China Since 1949

Linda Benson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317243083
• Edition: 3
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Chinese History
• Index: History

Exploring the remarkable story of China's rise to global prominence, China since 1949 provides a concise yet comprehensive overview of the events that have shaped the country since the middle of the twentieth century.

Covering the Maoist era through the Reform period to the present day, this book addresses subjects such as China's position as a world economic power, the Chinese Communist Party's treatment of ethnic minorities, women's experiences under the Communist regime, and China's human rights record. Fully updated throughout, the third edition includes:

• a new chapter focusing on China since 2010
• discussion of current issues such as China's territorial disputes, computer hacking and cyber-espionage, corruption, leadership changes, and the slowing of China's economic growth
• extensively revised chapters on China and the World and on Government, Politics and the Economy
• An updated selection of primary source documents.

Also containing a chronology of events from 1949 to 2015, a Who's Who of key figures, a glossary and a guide to further reading, China Since 1949 is an accessible and engaging introduction to China's recent past and essential reading for students of modern Chinese history.

Part I
China’s past

1
General introduction

China’s spectacular rise to global prominence is one of the most remarkable stories of our time. In the first half of the twentieth century, millions of rural and urban Chinese lived in poverty, struggling to survive in a country that was continually torn by war and domestic upheaval. But, since that time, China has undergone a dramatic transformation. It has embraced the technological advances of recent decades and provided new opportunities for millions of Chinese to improve their lives. A new, growing middle class has signalled the emergence of a Chinese society where access to good education and health care as well as a higher standard of living is becoming the norm, rather than the exception. While problems have accompanied this economic transformation, China has become the world’s largest economy, and, as a result, China’s future holds unprecedented prosperity for 1.4 billion Chinese.

The route to China’s success has been as tortuously uneven as it has been rapid. China’s history since 1900 – the first 50 years of which are summarized in Part Two, below – has been punctuated by natural and man-made disasters, arrogant leadership, disastrous policy decisions and incomprehensible disregard for the welfare of millions. The early years under Communist leadership brought important changes, but only after 1978 did the ruling Communist Party find more workable solutions to the challenges that have plagued the government and people for the past 200 years.

This account of modern China since 1949 seeks to provide the student and general reader with a brief survey of the major events that mark the transition of China from a poor developing country to a global trading power with political and economic clout throughout the world. Although the story of the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter CCP) is a central part of modern China’s history, and thus is one component of the present work, this book also records the impact of CCP policies on ordinary people’s lives. It shows how the majority of the population managed to endure some of the most extreme phases of the CCP’s radical political agenda through 1976 and then turns to the impact of the Reform Era on all groups and classes. In particular, it follows some of the most important changes for women and minorities since 1949. Although members of both categories would agree that the changes have been significant, overall much remains to be done before either group attains equal opportunity to pursue education and employment.

Periodization for this book departs from the standard treatment in most texts on modern China. The initial attempts of the CCP to legitimize its rule in China and its early, highly ambitious policies are outlined in Chapter 3, which covers the period from 1949 to 1957. When these policies failed to bring about the kind of revolutionary society that the new leaders envisioned, the revolution entered a much more radical stage. The most extreme leftist period was between 1958 and 1969 when China was thrown into turmoil, as the ageing leadership sought to hasten the transformation of its country into a socialist paradise. Unfortunately, economic plans and political campaigns proved disastrous. Instead of moving China forward, the economy slowed, and the modest gains of the early years were threatened. Politically generated violence in the 1960s Cultural Revolution (CR) left its mark on the economic system as well as on thousands of Party faithful who found themselves excoriated and ousted from their positions of influence. Ordinary citizens were at the mercy of young Red Guard units who marauded through the countryside. Although these policies and campaigns ended by the early 1970s, the radical policies of the revolution did not end until the 1976 death of Mao Zedong, Chairman of the CCP and founder of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter PRC). Therefore, the period from 1958 to 1976 is treated here as a whole, and allows discussion of the radical Marxist agenda to be the focus of Chapter 4.

With the death of Mao and the discrediting of Maoist attempts at continuing revolution, the next generation of Communist leaders began the rebuilding of China, enabling its rapid shift toward a modern economy open to foreign investment and to experimentation with cultural and political forms, all of which had been anathema to the old guard under Mao. This new period of change was led by the ageing Deng Xiaoping who, unlike Mao, chose to place other, younger and better-educated members of the Party at the helm of China’s ‘reform era’. Chapter 5 traces the start of this economic transformation and its impact on different sectors of the population to 1989. It includes a reassessment of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 4 June 1989. Despite a temporary setback to the reform movement in 1989, the process of economic reorganization continued in the 1990s, an assessment of which is the focus of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 provides a discussion of the new kinds of problems that emerged as reform deepened in the 1990s, including the nearly unchecked environmental degradation that ensued as demand for energy expanded, growing levels of corruption as officials gave into temptations arising from a wealthier economy, and social inequalities related to China’s rapid transformation.

