The Fall and Rise of China PDF
The Fall and Rise of China PDF
The Fall and Rise of China PDF
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ii
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Professor Biography ............................................................................i
Course Scope .....................................................................................1
LECTURE GUIDES
LECTURE 1
The Splendor That Was China, 6001700 .........................................9
LECTURE 2
Malthus and Manchu Hubris, 17301800 .........................................12
LECTURE 3
Barbarians at the Gate, 18001860 .................................................14
LECTURE 4
Rural Misery and Rebellion, 18421860 .........................................18
LECTURE 5
The Self-Strengthening Movement, 18601890 ...............................21
LECTURE 6
Hundred Days of Reform and the Boxer Uprising ............................24
LECTURE 7
The End of Empire, 19001911 ........................................................28
LECTURE 8
The Failed Republic, 19121919......................................................31
LECTURE 9
The Birth of Chinese Communism, 19171925................................34
LECTURE 10
Chiang, Mao, and Civil War, 19261934 .........................................37
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Table of Contents
LECTURE 11
The Republican Experiment, 19271937 .........................................40
LECTURE 12
Resist Japan! 19371945 ..............................................................44
LECTURE 13
Chiangs Last Stand, 19451949 .....................................................47
LECTURE 14
The Chinese People Have Stood Up! ............................................51
LECTURE 15
Korea, Taiwan, and the Cold War, 19501954 .................................55
LECTURE 16
Socialist Transformation, 19531957 ...............................................58
LECTURE 17
Cracks in the Monolith, 19571958 ..................................................62
LECTURE 18
The Great Leap Forward, 19581960 ..............................................66
LECTURE 19
Demise of the Great Leap Forward, 19591962 ..............................70
LECTURE 20
Never Forget Class Struggle! 19621965 ......................................74
LECTURE 21
Long Live Chairman Mao! 19641965 ...........................................77
LECTURE 22
Maos Last Revolution Begins, 19651966 ......................................81
LECTURE 23
The Childrens Crusade, 19661967 ................................................85
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Table of Contents
LECTURE 24
The Storm Subsides, 19681969 .....................................................89
LECTURE 25
The Sino-Soviet War of Nerves, 19641969 ....................................93
LECTURE 26
Nixon, Kissinger, and China, 19691972 .........................................96
LECTURE 27
Maos Deterioration and Death, 19711976 .....................................99
LECTURE 28
The Legacy of Mao ZedongAn Appraisal ....................................102
LECTURE 29
The Post-Mao Interregnum, 19761977.........................................106
LECTURE 30
Hua Guofeng and the Four Modernizations ...................................109
LECTURE 31
Deng Takes Command, 19781979 ............................................... 112
LECTURE 32
The Historic Third Plenum, 1978 .................................................... 115
LECTURE 33
The Normalization of U.S.-China Relations ................................. 119
LECTURE 34
Deng Consolidates His Power, 19791980 ....................................122
LECTURE 35
Socialist Democracy and the Rule of Law ......................................125
LECTURE 36
Burying Mao, 19811983 ...............................................................128
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Table of Contents
LECTURE 37
To Get Rich Is Glorious, 19821986 ............................................132
LECTURE 38
The Fault Lines of Reform, 19841987 ..........................................136
LECTURE 39
The Road to Tiananmen, 19871989 .............................................140
LECTURE 40
The Empire Strikes Back, 1989 ......................................................143
LECTURE 41
After the Deluge, 19891992..........................................................147
LECTURE 42
The Roaring Nineties, 19921999 ...............................................151
LECTURE 43
The Rise of Chinese Nationalism, 19932001 ...............................155
LECTURE 44
Chinas Lost TerritoriesTaiwan, Hong Kong ................................159
LECTURE 45
China in the New Millennium, 20002008 ......................................163
LECTURE 46
Chinas Information Revolution.......................................................167
LECTURE 47
One World, One DreamThe 2008 Olympics .............................170
LECTURE 48
Chinas RiseThe Sleeping Giant Stirs .........................................173
vi
Table of Contents
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Timeline ..........................................................................................176
Glossary .........................................................................................184
Biographical Notes .........................................................................202
Bibliography ....................................................................................214
vii
viii
Scope
Scope
With Maos death in September 1976, the succession struggle heats up. The
widely despised Jiang Qing and her three radical associates are arrested and
charged with conspiring to seize power. With the Gang of Four behind bars,
Deng Xiaoping attempts a second comeback, only to have his path blocked
by Hua Guofeng, who sees Deng as his principal rival. The two men jockey
for position, with Deng enjoying the support of key elder statesmen within
the party and army. By 1978, the tide turns in Dengs favor. His ascendancy is
confirmed by the CCP Central Committee in November 1978, and a number
of sweeping policy initiatives are introduced to reform the stagnant Chinese
economy, restore Chinas shattered legal institutions, and open up China to
the outside world.
Maos death leaves China exhausted and demoralized. Cautiously, Deng
sets about reversing Maos failed economic policies and dismantling the
radical legacy of the Cultural Revolution. He rehabilitates large numbers
of overthrown cadres, destigmatizes the un-Maoist notions of market
competition and profit making, dismantles Chinas collective farms, and
encourages peasants to farm their own family plots. Four Special Economic
Zones are opened along Chinas eastern seaboard, designed to stimulate
foreign investment and technology transfer. The age of Mao has ended.
China Rises from the Ashes (19822010)
In the early 1980s, a number of senior CCP conservatives criticize Deng
Xiaopings reforms as capitalist and accuse members of Dengs reform
coalition of fostering spiritual pollution in ideology and culture. For the
remainder of the decade, the government oscillates uncertainly between
reform and retrenchment, resulting in a series of stalled initiatives and partial
reforms. Tensions between reformers and conservatives grow stronger,
culminating in the January 1987 removal of Dengs liberal-minded protg,
CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang. Hu is accused by Party hard-liners of
being excessively tolerant of bourgeois liberalization.
In 1989, a number of reform-related stresses and strains converge. The sudden
death of Hu Yaobang in April causes thousands of college students to take to
the streets in Beijing, demanding that Hus good name be restored. Party
leaders conspicuously ignore the students, accusing their leaders of being
unpatriotic and of fomenting turmoil. Insulted, the students redouble their
5
Scope
Scope
Legend has it that the Emperor Napoleon once said of China, There lies
a sleeping giant. Let it sleep, for when it wakes it will shake the world.
The opening of several Silk Road trade routes from the 7th to the 12th
centuries brought China into limited commercial and religious contact with
peoples and cultures from Central Asia and beyond, but these routes were
The Silk Road was a network of overland trade routes that linked western China
with Central Asia and the world beyond.
9
Names to Know
Yongle (13601424): The third emperor of the Ming dynasty (r. 1402
1424), who commissioned seven major oceanic expeditions, led by
Zheng He. With Yongles death in 1424, maritime exploration ceased for
400 years.
Zheng He (c. 13711433): A Hui Muslim and imperial eunuch, Admiral
Zheng launched seven oceanic expeditions between 1405 and 1433. His fleet
of 200 six-masted ships reached ports in Southeast Asia, India, Ceylon, the
Persian Gulf, Arabia, and the Horn of Africa.
Important Terms
Confucianism: Classical Chinese philosophical doctrine holding that society
is best regulated via internalized moral precepts of virtue and benevolence,
rather than compulsion.
Middle Kingdom: This literal translation of Zhongguo (China) refers to
the traditional Chinese belief in a Sinocentric universe.
Silk Road: The network of ancient trade routes linking western China to the
Near and Middle East.
10
Suggested Reading
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Huang, 1587: A Year of No Significance.
Pomeranz, The Great Divergence.
Spence, The Search for Modern China.
Questions to Consider
1. What were the key sources of Chinese imperial longevity, and which of
these were unique to China?
2. Who was Admiral Zheng He, and how did he play a critical role in
closing China to the outside world for 400 years?
11
I
Lecture 2: Malthus and Manchu Hubris, 17301800
An extended period of peace that began in the mid-17th century led to a decline
in domestic mortality rates. It also gave the imperial government the opportunity
and resources to improve the nations water management; this in turn resulted
in fewer fatalities from flood, draught, water-borne disease, and malnutrition.
Thus Chinas population doubled in the 18th century, and again in the 19th
century. But in this same period, agricultural productivity stagnated, causing a
Malthusian crisis in which millions of Chinese farmers and laborers lived in
dire poverty. Grain surpluses vanished, and agricultural tax revenue dwindled.
