review, 26/1/60; Solecki, 1964) while FAO (FAO Yearbook, 1961) accepts a figure of 35 million cubic meters as for 1958. Actual production was probably of the order of 40 million cubic meters. For 1960, unofficial estimates range from 35 million cubic meters to 48 million cubic meters (Tass, Peking, 23/11/60); Solecki (1964) accepts 47 million cubic meters and FAO (FAO Yearbook, 1961; FAO Yearbook, 1962) 39 million cubic meters. A spokesman of the Ministry of Forestry informed the present writer in June 1963 that timber production had fallen steadily since 1959; numerous references were made in the Chinese press during 1960 to timber shortages, and exhortations to use wood substitutes for industrial purposes were frequent. FAO's estimate (39 million cubic meters) is, therefore, reasonable. The FAO figure for 1961 - 45 million cubic meters (FAO Yearbook, 1963) - is, however, almost certainly an over-estimate. Reduced production continued during 1961 and 1962; if a figure of about 29 million cubic meters is accepted for 1962 production (see Table 5) and a more or less steady decline from 1960 is assumed, 1961 production would be of the order of 34 million cubic meters.

Derivation of a, total production figure for 1962 demands some consideration of the national use-pattern. In Table 5 estimates of production by end-use categories are presented, to give a total roundwood volume figure of rather less than 30 million cubic meters. The basis of this table will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Currently, soma 50 percent of total industrial roundwood production is used for construction purposes (Economic Research, 12/5/62), while mines consume about 25 percent of the total output (Kuang Ming Jih Pao, 9/5/63). Starting with the latter figure, it can be assumed that 75 percent of the mining requirement is for pitprops and that 25 percent goes to produce sawn mining timber. According to the People's Daily (12/2/61) the pitprop requirement in China amounts to 0.023 cubic meter per ton of coal mined. This is extremely low by Asian standards (e.g., in Japan, the requirement is 0.049 cubic meter per ton - FAO 1961) and may well be an unreal figure published in order to provide an incentive to timber savings and the use of substitutes; for the purposes of the present exercise, therefore, a figure of 0.027 cubic meter per ton has been taken. The sawn timber requirement (25 percent) increases this amount to 0.036 cubic meter per ton. Coal production during 1962 in China was of the order of 200 million tons and ferrous mine production about 14 million tons. On this basis, the mining timber requirement would be 7,704,000 cubic meters.

Turning now to railway sleeper requirements, there is an aggregate tracklength of 33,000 kilometers in China (not including forest or temporary railways). New track construction amounts to about 2,000 kilometers per year. According to a NCNA (Nanking) release on 11/8/62, the timber requirement for sleepers is 200 cubic meters per kilometer of new track. This is, presumably, the sawnwood volume which, at 70 percent conversion, translates to a roundwood equivalent of 285 cubic meters. (This statistic is confirmed by Kuo et al., 1959, who cite a roundwood requirement of 280 cubic meters per kilometer railway construction.) The service life of sleepers in China may be taken as five years. According to the wood preservation officer at the Wood Technology Research Institute of the Academy of Forest Sciences in Peking, timber surface-treated with tung oil (the only readily available preservative) has a service life in ground contact of six years; and less than 60 percent of the railway sleepers in use in China are so treated. Since termite damage is severe, particularly in southern China, a sleeper service life of five years is not unduly pessimistic. Making these assumptions (i.e., 2,000 kilometers of new track plus a replacement equivalent of 6,600 kilometers) the annual timber requirement amounts to 2,451,000 cubic meters. This is a high demand, but not unreasonably so under present-day conditions in China, where the development of rail communications is more appropriate than road building, and where problems of track maintenance (particularly in the loess and sand desert country of the northwest and the termite-ridden south) are gargantuan. And it is in precisely these areas that major railway development is taking place.

