Political History of China

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POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT



Four influences:



Geographical Influences



Historical Influences before 1949



Historical Influences of the PRC

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Geographical influence

 China means “middle kingdom” or zhongguo—they

are at the center of political and cultural world.

Some of its important geographical features include

 access to oceans/ice free ports  many large navigable rivers

 major geographical/climate splits between north and

south

 geographic isolation of the western part of the country  mountain ranges, deserts, and oceans that separate

China from other countries

 These geographic features have shaped Chinese

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Influences before 1949: Dynastic

rule

 The political culture inherited from centuries

of dynastic rule centers around:

 Confucian values, such as order, harmony,

and a strong sense of hierarchy - "superior" and "subservient" positions.

 China has traditionally valued scholarship as

a way to establish superiority

 Strong sense of cultural identity and a

relatively high degree of cultural homogeneity.

 Ethnocentrism

 A strong merit-based bureaucracy long

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Control by Imperialistic

Nations

 Imperialistic nations

 "spheres of influence"

 Followed by Opium War (1839-1842)

 Resentment of the "foreign devils" that they eventually rebelled against.

 has led China to be cautious and suspicious in

her dealings with capitalist countries today.

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Revolutionary upheavals



Major revolutions occurred in China in

1911 and 1949, with many chaotic times

in between.



Three themes dominated this

revolutionary era:

 Nationalism

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China after 1911

 The Revolution of 1911 was intended to create a modern republican form of

government in China.

 Instead, the country broke up into warlord-dominated regions with increasing poverty and violence.

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Kuomintang Party

 Sun Yat-sen was the

main leader of the 1911 Revolution and the

Nationalist Party (KMT).

 He died in 1925 and was

succeeded as leader by Chiang Kai-shek.

 Chiang cooperated with

the Communists for a time, but then

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Life of Mao Zedong

 Mao led a Communist area in Jiangxi Province in 1934, but attacks by the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party)

government army forced them to undergo the “Long March” lasting over a year and covering 6,000 miles to a new, safer area to the north in Shanxi Province.

 _{Mao emerged as a hero of the people, and}

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Land Reform

 Mao discovered even in the 1920s that the Communists could win the support of the peasants by taking away land from the rich and sharing this with the poor.

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Yan’an, 1935-1948



For over a decade, Mao and the Chinese

Communist leadership operated from

Yan’an in the north of China.



Land reform was carried out in Yan’an.



During most of this time, the

Communists were fighting against both

the KMT and the Japanese.



The Communists and the KMT competed

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Yan’an, 2

 At the end of the Second World War, the

Russians moved into Manchuria against the Japanese and were able to share some

weapons with the Chinese Communists.  Stalin urged Mao to ally with Chiang

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Communist Victory, 1949

 Due to corruption and inefficiency among the KMT leadership, the

Communists took power in mainland

China in October, 1949.  The KMT leaders

retreated to the island of Taiwan.

 “Two Chinas”

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Maoism

• Mao Zedong was strongly influenced by

Karl Marx and Lenin, but his version of

communism is distinctly suited for China.

• He believed in the strength of the

peasant, and centered his philosophy around these central values:

– _collectivism

– _{struggle and activism (don’t let people}

get comfortable, leads to corruption)

– mass line

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Trials of landlords

 During 1949-1951, the Communists held mass

trials of landlords and KMT leaders all over the country.

 Peasants were urged to denounce crimes

committed by the former rulers.

 Hundreds of thousands of members of the former

elite were put to death in the mass trials of 1949-1951.

 Their land was then distributed among the poorer

peasants.

 This was the most important revolutionary act in

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The political development of the

PRC



Phases:



The Soviet Model

(1949-1957)



Land Reform

.



Civil Reform

 Worked to eliminate opium addiction and

prostitution, ending arranged marriages which increased legitimacy



Five-Year Plans

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Industrialization

 Between 1949 and 1960, China followed the Russian strategy of industrialization.  They built large factories in the cities.

 Many Russian engineers came to China to assist in this effort.

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Hundred Flowers Movement

1956

 _{Mao was alarmed at}

growth of government, so encouraged

openness among the people to air their opinions

 _{The idea was allow for}

more participation in policy making, instead it led to industrial

strikes and public

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Anti-Rightest Campaign 1957

 100,000’s of people were accused of

enemies of the Revolution and

demoted, fired, or sent to labor

camps

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The Great Leap Forward

(1958-1960)

• _{In 1958, Mao decided that the Russian strategy of}

industrial development was not suitable for China because it was not helping countryside.

• The Great Leap Forward was a utopian effort to

transform China into a radical egalitarian society. It's emphasis was mainly economic, and it was

based on four principles:

• All-around development

• _{Mass mobilization}

• Political unanimity and zeal

• _{Decentralization}

• The Great Leap Forward was a big flop

• _{Misreporting common and starvation occurred on}

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Great Leap Forward, 2

 _{The most mocked aspect of the Great Leap Forward was the}

backyard steel furnaces.