In the late 18th century, European demand for Chinese tea, silk, spices, and
porcelain rose dramatically. For a time, this trade revenue shored up the
imperial treasury. But Europeans brought more than money to China; they
also brought opium. English merchants and Chinese middlemen grew rich
off this illicit commerce, but the drug wreaked havoc on Chinas legitimate
economy through addiction, inflation, and the destruction of Chinas
favorable trade balance with Europe.
When China finally opened itself to formal trade relations with Europe, several
cultural misunderstandings, as well as Chinese xenophobia, soured Chinas
trade negotiations with Britain in 1793. Emperor Qianlong ultimately and
arrogantly rejected the overtures of Britains trade representative, Lord
George Macartney, further weakening the Chinese economy. Chinas belief
in its own superiority was about to be put to the test.
12
Names to Know
Macartney, Lord George (17371806): Irish-born diplomat who led the
failed British trade delegation from King George III to the court of Qianlong in
1793. He offended the emperor by refusing to perform the traditional kowtow.
Qianlong (17111799): Fifth emperor of the Manchu dynasty. Citing Chinas
celestial supremacy, Qianlong contemptuously rejected a 1793 request for
normal trade relations from Great Britain.
Important Term
Malthusian crisis: A situation in which a population has outstripped its
potential productivity.
Suggested Reading
Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Huang, 1587: A Year of No Significance.
Pomeranz, The Great Divergence.
Spence, The Search for Modern China.
Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
How did the British reverse their unfavorable trade balance with China
at the end of the 18th century?
13
T
Lecture 3: Barbarians at the Gate, 18001860
14
forced sign the treaty they had rejected two years earlier as excessively
humiliating, granting Europeans additional privileges and concessions.
With the conclusion of the Treaty of Beijing, some 1,200 years of Chinese
imperial supremacy effectively came to an end. China was now weakened
and a tempting targetfor both foreign predators and domestic rebels.
15
Names to Know
Elliot, George (17841863): Admiral Elliot commanded the British naval
force in Canton in 18391840. Seeking retribution for Lin Zexus seizure
of British opium, Elliot engaged his warships in a show of military force,
precipitating the First Opium War.
Lin Zexu (17851850): The imperial commissioner appointed by the
Manchu emperor in 1838. Lin sought to suppress the British opium trade in
Canton (Guangzhou). His efforts triggered the First Opium War in 1839.
Qishan (17901854): The Manchu imperial envoy known as the manager
of barbarians. His diplomatic efforts to limit British military forays in
18401841 failed, and he suffered permanent exile.
Qiying (17871858): Qiying replaced Qishan as the chief Chinese
barbarian handler in 1841. He employed dilatory tactics to slow British
encroachments. Failing to deter Britain, he was recalled in disgrace.
Important Terms
Opium Wars: Wars launched by European powers in 1839 and 1856 to
punish the Manchu government for restricting foreign commercial access
to China.
Yuanmingyuan: The Manchu Summer Palace in Beijing, which was
destroyed by the British and the French in 1860.
Suggested Reading
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Pomeranz, The Great Divergence.
Spence, The Search for Modern China.
Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate.
Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes.
16
Questions to Consider
1. What role did opium play in the 19th-century subjugation of China by
the West?
2. How did Chinese court officials deal with barbarian incursions in the
period from 1830 to 1860?
17
The ruling elite is like the wind, the little people are like the grass. When
the wind blows, the grass bends.
Traditional proverb
Peasant
rebellions
were not new in China,
and when a series
of devastating floods
occurred in the early
1850s in North Chinas Peasants in rural China faced a mounting agrarian
Yellow River basin, crisis in the mid-1800s.
a major uprisingthe Nian Rebellionbroke out in several provinces. At
almost the same time, an even larger rebellion broke out in South China, where
a charismatic but mentally unstable young Chinese religious scholar named
Hong Xiuquan led an uprising of impoverished farmers. At the height of the
Taiping Rebellion in the mid-1850s, its rebel armies controlled seven provinces
and had half a million fighters. When the Taipings tried to conquer North China,
their advance failed due to their overconfidence, logistical overextension,
and severe winter weather. Weakened by growing internal divisions and
rivalries, the Taiping rebels were ultimately subdued in the early 1860s by a
combined force of elite imperial troops and European-trained military units.
18
With the Taipings decisively defeated and Western troops gone from Beijing,
the Manchu dynasty would attempt a revitalization. But time would show
that agrarian rebellion, combined with the encroachment of Western powers,
had fatally weakened the Manchus hold on the empire.
Names to Know
Hong Xiuquan (18141864): The charismatic founder and delusional leader
of the Taiping Rebellion (18501864). Hong believed himself to be the
brother of Jesus Christ and ruled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom until his
death in 1864.
Ward, Frederick Townsend (18311862): An American soldier of fortune
hired to recruit and train foreign mercenaries to help suppress the Taiping
Rebellion. Ward was fatally wounded at the battle of Cixi in 1862.
Zeng Guofan (18111872): The commander of the imperial Hunan army
that defeated the Taiping Rebellion. Zeng later became a leading figure in the
Self-Strengthening movement.
Important Terms
laobaixing: Ordinary Chinese people (literally, old hundred names).
Nian Rebellion (18531868): A massive peasant rebellion triggered by the
extensive collapse of imperial flood-control works and subsequent famine in
the Yellow River region.
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (18531864): A rebel state encompassing
several provinces and tens of millions of uprooted peasants, with its capital
in Nanjing. Founded by Christian zealot Hong Xiuquan.
Taiping Rebellion (18501864): A rebellion begun in Southeast China that
was an even greater threat to Manchu rule than the Nian Rebellion.
19
Suggested Reading
Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Pomeranz, The Great Divergence.
Spence, Gods Chinese Son.
, The Search for Modern China.
Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate.
Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes.
Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism.
Questions to Consider
Why did rural poverty spread so widely in 19th-century China?
How did rural unrest contribute to the downfall of the Manchu dynasty?
1.
20
We should carefully watch and learn their superior techniques and also
observe their shortcomings. If they abandon good relations and break
their covenant, we would then have the weapons to oppose them.
Zeng Guofan, on studying the West
fter the Second Opium War and the defeat of the Taiping and Nian
rebellions, the faltering Manchu dynasty enjoyed a brief respite. In
the early 1860s, scholars sought to redress Chinese vulnerability
with respect to the European powers. China launched a series of initiatives
aimed at adopting the techniques of Western science and industry while
preserving Chinese culture.
Prince Gongs internal reforms, collectively known as the SelfStrengthening movement, were introduced to manage rural unrest and to
learn from foreigners how to produce modern weapons. Indeed, by the mid1870s, China was manufacturing thousands of small arms comparable to
those used by Europeans.
But the reforms had unintended consequences: Young scholars sent abroad to
study Western industrial technology returned and began advocating sweeping
educational reforms, including the study of mathematics, astronomy, physics,
chemistry, and foreign languages. This rankled many conservative Chinese
Confucian scholars, who feared the loss of their traditional lifestyles and
intellectual privileges. Within the Manchu court, resistance to reform was
led by the powerful Dowager Empress Cixi, who conspired at every turn to
undermine Prince Gongs proposed reforms.
With reform stalled, Chinas imperial decline continued unabatednow
marked by a highly ambivalent relationship between China and the West,
in which Chinese admiration of Western science, technology, and economic
progress was offset by deep-seated resentment of Western aggression and
bullying. Such ambivalence endured for over a century, flaring up periodically
down to the present day.
21
Names to Know
Cixi (18351908): This archconservative dowager empress dominated
Manchu court politics in the late 19th century. Operating behind the scenes,
she effectively manipulated youthful emperors and undermined all efforts
at reform.
Gong, Prince (18331898): The principal patron of the Self-Strengthening
movement of the 1860s, Gong promoted educational reforms and foreign
military technology, thereby running afoul of Cixi.
Important Term
Self-Strengthening movement (a.k.a. Tongzhi Restoration; 18621875):
A reform movement initiated by Manchu Prince Gong, designed to
defend China against foreigners by studying the secrets of Western
military success.
Suggested Reading
Fenby, Modern China.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Spence, Gods Chinese Son.
, The Search for Modern China.
Teng and Fairbank, Chinas Response to the West.
Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate.
Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism.
22
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
23
When the power of the empire comes from one person, it is weak. When
it comes from millions of people, it is strong.
Reform scholar Wang Kangnian
Names to Know
Guangxu (18711908): Influenced by liberal intellectuals Kang Youwei and
Liang Qichao, this youthful Manchu emperor introduced 40 major domestic
reforms in 1898. He was deposed and imprisoned by Cixi following the
Hundred Days of Reform.