Chapter 8 introduces the rise of new social classes in China after 2000, and explores the impact of China’s tremendous economic growth on women, the family and minorities. It also examines changes in education and, especially, in health care as China sought to replace the old socialist system with a new one funded in part by the government and partly by the people themselves. New efforts to improve China’s degraded environment began, driven by citizen activists as well as by new government regulations. An overview of fresh and innovative developments in the arts, entertainment and popular culture showcases Chinese creativity, and a discussion of technology and communication examines both the positive impact of the internet on social networks, for example, and the government’s efforts to rein in open discussion in China’s cyberspace.

Chapter 9 provides an overview of the Chinese government, the CCP and the military, and especially the changes under President Hu Jintao. It also offers an account of China’s economic rise, the government’s ‘economic stimulus plan’ to ward off the impact of world recession, and China’s economic growth rate from 2000 to 2010.

Chapter 10 explores the leadership of President Xi Jinping from 2012 onwards, focusing on changes under his administration and, in particular, China’s more assertive stance as a world power. Chapter 11 focuses on the state of China’s relations with the world. It begins with a discussion of China and the major world powers, the United States and the European Union (EU), and then explores China’s new relationships with Russia and Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, and the Asian region. The special connection between Taiwan and China and relations across the Taiwan straits are addressed at the end of the chapter.

Throughout the text, the impact of the Communist leadership’s policies on specific populations, such as women and national minorities, is used to examine the ramifications of policy implementation and to illustrate the fact that much of CCP policy prior to 1976 was more reaction to events as they developed rather than careful planning to address issues systematically. Poorly thought out, and even more poorly executed, policy choices led to the suffering and death of millions, an unintended but nonetheless devastating consequence. These are contrasted in later chapters with the transformation that occurred under Deng Xiaoping and his successors who created both a new society and an economic powerhouse, while managing to maintain the CCP’s hold over political power.

Themes in recent Chinese history

China’s history under the leadership of the Communist Party is marked by dramatic policy shifts that affected the lives of millions of people. These changes, which originated at the top, did not follow courses anticipated by the Party, nor were the results what the Party leadership intended. As history attests, revolutions rarely lead to the kind of society that the revolutionary leadership planned, and China’s history since 1949 shows that China is no exception.

The last 65 years reveal continuing tensions within the new political system and within Chinese society. Among the most important of these are:

• Tradition and revolution;
• Rural and urban development;
• Central and regional authority;
• Communism and modernization.

Tradition and revolution

The tension between traditional Chinese culture and the new revolutionary society that the government fostered after 1949 remains a part of Chinese life. Chinese society has clearly changed in dramatic and measurable ways, yet patterns of the past remain. One example is in patriarchal attitudes which have yet to make a full retreat. Male children remain valued above females, as evinced in the 1990–2000 demographics which indicate a lop-sided male–female ratio. Thus, while the one-child policy (see discussion in Chapter 5) had a great impact in China by reducing family size, the preference for male children continues. The status of women is another area in which patriarchal attitudes persist. Although the various constitutions adopted in China since 1954 accorded women full equality with men, as a group women lag behind men in earnings, education levels and employment opportunities. Furthermore, traditional folk practices such as geomancy, or feng shui, and the belief in kitchen gods re-emerged in some rural areas after the death of Mao, attesting to the strength of such old beliefs despite years of CCP efforts to eradicate them. As China continues to change, patterns of the past will nonetheless continue to colour the society that emerges.

Rural and urban development

From the 1800s onwards, China’s wealth was concentrated in its large urban centres, particularly those located along its coast and river valleys. After 1900, as modern industrial production expanded, urban areas grew in importance, deepening the economic disparity between rural and urban China. Despite CCP efforts to equalize rural–urban income, significant differences in living standards remained during the Maoist period (1949–76), although income levels of rural and urban China under Mao were more equal than at any time in modern history. Government-imposed limits on mobility meant less pressure on the cities as the poorly educated rural population – some 70% of China’s total – remained in the countryside. However, after Mao’s death, the standard of living rose more quickly in the cities. As the reforms progressed in the 1990s, urban residents enjoyed a per capita income double that of rural areas. By 2000, the gap between rural and urban had risen further, with urban income nearing four times that of rural residents. Eased restrictions on travel and, to some extent, on residency requirements led increasing numbers of poor men and women to China’s cities. Many took whatever work was available and moved from town to town as necessary. This ‘floating population’ (see discussion in Chapter 7) was dramatic evidence of the income disparity that emerged during the reforms. Despite government efforts to reverse this trend, the rural–urban divide continued to expand into the twenty-first century.