 Mao thought that peasants could learn to make steel on a

broadly decentralized basis.

 _{Most areas of China, however, lacked the ore and fuel for this}

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Great Leap Forward, 3

 Millions of peasants were pulled away from their agricultural tasks in order to engage in industrialization or water conservancy projects.

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Great Leap Forward, 4

 _{Small villages were done away with, and the peasants}

were moved to larger towns.

 Mao attempted to have the peasants live in dormitories –

with the separation of husbands and wives.

 _{Communal kitchens and nurseries were established.}

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Great Leap Forward, 5

 The Russians were insulted that the

Chinese were no longer following their advice and pulled out their engineers.

 Many factories that were being built could not be finished because the Russians had the plans and because the Russians

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The Cultural Revolution

(1966-1978)

• _{Political, social and economic change:}

• _{Mao’s main goal was to purify the party and the}

country through radical transformation.

• _{Remove all vestiges of the old China and its}

hierarchical bureaucracy and emphasis on inequality.

• _{Included self-criticism session in the}_xiaozu’_s

• _{People would admit their shortcomings and promise to}

change

• _{Included attacks on elites/capitalists; students would}

attack those who harmed them and they were sent to farms and not school

• _{Mao died in 1976, leaving his followers divided}

into factions:

– _Radicals

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Cultural Revolution, 2

 _{Cultural Revolution followed the Hundred Flowers}

Campaign (1957) which encouraged open criticism, but actually helped government locate those

against government who were later imprisoned

 Any Communist leader who was not strongly for

equality were condemned in this movement.

 The Cultural Revolution started among students

(Red Guards), but it began to affect other sectors of society.

 _{Eventually, the military stepped in and sent the}

students off to work as peasants.

 “Reactionary” teachers and officials were common

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Cultural Revolution

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Deng Xiaoping's Modernizations

(1978-Present)

 1978, the new leader was Deng Xiaoping.  New policies

 "Open door" trade

policy

 Special Economic

Zones

 Reforms in

education

 Institutionalizatio

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After Mao

 From 1975 to 1997, China was led by Deng Xiaoping who welcomed economic reforms in the direction of capitalism (socialism with chinese characteristics).

 Peasants were allowed to farm on their own and to leave the collective farms.

 Local governments were permitted to establish industrial companies that

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After Mao

 Mao would be turning over in his grave at the foreign investment and the consumer culture that is spreading in China today.

 However, Mao’s efforts did create a strong, united Chinese state that after Mao’s death was able to make serious reforms to

compete in a global economy.

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Deng Xiaoping Theory

 - "It doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice."

 The result of his leadership was a dramatic turnaround of the Chinese economy

through a combination of socialist planning and the capitalist free market.

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Participation

 _{Citizens are subjects of}

government, not participants in a political system.

 _{The communist state} redefined political

participation by creating a relationship between the Communist party and

citizenship, and by defining the economic relationship between citizens and the government.

 _{In recent years popular social} movements that support

democracy, religious beliefs, and community ties over

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Political Party

 The CCP is the largest political party in the

world in terms of total formal membership, with about 58 million members at the turn of the century.

 Only about 8 percent of those over

eighteen (the minimum age for joining the party) are members of the CCP.

 Party membership is growing, with new

members recruited largely from the CCP's

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BACKGROUNDS OF PARTY MEMBERS

 Transition in the backgrounds of party

members.

 Cadres were peasants or factory workers, and

few were intellectuals or professionals.

 Increasingly "technocratic"

 Today less than 40 percent of party members

come from the peasantry, although peasants still make up the largest single group within the CCP.

 The fastest growing membership category

consists of officials, intellectuals, technicians, and other professionals.

 Women make up only about 20 percent of the

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INTERESTS, SOCIAL

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Control Mechanisms of the

Party

• _{Interest groups and social movements are}

not permitted to influence the political

process unless they are under the party-state authority.

• _{Mass organizations formed around}

occupations or social categories

– _{All-China Federation of Trade Unions,} – _{All-China Women's Federation.}

– _Danwei

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Policy Making in China

 How to maintain the power of the elite

 Desire to make China a world power

 An orderly society

 Compliance of a politically-passive people

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Protest

 Difficult for the party-state to monitor citizens.  Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989

 Major protests have been staged by religious groups

 _{Village protests}  Labor strikes

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Other Challenges

 New generations

 Capitalist generation does not know Long March

 Government run by technocrats, with little military experience

 _Urbanization

 Population pressure: what do you do with 1.3 + billion people  Migration and Resource concerns

 Pollution

 _{Religion-official religion is atheism}

 Religious repression: Muslim, Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhists

because they take away from Party

 Human Rights  Labor Rights

 Information regulation-can you control over a billion

people?