Kang Youwei (18581927): Kang was the leading liberal reformer in the
last decades of the Qing dynasty. He persuaded Emperor Guangxu in 1898
to introduce major innovations in education, civil service exams, medical
training, and foreign affairs.
Important Terms
Boxer Protocol (1901): The treaty that ended the Boxer Rebellion; it
exacted large financial indemnities from the Manchus as punishment for
their complicity in Boxer attacks on foreigners.
Boxer Rebellion (18991900): Insurrection by secret society of harmonious
fists aimed at killing all foreigners and punishing the Manchus for
Chinas weakness.
Hundred Days of Reform (1898): Abortive effort by Emperor Guangxu to
reform the Manchu dynasty from within. Spearheaded by Liang Qichao and
Kang Youwei, the reforms were blocked by Dowager Empress Cixi.
Open Door policy (1898): The policy initiated by President William
McKinley that was designed to morally restrain foreign powers from
dominating China and to maintain equal access among foreign countries.
26
Suggested Reading
Fenby, Modern China.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Preston, The Boxer Rebellion.
Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective.
Spence, The Search for Modern China.
Teng and Fairbank, Chinas Response to the West.
Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did Chinese reformers become radicalized toward the end of the
19th century?
2.
In what sense did the Boxer uprising represent the last instance of
premodern rebellion in China?
27
In this lecture we witness the final throes of a dying dynasty, and the
concurrent rise of the first truly modern Chinese revolutionary political
partythe Guomindang of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.
any master plan at all, and with its principal architect, Sun, thousands of
miles away. A revolutionary bomb exploded unintentionally in October
1911, leading Suns followers in Hankow
(modern Wuhan) to mutiny against the local
imperial command, causing the local garrison
The Chinese
commander to flee. The rebels found themselves
Republican
in control of the city, and soon afterward
Revolution of
Manchu authority began to crumble throughout
1911 began quite
the country.
accidentally, without
Sun returned to China and christened the
any master plan
Provisional Republic of China, of which
at all, and with its
he was inaugurated provisional president
principal architect,
on January 1, 1912. He also renamed his
Sun, thousands of
revolutionary movement the Guomindang, or
National Peoples Party. Without a disciplined,
miles away.
reliable army of his own, however, Sun could
not consolidate power. He turned to the former
imperial commander in chief, Yuan Shikai.
Yuan was willing to collaborate with Suns Nationalists, but in return
Yuan demanded the presidency of the new Republic of China. Sun
reluctantly agreed, and he abdicated in Yuans favor in February 1912,
the same month it was announced that the Manchu court had abdicated
power to the new republic.
On the Timeline
1894
Sun Yat-sen
forms Revive
China Society.
1890
19061911
Sun Yat-sen
launches uprisings
against Manchus.
1895
1900
1905
1910
1912
Sun
Yat-sen
inaugurated
president of
Provisional
Republic of
China.
1915
29
Names to Know
Puyi (19061967): Chinas last emperor. As a toddler, he was placed on
the Manchu throne as a figurehead by Cixi in 1908. Puyi was later installed
by Japan as the puppet ruler of Manchukuo.
Sun Yat-sen (18661925): A medical doctor trained in Hawaii and Hong
Kong, Sun led efforts to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. When the dynasty
collapsed in 1911, Sun founded Chinas first modern political party, the
Guomindang, and became the first president of the Republic of China. He is
revered as the father of modern China.
Yuan Shikai (18591916): The last commander of the Manchu imperial
army. Yuan transferred his loyalty to Sun Yat-sen after the revolution of
1911, only to seize power from Sun a few months later. Yuan died after an
unsuccessful attempt to restore the dynastic system.
Suggested Reading
Bergre, Sun Yat-sen.
Fenby, Modern China.
Lecture 7: The End of Empire, 19001911
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
30
On the Timeline
19161926 China enters warlord era.
1915
Japan issues
21 Demands.
19121913 Sun
Yat-sen forced
into exile,
succeeded by
Yuan Shikai.
1910
1915
1920
1925
31
one by one. Japans demands could not be implemented, and Yuans plans
for a restored empire were aborted. He died a year later, a broken man.
Soon after, China devolved into an extended period of political fragmentation.
Without a strong central government, Chinas provincial military chieftains
known as warlordsreigned supreme in their regional strongholds. When
World War I ended, China, which had nominally joined the victorious
Franco-British-American alliance, expected to be rewarded with the return of
Germanys concessions in Shandong Province and elsewhere. But the Treaty
of Versailles in April 1919 transferred the German concessions to Japan.
Outraged students and workers held mass demonstrations in several
Chinese cities. The May 4th movement, as these demonstrations were
called, lasted for over a month and marked the birth of modern Chinese
nationalism. In its aftermath, the New Culture movement deepened the
national determination to cast off foreign domination and make China
modern, wealthy, and strong.
Names to Know
Song Jiaoren (18821913): An expert on parliamentary government,
Song was the first prime minister of the Republic of China. A year after he
orchestrated the GMDs first electoral campaign in 1912, he was assassinated
on Yuan Shikais orders.
Soong Ching-ling (18931981): The American-educated second wife of Sun
Yat-sen. She was the daughter of Suns key financial backer, Charlie Soong,
and the sister of Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek).
Soong Mei-ling (18972003): The younger sister of Soong Ching-ling, and
wife of Chiang Kai-shek. Educated in the United States, she acted as a gobetween in the early 1940s, rallying the support of the American people for
Chinas struggle against Japan.
Zhang Zuolin (18751928): This Manchu warlord ruled Manchuria from
1916 to 1928, when he was assassinated by a Japanese army officer. His son,
Zhang Xueliang, famously kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek in 1936.
32
Suggested Reading
Chow, The May Fourth Movement.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism.
Pye, Warlord Politics.
Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective.
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
How did the May 4th movement affect the course of modern
Chinese history?
33
Let us rise and fight together! The revolution is not yet accomplished!
The last words of Dr. Sun Yat-sen
In 1921, Sun met with agents of Lenins Comintern, who became his advisers.
Under their influence, he reorganized his Guomindang along Bolshevik lines,
and in 1923 he entered into a united front with the fledgling CCP to oppose
the three big evils: warlords, imperialists, and feudal landowners.
With Comintern guidance and Soviet equipment, Sun set up a Peasant
Movement Training Institute and a military academy in Canton in 1924. But
he died of cancer in 1925, before he could succeed in reunifying China. A
struggle for power ensued among Suns lieutenants, eventually yielding a
successor: the strong-willed, right-wing general Chiang Kai-shek.
Names to Know
Chen Gongbo (18921946): A founding member of the CCP, Chen quit the
party in 1922 and joined the Guomindang. After the Japanese invasion, Chen
collaborated with Japan. At wars end, he was tried as a traitor and executed
by firing squad.
Chiang Kai-shek (18871975): The leader of the GMD after Sun
Yat-sens death, Chiang led the Northern Expedition to end warlordism. An
ardent anti-Communist, Chiang sought to destroy the CCP at all costseven
while tolerating early Japanese encroachments. After World War II, Chiang
suffered a humiliating defeat by Mao Zedongs Peoples Liberation Army
(PLA); Chiang fled to Taiwan in December 1949.
Mao Zedong (18931976): Political theorist, military strategist, and chairman
of the CCP Central Committee from 1935 until his death, Mao adapted
Vladimir Lenins theory of proletarian revolution to the needs of Chinas
rural society. He defeated Chiang Kai-shek in Chinas civil war and led the
Peoples Republic of China for 40 years. His radical policies in the 1950s and
1960s caused enormous suffering, leading to major reforms in the 1980s.
Important Term
Communist International (Comintern): Organization founded by
Vladimir Lenin in 1919 to promote revolutionary movements in colonial and
semicolonial countries.
35
Suggested Reading
Chang, Wild Swans.
Chow, The May Fourth Movement.
Fenby, Modern China.
Hs, The Rise of Modern China.
Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism.
Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective.
Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao.
Questions to Consider
36
Name to Know
Wang Jingwei (18831944): He was initially a leader of the left wing of the
GMD, but Wangs disdain for Chiang Kai-shek led him to collaborate with
the invading Japanese in 1937. Wang died in disgrace in Japan at the end of
World War II.
Important Terms
Autumn Harvest Uprisings (19271928): A series of ill-fated, armed
insurrections carried out by the CCP in a desperate attempt to avoid
annihilation by Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist army.
Jiangxi (Kiangsi) Soviet Republic (19301934): The Red Army regional
base in South China led by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De.
38
Suggested Reading
Fenby, Modern China.
Meisner, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism.
Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao.
Short, Mao.
Taylor, The Generalissimo.
Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did the 19231927 united front between the GMD and the CCP
eventually end in bloodshed?