The quantity of wood allocated to paper manufacture during 1962 was allegedly 1.1 million cubic meters ® (Ta Kung Pao, 22/8/62). That this figure is of the correct order is confirmed by statistics given the writer in Tailing forest district of Heilungkiang province. It was claimed there that, during 1962, 4.6 percent of total production was allocated to pulp and fiber production. If this statistic is applied to the whole of China, and a total production of 29,490,000 cubic meters of roundwood is accepted (Table 3), pulp and paper and fibreboard would account for 1,356,540 cubic meters; this compares with a value of 1,240,000 cubic meters used in the present case.

To this utilization chart have been added statistics for wood used for transmission poles and boxwood, given to the writer by the Ministry of Forestry, and figures for furniture, plywood and fibreboard, volunteered by the manager of Shanghai No. 1 wood factory. Fibreboard is calculated at 2 cubic meters per ton; all other figures were supplied as roundwood volumes. In these statistics, there may be some overlap between fibreboard and plywood, since ply-log residues are usually sent to fibreboard plants; however, it is unlikely to affect their validity greatly. Incidentally, the figure for plywood was said to be 75 percent of 1961's "record output."

There still remain several items for which no data are available (e.g., piling, fenceposts, scaffolding, boats, wagons, tool handles, etc.) and it is suggested that a "miscellaneous" category of 1 million cubic meters is not unreasonable; this is slightly more than half the annual consumption (average 1953-55) of wood for "rural uses" and "other uses" (i.e., other than housing, construction, packing, mining, transport and communications, furniture making) in south Asia (FAO, 1961).

An editorial in the People's Daily (10/4/63) implied that the forest area felled in 1962 amounted to 200,000 hectares. Taking a volumetric figure of 29 million cubic meters as the yield, a mean volume/hectare of 145 cubic meters can be derived, which compares with an overall volume per unit area for China's forests of 78 cubic, meters per hectare. From this difference it may be inferred that the bulk of the industrial wood produced at the present time comes from primary forests or, in south China, from fast-growing plantation softwoods.

The production, 1957-62, can now be set out as follows (rounding figures to the nearest million cubic meters):

Year	Million m³
1957	28
1958	35
1959	40
1960	39
1961	34
1962	29

Several factors undoubtedly contribute to the drop in production from 1959 onward. Firstly, retrenchment in heavy-industry from 1957 (Holmes and Luard, 1961) probably did not affect the logging and sawmilling industries until 1959 and not seriously before 1961.

TABLE 3. - VOLUME AND UTILIZATION OF ROUNDWOOD

Use	Roundwood volume	Percentage of total
	1,000 m³ ®
Construction	14 745	50.0
Mines (coal)	7 200	24.0
Pitprops	5 400	18.0
Sawn	1 800	6.0
Mines (ferrous)	504	1.7
Sleepers	2 451	8.3
Transmission poles	650	2.2
Boxwood (sawn)	1 000	3.4
Furniture	500	1.7
Plywood	200	0.7
Fibreboard	140	0.5
Pulp and paper	1 100	3.7
Miscellaneous	1 000	3.4
TOTAL	29 490	99.6

Coinciding with the withdrawal of Russian technical assistance and financial aid - evidence of which can be seen in the major utilization plants - it has undoubtedly influenced every sector of the economy, and markedly reduced the rate of industrialization. In 1963, plant lying idle for lack of repair facilities was a not uncommon feature of the sawmilling industry. Apart from production difficulties, however, there is evidence of deliberate restriction in timber production as part of the national forest policies. As has already been mentioned, the estimated industrial wood demand for 1962 was expected in 1958 to be 47 million cubic meters and the planned output, 40 million cubic meters; by 1967, demand should rise to 75 million cubic meters and output to 60 million cubic meters, and, by 1972, to 118 million cubic meters and 80 million cubic meters respectively (People's Daily, 24/1/58). The deficit of 38 million cubic meters by 1972 may be partly made up by produce from afforestation schemes; by 1990, it is expected that a large proportion of the estimated annual, requirement of 300 million cubic meters would come from such plantations. Since there is evidence of widespread failure in these plantations and it is realized they cannot be relied upon to supplement production from natural forests in the near future, Chinese foresters have been made uncomfortably aware of the dangers of overcutting their limited resources. Exhortations and legislation (e.g., Resolution of the State Council for 27 May 1963) designed to conserve forests and timber, and an almost desperate use of timber substitutes for many purposes (e.g., concrete-filled bamboo for pitprops, bamboo railway sleepers, the use of concrete and steel in construction, etc.) reflect this awareness; it seems probable that it is also reflected in a gradual, if temporary, reduction in planned output.

