Chinese Industrial Cooperatives

Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (Chinese: 工業合作社; pinyin: Gōngyè Hézuòshè) (CICs) were organisations established by a movement, involving various Western expatriates, to promote grassroots industrial and economic development in China. The movement was led through the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Association (CICA or Indusco) founded in 1938. Its international arm the International Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (ICCIC, also known by the nickname Gung Ho International Committee) was founded in 1939 in Hong Kong to promote cooperatives in China.

The movement was especially active in the 1930s and 1940s with bipartisan support from both the left and right wings of Chinese politics. The movement disappeared after the 1950s due to suppression by the People's Republic of China government, but CICA and ICCIC were revived in the 1980s and are still active today. In the English-speaking world, the industrial cooperatives’ best known legacy is its nickname Gung Ho meaning "working together", which led to the word ‘gung-ho’.

The Gung Ho (工合 "Gōnghé", literally "work together") movement was first initiated in Shanghai in 1937. Some of the principal organizers were Rewi Alley of New Zealand, Edgar Snow, Nym Wales (Helen Foster Snow), and Ida Pruitt of the USA, as well as a group of Chinese including Hu Yuzhi () and Sha Qianli (). In August 1938, the CICA was established. It was founded in the wartime capital Hankow when China was engaged in the War of Resistance Against Japan. Through the sponsorship of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Finance Minister Dr. H. H. Kung supplied government financial support.

...
Wikipedia