the per capita above is a cheat. you need to compare like with like, apple to apple. bring out the gdp per capita of comparable sizes of population from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen ...then the comparison will explain something!
Excellent. You're arguing my case for me. Remember that we're talking about MAO's policies here. Let's take China's GDP in 1978 as an example:
China: 312 PPP $ 1978
Hong Kong: 4,789 PPP $ 1978
Korea, South: 2,141 PPP $ 1978
Japan: 7,292 PPP $ 1978
Data here:
GDP Per Capita, PPP current international $ statistics - countries compared - NationMaster
You think singling out Shanghai, Beijing etc will make a difference to how badly China fared in economics in 1978?
Now tell me Mao's Economic policies aren't idiotic. Proof's in the pudding. In contract, Deng's 100x better than Mao. I don't have to tell you the numbers after 1978 to tell you how much China improved WITHOUT Mao.