The national timber-use pattern

The utilization information presented in Table 3 may be compared with earlier statistics from Chinese sources.

In 1957, the chief of the Chinese Forest Service was quoted (Liang, 1957) as giving an average percent breakdown for the years 1954-56, while Deng (1959) also gives a partial utilization chart, though without establishing a base year (Table 4).

Significant differences between these earlier statistics and the postulated use-pattern in 1962 shown in Table 3 relate to the construction requirement (reduced from 69 percent to 50 percent) and pitprops (increased from 13 percent to 18 percent). With regard to the former, the reduction undoubtedly reflects both a reduced building program, following a slackening in the pace of heavy industrialization, and an increase in the use of timber substitutes in construction. The rise in pitprop, requirements suggest that mining has been less affected by retrenchment than other sectors of the economy - a contention in accord with other evidence (Holmes and Luard, 1961).

TABLE 4. - PARTIAL UTILIZATION CHART

End-use	Liang (1957)	Deng (1959)
	Percent
Construction	69	69
Pitprops	13	13.2
Sleepers	7.6	10.6
Pulp or fiber	5.0	2.4
Wagon building	1.125	4.6a
Ship building	0.660	4.6a
Scaffolding	0.425	4.6a
Piling	0.300	4.6a
Poles	1.650	4.6a
	98.720	99.8

^a "Other"

Little change is noted in the percent allocation to pulp and fiber products (5 to 4.2 percent); undoubtedly, however, there has been an increase in the capacity for fibreboard production. Output in 1959 was considered to be only 10,000 tons (World Pap. Trade Rev. 15/8/60) compared with 70,000 tons in 1962. Even so, China is as yet producing well below capacity which, according to one source (NCNA No. 04054, 1960) was 130,000 tons in 1960 and is likely to be higher now. The quality of board produced is not high and the conditions under which it is made are technically primitive (at one factory, in Shanghai, the writer saw a 900-ton/year mill employing 47 men operating alongside a 3,000-ton/year mill employing only 23 men). It may be, therefore, that consumer resistance to a new and poor quality product accounts in part for this underproduction.

With regard to pulp products, there has been a big increase in paper production since 1957, but its effect on total wood use is small because of the extensive use of bamboo, rice straw, bagasse, shavings and other vegetable matter. In 1957, wood pulp provided only 30 percent of the raw material for paper manufacture and about half this quantity came from branches and foliage (Li, 1959). By 1962, less than 20 percent of the raw material was in the form of wood pulp. The state of the pulp and paper industry in China has recently been reviewed by Solecki (1964) who emphasizes the extent to which postwar development relied upon Russian and German technical assistance. It seems unlikely that the withdrawal of such assistance will significantly affect paper production, however, since the Chinese are skilled in this field and have already themselves provided expert technical assistance to other countries (NCNA 9/4/57).

The production of plywood is also increasing in China, according to the manager of the Shanghai No. 1 wood factory; national production increased from 10,000 cubic meters ® in 1957 to 270,000 cubic meters ® in 1961. Unlike fibreboard, the product is of a high quality and the drop in production during 1962 was, in this case, attributed to a scarcity of suitable large-sized logs.

