The Contributions

Abstract

Joan Robinson’s seven major publications on China were in the nature of end-of-visit reports. Each visit coincided with a major event. Between the visits, the writings provided further explanations or responses to the critics. During the second visit in 1957, Joan Robinson delivered three lectures on the relations between the rate of accumulation and the price level, choice of techniques and usefulness of price system in a planned economy. These analytically interesting lectures remained unpublished. She also became an activist. First, she was associated with the Britain-China Friendship Association and left it for the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding formed after the Sino-Soviet ideological conflict. One of the writings was titled “The Chinese Point of View”. Perturbed over the way information on the Lin Piao affair was managed, Joan Robinson began to ask questions about the cultural revolution. At the end, she did not think that post-Mao reform was a great leap backward.