We are talking about a country where tens of millions of subsistence farmers died in one of history's worst famines, subsistence farming isn't something anyone

We are talking about a country where tens of millions of subsistence farmers died in one of history's worst famines, subsistence farming isn't something anyone does if they have other options--one or two bad years can mean starvation. The common scenario in China is that if someone can get a factory job they go do it, and then they send as much money as they can back to their family, so that nobody starves.