No mention has yet been made in this report of fuelwood. The requirement is impossible to estimate. According to the Ministry of Forestry, no records of fuelwood use are maintained in China; and the only published statistic is a reference to an annual requirement for Inner Mongolia of 300,000 cubic meters (NCNA, No. 014526, 1960). FAO has published estimates from time to time (e.g., FAO, 1962) but they are of doubtful value. No forest areas are maintained specifically for fuel in China and the bulk of the requirement is satisfied by loppings of branches, dead trees and debris from the forest floor. As of right, peasants can remove dead trees from forests and plantations and can prune dead branches at two-yearly intervals. These practices have serious implications for plantation management, in that the people have a vested interest in the early mortality of newly planted trees and, also, are prone to disfigure established trees by reckless pruning. Mutilated and unsightly saplings, even in the forest rich areas of Manchuria, bear witness to the widespread nature of these practices. They indicate the need for plantations established specifically for fuelwood.

Because of the wide variety of conditions in China and the lack of precise information regarding population distribution, no attempt has been made here to estimate fuelwood requirements.

Trade in forest products

Compared with the situation before the war - when it imported the greater part of home timber requirements - China is now virtually self-supporting in forest products. Such published data as are available on imports and exports are shown in Table 5; they are collated from trade returns of countries reporting to FAO, and are incomplete. To the writer's knowledge, hardwood peeler logs are imported into China from North Viet-Nam and from Burma; while Pinus radiata sawlogs (doubtless grown in New Zealand) have been imported from Japan. It is not possible to estimate the extent of such trade but, in terms of timber volume, it is negligible in relation to national production in China.

Future requirements for forest products

Any forecast of forest products requirements in China on the basis of the data presented here would be little more than an exercise in speculation, and it will not be attempted. The following factors, however, need to be taken into account in any discussion of timber trends and prospects.

1. Net population growth in China (Mainland) is currently just short of 2 percent per annum. If it continues at this rate, the population by 1990 will approach 1,220 million and, by the year 2000, 1,500 million.

TABLE 5 - CHINA (MAINLAND): COLLATED DATA ON TRADE IN FOREST PRODUCTS

SOURCE: FAO. Yearbook of Forest Statistics, 1963.

^a Coniferous. - ^b Broadleaved.

NOTE. - All figures are from reporting countries as available, as per declared trade with China.

With the present per caput consumption of forest products, total industrial wood requirements would be:

Year	Million m³
1990	50
2000	62

2. The Chinese have published at least two wood requirement forecasts; these are illustrated, in Figure 1 together with a graph showing the planned output to 1977. The requirement to 1990 is that promulgated by the Ministry of Forestry in January 1956 as a preface to the 12-year plan for afforestation (NCNA, 5/2/58). The alternative demand forecast and planned, output to 1977 was published in the People's Daily, 24/1/58 and is also used by Kuo et al. (1959) and a Russian source (Foreign Trade Pub., 1959). The forecasts have been projected to the year 2000.

From this, per caput requirements and the percent annual growth in per caput requirements are as follows in Table 6.

Assuming a continued population growth rate of 2 percent and the growth in per caput requirement indicated below, total annual volume requirements for industrial below, by the year 2000 would be 500 million cubic meters or 610 million cubic meters.

TABLE 6. - PER CAPUT WOOD REQUIREMENTS AND ANNUAL GROWTH PERCENT THEREOF, 1958-2000

Year	Industrial roundwood requirement		Annual growth
	Lower	Higher	Lower	Higher
	Cubic meters		Percent
1958	0.0560	0.0560
1962	0.0686	0.0686	5.5	5.5
1967	0.0905	0.1035	6.4	10.2
1972	0.1171	0.1306	5.8	7.4
1977	0.1507	0.1815	5.7	5.9
1990	0.2462	0.2937	4.9	4.7
2000	0.3365	0.3971	1 3.7	1 3.5

CHINA (MAINLAND): NATIONAL WOOD REQUIREMENTS, 1958 to 2000¹

¹ Assumed to be industrial wood only. - ² Assumed as being requirements. - ³ Source: People's Daily, 24/1/58. ⁴ Ministers' forecast of requirements.

