The Construction of the Third Line in China’s Strategic Rear Area

Between 1964-1973, a large-scale restructuring and major adjustment of lay out, in respect to heavy industry, railway transportation, national defense, science and technology construction, was carried out under the guidance of war preparedness thought in Central and Western China. Third-Line was a relative concept in respect to the region where the potential war fronts would shape, i.e., the regions of the Third-Line was estimated as the hardest part of China for any invading foreign power to access.

“Third-Line” was divided into two zones, in which the "Big Third-Line" referred to the Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces in the southwest, Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia and Qinghai provinces in the northwest, included western Henan, western Hubei, western Hunan, northern Guangdong, northwest Guangxi, western Hebei and Shanxi provinces in the central part, and the "Small Third-Line" referred to the hinterland of the central and coastal provinces and regions. The Third-Line construction referred to the construction of the "Big Third-Line". The master plan for the construction of the Third-Line covered three five-year plan periods and was implemented during 1964-1980.

The basic concepts were as follows: all new projects to be started should be located in “Third-Line” regions according to the principles of decentralization, leaning to the mountains and concealment; important factories, universities and scientific research institutes located in the first line should be moved to “Third-Line” regions in a planned way; industrial layout should be improved; national defense industrial system including energy, manufacturing and military industry should be established to construct the “Third-Line” regions as a rear strategic base that can't be accessed or invaded.

The actual construction process was divided into two phases: (1) The first phase was from 1964 to 1968. In 1964, the CPC Central Committee decided to carry out the construction of the Third-Line as a strategic rear area for the whole country, based on its estimation of the seriousness and urgency of the risk of a new world war. From 1965 to 1966, the first climax of the Third-Line construction occurred. The construction focused mainly on railway building, metallurgical and national defense industries with Chengdu-Kunming, Hunan-Guizhou railways, Panzhihua, Jiuquan iron and steel plants and Chongqing industrial base as the main parts. Afterwards, due to the “Cultural Revolution”, the Third-Line construction was greatly negatively affected, and many projects faced a standstill or half-standstill situation.

(2) The second stage was from 1969 to 1973. In March 1969, the Soviet Union invaded China's Zhenbao Island in the Heilongjiang Province, thus the CPC Central Committee had made an assessment that the threat of war was quite urgent, and the construction of the Third-Line was launched on a large scale and at a high speed. From 1969 to 1972, there occurred a second climax in the Third-Line construction. Xiangyang-Chongqing, Jiaozuo-Zhicheng, Zhiliu, Chengdu-Kunming and Hunan-Guizhou Railways were opened one after another, and the Second Auto Works plant was built on a large scale. Defense industry investments grew rapidly, forming a situation where the entire military and the whole people worked for maintaining the defense industry.

The deployment for the Third-Line construction positively transformed the backward situation of industry and transportation in the inland regions of China, initially established a relatively complete industrial production system, built a number of new industrial bases and railway and highway transportation networks, thus played an important role in changing the inland regions’ whole industrial layout and in developing the resources therein. It also promoted the prosperity of science, technology, urbanization and culture fields in these regions, and made a far-reaching impact on the social and economic development of China.