2.
How did the CCPs forced rural exile after 1927 affect its ideological
orientation and leadership?
39
In its essentials, the Maoist version of peoples war was the military
equivalent of Muhammad Alis strategy for subduing a larger, more
powerful opponent: Float like a butterfly; sting like a bee.
On the Timeline
1927 Chiang Kai-shek attacks Chinese
Communist Party; surviving Communists
flee and form Red Army.
1927 Chiang
Kai-shek
establishes
Nationalist
government
in Nanjing.
1931 Japan
occupies
Manchuria.
1927
40
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
and the process of political liberalization had brought to power a new and
more progressive Japanese government. But even as Japan was emulating
Western political and socioeconomic institutions, Japanese military power
was growing steadily. Despite the opposition of Japans civilian authority,
its military commanders openly coveted the rich mineral, industrial, and
agricultural resources of Manchuria. In 1931, they invaded Manchuria,
setting up a puppet regime with the now 26-year-old Puyi as chief executive.
When neither the League of Nations nor the United States forcefully resisted
Japans aggression, Tokyo was emboldened to commit further acts of
aggression against China.
Caught between relentless Japanese pressure in the north and a growing
Communist movement in the south, Chiang made a fateful decision: He
would first concentrate on exterminating the Communists and then resist the
Japanese. As he put it, The Japanese are a disease of the skin; Communists
are a disease of the heart. Between 1930 and 1934, Chiang launched four
successive encirclement campaigns against the Jiangxi Soviet Republic.
But by then, the Red Army was applying Maos principles of peoples war,
1933
19341935
Chinese
Communist
Party
embarks on
Long March,
relocates in
Yanan.
1934
1935
1937 Chiang
Kai-shek
forms second
united front
with Chinese
Communist
Party.
1936 Zhang
Xueliang kidnaps
Chiang Kai-shek.
1936
1937 Japan
invades,
occupies North
and East China.
1937
1938
41
Comstock/ GettyImages/Thinkstock
1934 Chiang
Kai-shek
forces Red
Army out
of South
China.
In 1934, with half a million GMD troops encircling the Red Armys Jiangxi
stronghold, the Communists faced annihilation unless they abandoned the
Jiangxi Soviet Republic. In October, 100,000 Communists broke out of the
Nationalist encirclement and began the Long March. In 15 months, they
covered 6,000 miles of difficult terrain, eventually resettling at Yanan, in
North China. Only one-tenth of those who started the trek completed it.
During the Long March, Mao Zedong blackmailed Zhou Enlai into giving
Mao full command of the CCP, which he held until his death in 1976.
In the fall of 1936, Chiang sent his best-trained army to destroy the
Communists in Yanan. But the officer Chiang chose to lead the campaign,
Zhang Xueliang, had no interest in fighting fellow Chinese, Communist
or otherwise. Ever since Japanese militarists had assassinated his father,
the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, the younger Zhang had been eager
to fight Japan. Zhang refused Chiangs orders, instead kidnapping Chiang
and demanding a second GMD-CCP united front against the Japanese.
Reluctantly, Chiang complied. Fearing a unified Chinese resistance,
Japan struck the Chinese heartland in the summer of 1937, igniting World
War II.
Names to Know
Zhang Xueliang (19012001): Son of the assassinated Manchurian warlord
Zhang Zuolin, Zhang Xueliang was known as the Young Marshal. He led a
mutiny against Chiang Kai-shek in December 1936 (the Xian Incident),
demanding a GMD-CCP united front to resist Japan.
Zhou Enlai (18981976): The first premier and foreign minster of the
Peoples Republic of China, Zhou was Chinas foremost diplomat. Ever
loyal to Mao Zedong, he was the chairmans right-hand man and chief
troubleshooter. Before succumbing to cancer, he paved the way for the SinoU.S. dtente.
42
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Eastman, The Abortive Revolution.
Fenby, Modern China.
Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power.
Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao.
Snow, Red Star over China.
Sun, The Long March.
Taylor, The Generalissimo.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
In what respect can it be said that a mutinous act by Chiangs top general
in 1936 altered the course of modern Chinese history?
43
Suggested Reading
Eastman, The Abortive Revolution.
Esherick, Lost Chance in China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State.
Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power.
Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Schwartz, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao.
Seagrave, The Soong Dynasty.
Short, Mao.
Snow, Red Star over China.
Taylor, The Generalissimo.
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China.
Van Slyke, Enemies and Friends.
Questions to Consider
1.
What unintended role did Japan play in shaping the outcome of the
Chinese Revolution?
2.
46
47
hen the war against Japan ended, there was a brief period in
which all sides held their collective breath, uncertain about
the future. Could the uneasy truce
between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek
be extended, or would the bitter enemies renew
their long-standing civil war, with unknown
consequences for China and the outside world?
When the Soviet Union ended its occupation of Manchuria in 1946, PLA
guerrillas fell heir to large numbers of captured Japanese weapons. The CCPGMD civil war resumed in earnest in 1946, with
PLA troops cutting major Nationalist supply lines
to the cities of the northeast, thus isolating GMD
Could the uneasy
troops there. Practicing the Maoist strategy of
truce between
surrounding the cities from the countryside, the
Mao Zedong and
PLA took the offensive in 1947, attacking isolated
Chiang Kai-shek
GMD strongholds one after another. GMD troop
be extended, or
morale was severely eroded when Chiang ordered
field commanders to blow up their own arsenals,
would the bitter
bridges, and food, rather than letting them fall into
enemies renew
the hands of the PLA.
their long-standing
civil war?
By 1948, Nationalist armies began defecting en
masse. One by one, Chinas major cities fell to
the Communists during their victorious southward
march in 1949. Choosing Beijing as his new capital, on October 1, Mao
Zedong ascended a platform atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace at the southern
entrance to the Forbidden City. Looking down from the same majestic edifice
where a succession of Chinese emperors and court officials had displayed
the awesome might of the Middle Kingdom, Mao proudly proclaimed the
birth of the Peoples Republic of China.
On the Timeline
1945
President Harry
S. Truman sends
General George
C. Marshall to
China.
1945
Japan
surrenders.
1945
48
19481949
Communists go on
offensive, rout Chiang
Kai-sheks forces.
19461947
Civil war breaks
out in Manchuria.
1946 Mao
Zedong and
Chiang Kaishek talk peace,
prepare for war.
1946
1949 Chiang
Kai-shek retreats
to Taiwan.
1947
1948
1949
The Battle of Huai Hai: End of the Road for the Nationalists
49
Suggested Reading
Barnett, China on the Eve of Communist Takeover.
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Esherick, Lost Chance in China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State.
Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Short, Mao.
Snow, Red Star over China.
Taylor, The Generalissimo.
Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China.
Questions to Consider
1.
What were the key determinants of the final outcome of the Chinese
civil war?
2.
50
Along with their sons, daughters, and even their grandchildren, these
former landlords carried with them an indelible political stigma, a
scarlet letter that could not be altered or erasedthe label of class
enemy. Thereafter, their lives would never be the same.
few days before Mao Zedong proclaimed the birth of the Peoples
Republic of China, he addressed a political meeting in Beijing.
In his speech, Mao famously claimed that the Chinese people
have stood up. For all his theatrical dramatics, however, Mao spoke only
a half-truth.
To be sure, the upstart Chinese Communist Party had come from nowhere,
out of the wilderness, to defeat the much larger, U.S.-backed forces of
Chiang Kai-shek. They had done it by stressing ingenuity, improvisation,
and self-reliance, making use of whatever materials they had at hand, while
receiving little assistance from the Soviet Union. But though the Chinese
Communists won their civil war, they had not yet secured the civil peace.
Devastated by more than three decades of revolution, foreign invasion, and
civil war, the Chinese economy was a shambles. Having operated in the rural
hinterland for more than 20 years, the CCP knew little about how to run an
urban economy. Indeed, it would take several more decades for the Chinese
people to truly stand up.
Desperately in need of foreign assistance to rebuild Chinas shattered
economy, Mao swallowed his pride and bowed in the direction of the Soviet
Union. Forty years of experience have taught us [that] all Chinese
without exception must lean either to the side of imperialism or to the side of
socialism. With this important statement, Mao established that China would
align itself with the socialist camp, led by the USSR, and would eschew
collaboration with the imperialist camp, headed by the United States.
With the final defeat of the Nationalists in 1949, the CCP set about
consolidating its control of the country. The Maoists promulgated a new
51
was a shambles.