3. If Chinese economic plans materialize, significant changes in the national timber-use pattern Will emerge; by 1967 a coal output of 510 million tons is planned (Solecki, 1964) which, at the present rate of consumption, will require more than 18 million cubic meters of wood for props and sawn mining timber. It is proposed to double the present length of railways by 1975, which, on present standards, will need nearly 9 million cubic meters of roundwood for new sleeper manufacture and an annual maintenance requirement of 5 million cubic meters. It can confidently be expected, however, that wood preservation will improve over the years and that sleeper life will be at least doubled by 1970. At this rate, the annual consumption of roundwood by the railways. (new construction and maintenance) will be of the order of 3 million cubic meters. To counteract these increases in solid wood requirement, it may be expected that substitute materials will continue to gain ground for construction purposes. Fibreboard and plywood production will undoubtedly increase, but it would be folly to do more than hazard a guess as to the levels that will be reached.

4. Perhaps the biggest increase in demand for forest produce in China will come in the field of pulp and paper. Solecki (1964), from Russian and other sources, shows an increased paper output in China from 108,000 tons in 1949 to 2,240,000 tons in 1960 and a growth in the number of publications between 1950 and 1956 which is threefold for newspapers (798 to 2,611), tenfold for periodicals (35 to 353) and more than sixfold for books (275 to 1,786). Later increases have probably been exponential. A policy of universal education, massive propaganda campaigns (particularly since 1963, When the ideological dispute with Russia came into the open) and a vigorous language reform campaign (Snow, 1963) will ensure that the rise in demand continues at an increasing rate. The use of substitutes in paper manufacture will also, of course, continue but, as Solecki (1964) points out, in an economy of scarcity it is not easy to find unused natural resources without incurring heavy expenditure on transport and development.

5. The extent to which the forest resources of China can contribute to the fulfillment of her demand for forest products is an unknown factor. On the basis of the statistics outlined in paragraphs 1 and 2 above, and ignoring increment, the existing natural forest resources will last about 30 years. Disregard of increment is legitimate, since with present methods of exploitation it will contribute virtually nothing to the timber harvest for many years. Primary forest is in areas populated only by peripatetic prospectors and hunters (whose wood requirements can be ignored) and the bulk of the present timber requirement is met by clear-felling in primary forest. It is unlikely that the Chinese will exploit the secondary forest to any extent until the accessible primary resource is exhausted. If 50 million hectares is taken to be primary forest and 75 percent of it proves to be accessible, it will run out by about 1977; the timber requirement will then have to be supplied from low volume (approximately 50 cubic meters per hectare), "creamed" secondary forests and the average log size will be much reduced.

Similarly, it is not easy to forecast when and to what extent the afforestation projects will contribute significantly to the national timber requirement. In the provinces south of the Yangtze, fast-growing species such as Cunninghamia lanceolata, Eucalyptus and Populus species will reach exploitable size by 1970. Even in favorable habitats, however, failure in plantation has been widespread and management nonexistent. North of the Yangtze, it will be 30 to 40 years before exploitable timber has been grown; and here afforestation projects are either primarily protective - and therefore low yielding - or located far from centers of consumption. In spite of the vastness of the afforestation schemes and of commune plantations, therefore, it is doubtful whether they will yield more than fuelwood, some pulpwood and round produce for local use within the next two or three decades.

6. Finally, in discussing timber trends and prospects in China (Mainland), regard must be paid to her peculiar socioeconomic structure. During the past 15 years, China has attempted political, social, agrarian and industrial revolution at one and the same time - in spite of considerable setbacks through lack of finance and natural calamities of flood and drought (Freeborne, 1962).

To contain and capitalize on her enormous population China must increase agricultural production and accelerate industrialization and in these endeavors, protection and production forestry may prove to be of paramount importance. This fact is recognized by Chinese administrators, and it is likely that forestry will develop strongly in the near future. The many errors of the past will not be repeated, though doubtless new ones will be committed. The Communist regime, however, permits rapid and sweeping changes in any sector of the economy almost overnight, and even in relation to long-term projects such as forestry, any prognoses could readily be proved, unsound. In addition, the political situation vis-à-vis Russia must inevitably affect the way in which the economy develops, and this cannot be forecast.

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