Central and regional authority

The great differences between rural and urban China also relate to different agendas of regional and central authorities. Initially, the CCP kept power centralized at Beijing and strengthened that central authority through many of its policies under Mao. Provincial governments conformed to central directives during the Maoist period as the Party imposed agricultural reforms and then moved quickly to the commune system. Under the reforms of the Deng government, however, more leeway was given to provincial and regional officials, particularly with regard to investment and economic development. Areas in advantageous geographical positions quickly benefited from the changes. The result was that the aggressive and wealthier provinces of the coast grew rich while those in the poorer hinterland fell further behind, causing the rural–urban income gap to widen. As the economy decentralized, control also decreased in some areas of policy, although the government kept a tight rein on banking and currency. Greater economic freedom led to more provincial and regional initiatives, but the central government maintained its ability to intervene effectively at any level if needed. Regional power or discontent has yet to challenge the power of the Chinese state, as action in Tibet (2008) and in Xinjiang (2009) has shown. The CCP continues to focus on economic development as the primary means to maintain stability and forestall any efforts at challenging its political power or legal authority.

Communism and modernization

From the beginning, the PRC’s goal was to bring both communism and modernization to China. Maoist economic plans, initially borrowed from the USSR, sought to make China a strong, modern state, and that required an aggressive modernization agenda. However, as described in the next chapters of this book, Maoist modernization made only halting progress and at times appeared to move backwards, not forwards. From 1958 to 1976, revolution took precedence over modernization, as Mao enjoined China’s people to be ‘more Red [Communist] than expert’. A new period began under Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping. After 1978, modernization became the single most important goal of the regenerated CCP. This shift away from the Maoist vision constituted the most dramatic historical moment in China’s history since 1949. Long delayed, China’s modernization at last moved into high gear, and new successes gave new life to the CCP in an age when few Communist-led states managed to survive.

In the year 2000, as the PRC entered its second half-century, the original CCP goals of a strong nation with a modernized yet essentially socialist economy were recast to stress modernization bolstered by nationalism. The success of the reform period has placed China among the world’s top economies, although its per capita income places it in a lower-middle income status when measured internationally. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the majority of the Chinese people appeared satisfied with the new opportunities the economy offered, even as old problems continued and new ones emerged.

Do economic freedoms and a capitalist economic system portend the collapse of the CCP? At the turn of the twenty-first century, the CCP clearly retained a firm hold over the administrative apparatus. The Party’s new appeal to nationalism (see discussion below) and a widespread reluctance to take a chance on political reforms that might slow economic growth suggest that it will be some time before the CCP relinquishes its authority. Much will depend on the government’s ability to overcome the problems that accompany its continuing reforms, as discussed in later chapters.

These tensions remain key elements in China today and provide the framework for examining the policies that have reshaped contemporary Chinese society in ways that the revolutionary old guard of the pre-1949 days certainly could not have anticipated as they struggled for uncertain victory.

Terms and concepts

Modern China has been marked by the growth of Chinese nationalism which, in 1900, was a nascent force in the movement toward revolution. In the 1990s, an appeal to nationalism marked CCP efforts to unite China’s citizens under Communist leadership, replacing the Marxist rhetoric of previous decades and indicating a maturation of Chinese nationalism. Because nationalism has had such a great impact on China, it is important to clarify its meaning as used in the text, along with other important forces, such as Marxism, socialism and Communism, all of which are discussed briefly in this section.

‘Nationalism’ emerged in nineteenth-century Europe as an outgrowth of competitive nation-states and referred to pride in the history and culture of one’s nation, a term that was in turn defined as a group of people with common language, territory, history and culture, separated from other neigh-bouring peoples by virtue of a unique set of characteristics. The fact that most European peoples were historically a mixture of peoples, languages and cultures was no obstacle to governments intent on fostering nationalism, which was accomplished through print media and state-sponsored education. Nationalist slogans impressed upon citizens the importance of their rich heritage and their distinctiveness, and served to unite the people of each nation-state in ways not previously possible.

A corollary useful to ambitious states was that a nation was entitled to its ‘traditional’ lands. As most boundaries in Europe were established through war at one time or another, disputes over what land belonged to which nation were intensified by the doctrine of nationalism which, in its most extreme form, justified war to regain land and reach a nation’s ‘natural boundaries’.

The notion of nationalism was exported to the developing world of the twentieth century. In China, this European notion was embraced by the Father of the Revolution, Dr Sun Zhongshan, who believed that a lack of nationalism held the Chinese people back; he urged the widespread adoption of nationalism through his ‘Three Principles’, which were to guide the country into the r...