In rural areas, a land reform movement was initiated in 1950. Peasants were
classified according to their land holdings, and members of the landlord
class had their property confiscated. Peasant anger frequently erupted
into physical abuse as landlords were paraded before them and struggled
against for their past crimes. Violence often got out of hand, and upward of
800,000 landlords were killed in the course of the campaign. The confiscated
lands were given to poor and lower-middle-class peasants. In this manner,
the CCP cemented its popularity among the broad masses of rural dwellers.
By 1952, the CCP had penetrated all of rural China, and the landlord class
had virtually ceased to exist.
The Rectification Campaign Model Developed at Yanan
53
Suggested Reading
Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai.
Fenby, Modern China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Johnson, Women, the Family and Peasant Revolution in China.
Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
How did the CCP consolidate power in the early 1950s?
2.
1.
54
If you should get kicked in the teeth [by the Americans], I shall not lift a
finger. Youll have to ask Mao for all the help. Joseph Stalins warning
to Kim Il-sung before the outbreak of the Korean War
y 1949, the Cold War was well underway. The Soviet Union had
dropped an iron curtain over Eastern and Central Europe, and
President Harry S. Truman had announced the birth of the Marshall
Plan, designed to accelerate the economic recovery of Western Europe and
thereby counteract rising Soviet power and influence.
After 28 years of civil war and foreign aggression, China badly needed
international assistance. Unable to turn to the United States (i.e., the
imperialist camp) because of the deepening Cold War, Mao Zedong went
to Moscow (i.e., the socialist camp) in December 1949. After six weeks
of arduous haggling, Mao and Joseph Stalin struck a bargain in February
of 1950. Its terms clearly revealed Stalins ambivalence toward his Chinese
comrades. Stalin extended to Mao credits worth $300 million, half
earmarked for the purchase of Soviet military hardware, half for the purchase
of Soviet heavy industrial plant and machinery. But to Maos dismay,
the Soviet credits amounted to far less than Stalin had given to the new
Communist governments in Eastern and Central Europe in the late 1940s.
Worse yet, whereas the aid to Stalins European satellites had been in the
form of outright grants, the credits to China were written up as loans, to be
repaid over a 10-year periodwith 1 percent annual interest.
The first major test of the Sino-Soviet alliance came in 1950, when North
Koreas Kim Il-sung asked Stalin for permission to reunify Korea by force.
After a good deal of initial skepticism, both Stalin and Mao approved
Kims plan of attack, and in June 1950, North Korean troops invaded South
Korea. The United Nations condemned the invasion, and President Truman
ordered the U.S. Navy to patrol the Taiwan Strait to prevent a PRC attack
on Taiwan. Under General Douglas MacArthur, UN troops repelled the
North Korean attack, but Truman and MacArthur disagreed on the aims
55
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Schaller, The U.S. and China.
Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu.
Questions to Consider
1. Was Mao Zedongs post-1949 alliance with Joseph Stalin (and against
the United States) inevitable?
2. How did the Korean War influence Sino-Soviet relations?
57
Important Terms
collective farms (19551957): The highest stage of agricultural
collectivization, marked by the abolition of private ownership and the largescale pooling of land and labor among 100200 families.
60
Suggested Reading
Fenby, Modern China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Chinese Village, Socialist State.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 1.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
What were the key policies for the transformation of the national
economy in Chinas First Five-Year Plan?
2.
61
We have given our blood, sweat, toil and precious lives to defend not the
people, but the bureaucrats who oppress the people and live off the fat
of the land. They are a group of fascists who employ foul means, twist
the truth, band together in evil ventures, and ignore the peoples wish
for peace.
From an anonymous pamphlet entitled Jaccuse,
written during the Hundred Flowers movement
B
Lecture 17: Cracks in the Monolith, 19571958
62
Names to Know
Deng Xiaoping (19041997): A veteran CCP leader and economic
pragmatist, Deng introduced sweeping market reforms after Mao Zedongs
death. Twice purged as a revisionist, Deng supplanted Hua Guofeng as
Chinas top leader in December 1978. Best known for his 1962 slogan: It
doesnt matter if the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice.
Liu Shaoqi (18981969): A CCP organizational specialist and one of Mao
Zedongs top lieutenants, Liu become Maos heir apparent in the mid-1950s.
Teaming with Deng Xiaoping to dismantle Maos Great Leap Forward in
19611962, Liu was later accused of taking the capitalist road. He was
purged by Mao in 1966 and died in captivity in 1969.
Important Terms
Anti-Rightist Rectification movement (June 19571958): The struggle
against bourgeois intellectuals and wayward CCP members following the
termination of the Hundred Flowers campaign.
64
Suggested Reading
Chang, Wild Swans.
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai.
Fenby, Modern China.
Lthi, The Sino-Soviet Split.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 1.
Pan, Out of Maos Shadow.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
Did Mao set a trap for Chinas intellectuals when he initiated the
Hundred Flowers movement?
65
When the Chinese mens table tennis team won the world championship
in 1958, their victory was officially attributed to the emancipation of
mind wrought by the [Great Leaps] mass education in socialist relations
and values.
With the new, larger size of the peoples communes, it became possible,
at least in theory, to broadly diversify the rural economy. By introducing a
large-scale division of labor involving thousands of peasants, the peoples
communes were to become entirely self-sufficient. Perhaps the most notorious
example of rural economic diversification during the Great Leap Forward
was the campaign to create large amounts of high-quality steel in backyard
blast furnaces. Working day and night, Chinas mobilized peasants smelted
scrap iron of all kindsincluding tools, bicycles, and household utensils.
Important Terms
backyard blast furnaces (19581959): Indigenous kilns used in rural
areas to smelt crude steel during the Great Leap Forward. Most of the steel
was unusable.
Great Leap Forward (19581962): Mao Zedongs ill-fated attempt to reach
Communism ahead of the USSR by relying on subjective factorsmass
ideological mobilization, selfless devotion to labor, and red leadership.
This movement resulted in great famine and 30 million deaths.
rural peoples communes: First introduced in 1958, these communes
encompassed as many as 10,000 families, all of whom shared equally in
communal income and contributed voluntary labor to backyard steelmaking
and other nonagricultural tasks.
68
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Lthi, The Sino-Soviet Split.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 2.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did Mao Zedong abandon the Soviet model of socialism in 1958?
2.
To what extent were the radical innovations of Maos Great Leap Forward
planned in advance, as opposed to being spontaneous experiments?
69
new increases in grain production in 1959, the harvest had actually dropped
by 30 million tons from the previous year. Yet in the face of growing food
shortages, Mao insisted that the problem was not declining grain production,
but willful sabotage.
Names to Know
Kang Sheng (18981975): The sinister head of Mao Zedongs internal
security and intelligence apparatus, Kang gained influence by compiling
confidential dossiers on thousands of party officials from the 1930s to
the 1970s.
Peng Dehuai (18981974): An outspoken PLA general and Chinas defense
minister, Peng was purged by Mao Zedong in 1959 for criticizing the Great
Leap Forward.
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
72
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
73
n the early 1960s, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping began restoring
the Communist Partys traditional top-down, bureaucratic decisionmaking procedures. Liu and Deng favored careful planning, centralized
leadership, and cautious advance over spontaneous mass mobilization.
They also quietly rehabilitated thousands of party members who had been
wrongfully persecuted during the Anti-Rightist Rectification. Finally,
reversing Mao Zedongs preference for ideological redness over technical
expertise, they invited Chinas much-maligned intellectuals to once again
contribute their ideas and talents to Chinas economic constructionthis
time without fear of reprisal. Defending these pragmatic policy changes in
1962, Deng explained the shift to a more practical, scientific approach to
economic development by famously stating, It doesnt matter if a cat is
white or black, so long as it catches mice.
In the early 1960s, Maos anger at top lieutenants Liu and Deng was
increasing. Maos contempt for Nikita Khrushchev had been building
since 1959, when the Soviet leader openly pursued dtente with the
United States, repudiated Lenins theory of inevitable war, and reneged
on his pledge to provide China with a prototype of an atomic bomb. By
1962, Maos wrath at Khrushchev had begun to converge withand
spill over ontohis growing distrust of Liu and Deng. (Mao would later
confirm this convergence when he scathingly referred to Liu as Chinas
Khrushchev.)
Lumping Liu and Deng together with Khrushchev, Mao in 1962 launched
a blistering attack on creeping revisionism and demanded an intensified
class struggle to prevent the restoration of capitalism at home and abroad.
At the Central Committees Tenth Plenary Session, he unveiled a new
rural mass campaign of ideological education and indoctrination called the
74
Important Terms
capitalist road: Mao Zedongs mid-1960s allegation that many of his
comrades were ignoring class struggle and following a revisionist path,
leading to a restoration of capitalism in China.
Socialist Education movement (a.k.a. Four Cleanups movement;
19621965): Mao Zedongs attempt to launch a mass campaign to
inoculate peasants, workers, and cadres against class enemies seeking a
capitalist restoration.
75
Suggested Reading
Baum, Prelude to Revolution.
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 3.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
76
During the revival of the Hundred Flowers campaign from 1961 to 1963
a large number of new literary works had been publishedmany of
them in apparent violation of Maos cherished style of socialist realism.
In 1964, Lin launched a mass movement within the PLA to study the
thought of Chairman Mao. To promote the movement, Lin personally edited
a collection of Maos pithiest precepts, aphorisms, and homilies, which he
packaged into a pocket-sized paperback entitled Quotations from Chairman
Mao Zedongmore popularly known as the Little Red Book.
All military units were required to hold regular study sessions, in which
selected passages from Maos Little Red Book would be collectively
recited, analyzed, and sermonized upon. Akin to the worship of deities in
fundamentalist religious schools, the study sessions focused on Maos
strategic brilliance and god-like qualities of omniscience, omnipotence,
and benevolence. The mantra Long live Chairman Mao! A long, long life
to Chairman Mao had its origins in this campaign, as did the practice of
starting public meetings with the phrase Chairman Mao teaches us.
With the Mao-study campaign unfolding on a massive scale within the
army, the next target audience in the campaign to revive Maos personality
cult was the younger generation. In 1965, PLA political instructors were
sent out to schools, universities, and local branches of the Communist
Youth League throughout the country to promote group study of the Little
Red Book.
77
Names to Know
Lin Biao (19071971): A senior PLA general and longtime confidant of
Mao Zedong, Lin became defense minister after Peng Dehuais purge in
1959. Lin died in a plane crash in 1971 following an alleged attempt to
assassinate Mao.
Wu Han (19091969): A playwright, historian, and deputy mayor of Beijing.
His writing group published essays critical of Mao Zedong in 19611962.
His 1961 opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was an allegorical criticism
of Maos 1959 purge of Peng Dehuai.
79
Important Terms
Hai Rui Dismissed from Office: An allegorical 1961 opera by Wu Han
likening the purge of Peng Dehuai to the Ming dynasty emperors dismissal
of a loyal minister, Hai Rui.
Little Red Book (a.k.a. Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong): A
collection of Maoist sayings and writings that was distributed widely to
soldiers and students in 1964 and 1965.
middle characters: Literary reference in the early 1960s to ordinary people
who are neither heroes nor villains; tacitly antithetical to socialist realism.
socialist realism: The Stalinist notion, endorsed by Mao Zedong, that art and
literature should glorify the working classes and expose the evil machinations
of class enemies.
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 3.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1. Why did Mao authorize the mass publication and circulation of the Little
Red Book in 19641965?
2. What was the significance of Wu Hans Hai Rui Dismissed from Office?
80
Before leaving his Hangzhou hideaway, [Mao Zedong] wrote to his wife
in Shanghai, telling her that there would soon be great disorder under
heaven. It was a most prescient forecast.
Henceforth, the
Cultural Revolution
in schools and
Names to Know
Nie Yuanzi (b. 1921): A female philosophy instructor, Nie put up a wall
poster at Peking University in May 1966, challenging the universitys ban on
wall posters and mass meetings. Mao Zedong endorsed her poster, praising
her as a true revolutionary.
Peng Zhen (19021997): A veteran CCP revolutionary and mayor of Beijing.
Peng was purged by Mao Zedong in 1966 for protecting Wu Han against
leftist criticism. He was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.
Important Terms
Beida: Nickname for Peking University, a contraction of Beijing Daxue.
poisonous weeds: Mao Zedongs 1957 characterization of art and
literature that served to undermined socialism, CCP leadership, or
Marxism-Leninism.
Red Guards (a.k.a. hongweibing): High school and college
students mobilized by Maoists in 1966 to launch attacks on
bourgeois powerholders.
83
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Ling, The Revenge of Heaven.
MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 3.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Questions to Consider
Why couldnt Mao Zedong rely on the party organization to unmask and
criticize his detractors?
2.
How did Mao initially orchestrate his attack on Peng Zhen and other
bourgeois powerholders in 19651966?
1.
84
with each group claiming to represent the true revolutionaries. Mao and
Zhou Enlai personally intervened, praising the rebellious factory workers for
correctly grasping revolution. Thereafter, the entire municipal government
apparatus was reorganized.
In the aftermath of the Shanghai uprising, radical Red Guards and
revolutionary rebels throughout China began to seize power in factories,
offices, commercial establishments, schools, and universities, in emulation
of their Shanghai compatriots. As the scope of working-class participation
broadened, the motives of participants became murkier and less principled.
With violence beginning to edge over into anarchy, Mao intervened once
more. In the spring of 1967, he ordered all schools reopened, all Red Guards
back to school, and all workers back to work.
Meanwhile, the power struggle in Beijing was entering a new stage.
Encouraged by members of the Central Cultural Revolution Small Group,
radical students at Tsinghua University captured Liu Shaoqis wife, Wang
Guangmei, and publicly humiliated her in a mass rally. Liu was also taken
captive; suffering from untreated diabetes and pneumonia, he died of medical
neglect in 1969. Peng Dehuai also died in captivity, after being brutalized by
Red Guards. At Zhou Enlais behest, Deng Xiaoping avoided prison and was
exiled to a small township.
The Chinese Communist Party was being systematically shatteredits
leaders brutalized, its morale crushed. Slowly but surely, Maos radical
minions were pushing the country toward the brink of anarchy.
Name to Know
Jiang Qing (19141991): Mao Zedongs fourth wife and a former movie
actress, Jiang met and married Mao in Yanan in 1938. She became Chinas
culture czar during the Cultural Revolution, instigating Red Guards to attack
powerholders. She was convicted of murder and treason in 1980 and
hanged herself in her prison cell in 1991.
87
Important Terms
four olds: The Red Guards were mobilized in 1966 to destroy old habits,
old ideology, old customs, and old culture.
revolutionary rebels: Nonstudent activists in the Cultural Revolution,
including workers and peasants.
Suggested Reading
Chang, Wild Swans.
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai.
Fenby, Modern China.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did the Red Guard movement break down into unprincipled
factional conflict?
2.
How did Jiang Qing and her radical colleagues contrive to expand mass
attacks on suspected class enemies?
88
By the late winter of 1969, the rustication movement had witnessed the
largest human migration in Chinese history. Within six months, more
than 10 million youngsters, ranging in age from 14 to 23, were sent from
Chinese cities to rural areas and remote border regions.
By the spring of 1968, China was perched on the thin edge of anarchy.
Governing bodies in virtually all Chinese provinces and municipalities
were being replaced by new revolutionary committees, many of which were
paralyzed by disputes over who had the authority to do what. To instill a
greater sense of discipline, military officers were appointed to fill the top
positions in most of the revolutionary committees. Meanwhile, Red Guards
and revolutionary rebels throughout the country routinely ignored Beijings
89
of military force to
suppress unruly
Red Guards.
Important Terms
Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams: Led by the PLA, these
disciplinary teams entered schools and factories throughout China in August
1968 to suppress factional violence and punish recalcitrant Red Guards
and rebels.
up to the mountains, down to the villages (shangshan, xiaxiang): The
Maoist rustication movement of late 1968 that urged urban youths to resettle
in the countryside to learn humility and discipline from peasants.
Suggested Reading
Chang and Halliday, Mao.
Fenby, Modern China.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
91
Questions to Consider
Why did Mao Zedong finally decide to curb Red Guard violence and
chaos, and what methods did he use?
2.
1.
92
hile the Cultural Revolution was playing out, much was taking
place in Chinas international relations as well. The Sino-Soviet
rivalry heated up considerably in the 1960s. During the 1962
Sino-Indian border war, Moscow remained neutral, and by way of payback,
Beijing criticized Nikita Khrushchevs backing down to the United States
in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The two sides were engaging in a guerrilla war
of words.
In mid-October of 1964, amid great patriotic jubilation, China successfully
tested its first atomic bomb, a device that had been built entirely without
Soviet assistance. The test was a powerful declaration of Chinas strategic
independence from the USSR, and its impact on Moscow was instantaneous.
The Soviet Communist Party Presidium abruptly removed Khrushchev from
power, citing his repeated blunders in the international arena, including his
inept handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and his botched relations with
China. In truth, Khrushchevs reformist tendencies and erratic personal
behavior had increasingly alienated many in the top Soviet leadership, and
the Chinese nuclear test was merely the last straw.
For a short while, it appeared that Khrushchevs ouster might open the way
for a thaw in Sino-Soviet relations. Early in 1965, in response to American
escalation of the war in Vietnam, new Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev held
out an olive branch to Beijing. He offered to work with China to provide a
coordinated flow of military assistance to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam. But Mao
Zedong flatly rejected Brezhnevs offer and angrily denounced the idea of
peaceful reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists. To Mao, Khrushchevs
ouster didnt change a thingthe Soviets were still heretics.
93
Names to Know
Kissinger, Henry (b. 1923): The national security advisor and later
secretary of state under Richard Nixon, Kissinger initiated the U.S.-China
rapprochement when he secretly flew to Beijing in July 1971 to meet with
Zhou Enlai.
Wang Ming (19041974): Mao Zedongs pro-Stalinist rival in the early
1930s. His policies were discredited by Mao at the start of 1934s Long
March. After three decades in the USSR, Wang was publicly lauded in 1968
by the Soviets, who heralded him as the true leader of the CCP.
Suggested Reading
Lthi, The Sino-Soviet Split.
MacFarquhar and Schoenhals, Maos Last Revolution.
Questions to Consider
1. Why did Vietnam become a major bone of contention in the Sino-Soviet
dispute in the late 1960s?
2. Why did Mao Zedong react so strongly to the 1968 Soviet invasion
of Czechoslovakia?
95
The four [senior PLA officers] noted that Nixon seemed to be quite
serious about improving relations with China, and they concluded that
Chinas strategic advantage lay in making use of tensions between the
Americans and the Soviets to strengthen our position.
T
Lecture 26: Nixon, Kissinger, and China, 19691972
Soon after the meeting, the two sides released a joint statement, informing the
world that Zhou had invited Nixon to visit China, that Nixon had accepted,
and that the leaders of the two countries would seek a normalization of
relations and an exchange of views on questions of concern to the two
sides. Despite opposition from Jiang Qing and
other Chinese hard-liners, Nixons week-long
visit to China went off smoothly. Early in the After more than
presidents trip, Nixon and Kissinger were granted two decades of
an audience with a visibly frail and infirm Mao mutual hostility,
Zedong. The smoothness of the televised images marked by
of this meeting shown around the world concealed
near-constant
deep underlying tensionson both sides.
recriminations and
On the Chinese side, there was considerable periodic military
confusion and perplexity over Chairman Maos confrontations, the
sudden change of heart toward the United States.
United States and
After more than two decades of uniformly hostile
Chinese policies and propaganda toward the evil China had agreed
U.S. imperialists, the idea of suddenly making to move toward
peace with the Americans raised numerous a normalized
eyebrows, including those of Maos newest heir relationship.
apparent, Lin Biao. On the American side as well,
there were serious policy disagreements. A bitter
turf war had broken out between Kissingers
National Security Council staff and top officials in the Department of State,
including Secretary of State William Rogers. The State Departments top
Asia experts were furious over what they regarded as Kissingers ego-driven
penchant for making indiscreet revelations to the Chinese and playing fast
and loose with Americas treaty commitments to Taiwan. Rogers wanted
a firm Chinese pledge to seek peaceful unification with Taiwan. Kissinger
believed this to be a deal-breaker, so he resisted.
With the Shanghai communiquthe cornerstone of the Nixon visit
hanging in the balance, Zhou Enlai personally intervened to smooth out
the situation. Paying an impromptu midnight visit to Rogerss hotel room
just hours before the scheduled release of the communiqu, Zhou proposed
a makeshift solution: Why not simply eliminate from the final draft all
97
Suggested Reading
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Schaller, The United States and China.
Tyler, A Great Wall.
Questions to Consider
1.
What were the key factors that ultimately induced President Nixon and
Chairman Mao to seek Sino-American dtente?
2.
How did Maos wife, Jiang Qing, try to derail the emerging dtente even
before it got off the ground?
98
cancer in January 1976, Jiang banned all public displays of mourning. But
during the annual Qingming Festival in early April, thousands of Beijing
residents defied the ban, converging on
Tiananmen Square to lay funereal wreaths and
post memorial poems to Zhou. Alarmed, Jiang
Less than a
and her clique of radicals ordered the wreaths
month after Maos
removed overnight. Angry Beijingers protested,
death, a coalition
and Jiang called in club-wielding paramilitary
of moderate
workers militias, who beat dozens and
arrested hundreds.
Chinese military and
political leaders,
many of them
survivors of Red
Guard persecution,
placed [Jiang Qing]
under arrest.
Important Terms
Gang of Four: Radical clique led by Mao Zedongs wife, Jiang Qing,
responsible for launching violent factional struggles during the Cultural
Revolution. They were tried and convicted in 1980.
Lin Biao affair (September 1971): An aborted coup attempt allegedly
masterminded by Lin Biao, which ended with Lin and his wife dying in a
plane crash in Mongolia.
100
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Qiu, The Culture of Power.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did Mao Zedong turn against Lin Biao so suddenly and completely
after 1969?
2.
101
In describing a fight he had with his father when he was only 13, Mao
wrote, I learned that when I defended my rights by open rebellion my
father relented, but when I remained weak and submissive he only beat
me more.
T
Lecture 28: The Legacy of Mao ZedongAn Appraisal
102
bitter critic of the subjugation of women. In several of his early writings, Mao
strongly advocates for sexual equality. Like many young radical nationalists
of his era, Mao viewed the subjugation of women as a repressive function of
Chinas patriarchal-Confucian legacy.
In 1918, on the eve of the May 4th movement, Mao moved to Beijing.
There, he courted and married Yang Kaihui, the daughter of his favorite
teacher. Mao and Yang were deeply in love, and she bore him two sons
before she was arrested and beheaded by the Guomindang in 1930. Yang
was important in Maos life for another reason
as well: It was her father who first introduced
the 25-year-old Mao Zedong to Li Dazhao, Though he clearly
head librarian at Peking University and later approved of
cofounder of the CCP.
revolutionary
violence, Mao
Li hired Mao as a librarians assistant. It was
menial work, and Mao was rudely treated by seldom gave a
some of the distinguished nationalist leaders who direct command
came to the library to read newspapers. As Mao for anyone to be
himself put it, I tried to begin conversations
killed. He simply
with them but they were very busy men. They
had no time to listen to an assistant librarian let his general
speaking southern dialect. On one occasion, wishes be known.
Mao attended a lecture by the eminent May 4th
intellectual Hu Shi. After the lecture, Mao tried to
ask a question, but when the great man discovered that Mao was merely
a librarians assistant, rather than a Beida student, he ignored him. One can
only speculate about the impact of such incidents on Maos latent resentment
of intellectuals.
As Mao underwent the process of revolutionary toughening in the mid1920s, he also experienced a certain loss of emotional empathy. In his youth,
his humanity, presumably inherited from his gentle, nurturing mother, was
widely acknowledged. But as his involvement in revolution deepened, his
political views began to harden; his earlier sensitivity to personal suffering
began to give way to more abstract, class-based stereotypes. As he wrote
in his 1927 essay on the Hunan Peasant movement, To put it bluntly, it
103
Names to Know
Li Dazhao (18891927): Head librarian at Peking University, he was a
cofounder of the CCP and an early mentor to Mao Zedong. When Chiang
Kai-shek turned against the CCP in 1927, Li was executed.
Yang Kaihui (19011930): Mao Zedongs second wife and the daughter
of Maos favorite teacher. Yang joined the CCP in 1921. In 1930, she was
captured, tortured, and executed by the GMD.
104
Suggested Reading
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Li, The Private Life of Chairman Mao.
Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung.
Short, Mao.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
105
B
Lecture 29: The Post-Mao Interregnum, 19761977
A few months before his death, Mao called a relatively unknown cadre to his
bedside. At this meeting, on April 30, 1976, Mao anointed Hua Guofeng his
last heir apparent by scribbling in his halting calligraphy a simple sentence:
With you in charge, Im at ease. Hua had been the party secretary of Maos
native Hunan Province during the Cultural Revolution. In the early 1970s, he
participated in the official commission investigating Lin Biaos conspiracy. In
that capacity, he proved to be a man of integrity and independent judgment.
In 1974, Hua was promoted to minister of public security. He had a reputation
for intelligence and hard work, and he had gained Maos confidence during
the last years of his life by remaining personally loyal to the chairman.
When Mao died, Hua tried bravely to fill the chairmans big shoes. It was
a daunting challengestanding squarely in his path were Jiang Qing and
her leftist collaborators. They felt cheated by the chairmans unexpected
elevation of an unknown outsider to succeed him. And in a final, desperate
effort to block Huas succession, they contrived to alter Maos last will and
testament in an attempt to prove that Mao had actually intended to have his
wife succeed him as party chairman.
It was an audacious move. Jiang managed to gain access to the archives of
the Party Central Committee, where Maos personal papers were kept under
106
lock and key. Retrieving some notes that the chairman had scribbled in
the last few months of his life, she added some marginal notations of her
own in a scrawl that was meant to resemble Maos own shaky calligraphy.
Unfortunately for her, one of Maos most highly trusted lieutenants, a PLA
general named Wang Dongxing, was in charge of the Central Committee
archives and exposed the attempted forgery. Shortly thereafter, Hua and a
coalition of senior Chinese military and political leaders arrested her and her
three coconspirators, the Gang of Four.
With Mao dead and Jiang under arrest, Hua Guofeng tried to consolidate his
newly acquired authority. At that point, his only claim to power was a hastily
scrawled bequest from Chairman Mao. Hua soon found himself facing a
potentially devastating challengenot from the Gang of Four, but from a
group of senior party and military leaders arguing for the rehabilitation of
Deng Xiaoping.
On the face of it, Dengs supporters made a compelling argument. Dengs
purge had been engineered by Jiang and her allies, who themselves
now stood accused of committing a series of treacherous crimes.
Hua was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he gave in to the
demand to exonerate Deng, he might well be setting the stage for Deng
to eclipse him. On the other hand, if he upheld Dengs dismissal as a
counterrevolutionary, he would be perceived as in cahoots with the
Gang of Four. For Hua it was a no-win situation, and it would eventually
help to secure his downfall.
Names to Know
Hua Guofeng (19212008): An unheralded party secretary from Hunan,
Hua rose to become the dark horse successor to both Zhou Enlai and Mao
Zedong in 1976. He was eased out of power by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.
Wang Dongxing (b. 1916): Mao Zedongs principal bodyguard during the
Cultural Revolution, Wang was subsequently put in charge of the Central
Committees archives. After Maos death, he blew the whistle on Jiang Qing
for attempting to usurp power.
107
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Link, Stubborn Weeds.
Questions to Consider
Why did Mao Zedong select a relatively unknown outsider to succeed
him in 1976?
2.
Why did Jiang Qing plot to alter Maos last will and testament?
1.
108
It would be not be fair to pin the blame for all these misfortunes on
Hua Guofeng alone. After all, it was Maos policies that had kept
China in a state of severe economic backwardness; and it was Mao who
systematically punished all those who possessed the requisite knowledge,
expertise, and experience needed to modernize the country. If Hua and
other party leaders were flying blind in their efforts to induce rapid
economic development, it was because Mao had applied the blindfold.
college entrance
examinations were
reinstated.
Important Terms
Four Modernizations: Slogan first coined by Zhou Enlai, and later revived
by Hua Guofeng, calling for the rapid modernization of industry, agriculture,
science and technology, and national defense.
granny police: Urban neighborhood watchdog groups, generally staffed by
elderly women.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
, China Watcher.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did the Four Modernizations fail under Hua Guofengs leadership?
2.
111
Unlike Mao before him, Deng did not go for the jugular. He did not
purge Hua, or humiliate him, or even force him to step downat least
not yet. Deng could afford to be magnanimous: He had won.
Important Term
whatever faction: The sobriquet given to Hua Guofengs supporters in
1977, referring to their habit of blindly upholding whatever Mao Zedong
said or did.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
113
Questions to Consider
1. Why was Hua Guofeng reluctant to reverse the verdict on Deng
Xiaopings 1976 purge?
2. How did Deng eventually manage to wrest effective control of the CCP
away from Hua?
114
By the end of the year, the political climate in Beijing contained a mix of
palpable excitement and low-level anxiety. After decades of stifling political
conformity, revolutionary chaos, and economic mismanagement, the Chinese
capital seemed to be waking from a prolonged slumber. Beijing was coming
alive politically, but where would it all lead?
Names to Know
Fu Yuehua (b. c. 1947): An unemployed female factory worker who
organized the January 1979 Petitioners movement among victims of leftist
persecution in the Cultural Revolution. Fu was arrested and sentenced to
three years in jail.
Wei Jingsheng (b. 1950): An electrician by training, Wei became active in
the Democracy Wall movement of 1978, authoring a series of controversial
wall posters, including a critique of Deng Xiaopings dictatorial tendencies.
Wei was imprisoned in 1979.
117
Important Terms
Democracy Wall (a.k.a. Xidan Wall): The Beijing city wall west of
Tiananmen Square that became a haven for free speech in the fall and winter
of 19781979, as wall posters publicized various political ideas and personal
grievances. It was closed by authorities in 1979.
Third Plenum (December 1978): This historic Central Committee meeting
is celebrated as the birthplace of Chinese reform and opening up under
Deng Xiaoping.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
, China Watcher.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Goldman, From Comrade to Citizen.
Link, Stubborn Weeds.
Lecture 32: The Historic Third Plenum, 1978
Questions to Consider
1.
In what ways and to what extent did Deng Xiaopings ascent represent a
repudiation of Maoist policies?
2.
Why did Deng turn against the Democracy Wall movement so soon after
endorsing it?
118
With Mao hovering near death; with Chinas political future in limbo;
and with Nixons successor, Gerald Ford, lacking both the political
resources and the political will needed to push U.S.-China relations to
the next level, the mid-1970s were marked by a sort of holding pattern.
to defend the island on two conditions: The Chinese must agree to permit
the United States to maintain unofficial trade and cultural relations with
Taiwan, and the United States would continue to provide military hardware
to the ROC government on Taiwan pending a final, peaceful settlement of
the Taiwan question. Shortly afterward, Deng
told a group of American journalists that the
normalization process had suffered a significant
President Carters
setback as a result of Vances visit. Dengs flatnational security
out rejection of the Vance initiative seemed to end
advisor, Zbigneiw
any hopes of advancing the normalization process
Brzezinski,
during the Carter presidency.
convinced the
But if Chinas new leaders were unwilling to
president that it
make a deal with the Americans in the summer of
was time for the
1977, by the latter half of 1978 a series of events
United States to
had transpired that would make them change
play the China
their minds. Three things contributed to this
Chinese about-face. The first was Dengs success
card against the
in eclipsing Hua Guofeng and in promoting his
Soviet Union.
own reform program. With the Communist Party
now committed to economic modernization and
global engagement, American goodwill seemed
more important than ever to Beijing. Second, the Russians had recently
been making threatening military noises along Chinas northern border, as
well as in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia. And third, mirroring Dengs
own balance-of-power logic, President Carters national security advisor,
Zbigneiw Brzezinski, convinced the president that it was time for the United
States to play the China card against the Soviet Union.
In May of 1978, Carter sent Brzezinski on an exploratory trip to China. In
the course of that trip, an unexpected diplomatic breakthrough occurred.
At an official banquet, Brzezinski proposed a toast in which he specifically
acknowledged a mutual Chinese-American security interest in opposing
hegemonism. He clearly stated that the United States had made up its
mind to normalize relations with China. Though he did not mention the
Soviet Union by name, the intended target of his remarks was clear. Almost
immediately thereafter, the two sides moved into rapid negotiation mode.
120
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Schaller, The United States and China.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Tyler, A Great Wall.
Questions to Consider
1.
Why did Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping push so hard for the full
normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1978?
2.
Important Terms
household responsibility system: The system of contracting farmland to
individual families for cultivation that was introduced by Deng Xiaoping in
19781979.
Suggested Reading
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Tyler, A Great Wall.
Questions to Consider
1. Was Deng Xiaoping successful in teaching Vietnam a lesson in 1979?
2. How was the decollectivization of agriculture achieved under
Dengs leadership?
124
To depart from the four cardinal principles and talk about democracy in
the abstract will inevitably lead to the unchecked spread of anarchism,
the complete disruption of political stability and unity, and the total
failure of our modernization program.
Deng Xiaoping, March 1979
Toward the end of March, Wei decided to test the limits of Dengs tolerance
by publishing a biting critique of Chinas new paramount leader entitled
Do We Want Democracy or a New Dictatorship? Deng was outraged. On
March 30, he gave a speech in which he revived Maos controversial six
criteria for distinguishing fragrant flowers from poisonous weeds. Deng
distilled Maos criteria down to what he called the four cardinal principles:
Henceforth, the only words and actions that would be deemed politically
acceptable were those that upheld socialism; upheld the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party; upheld the peoples democratic dictatorship; and
upheld Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thought.
Wei was found guilty of the crimes of counterrevolutionary incitement
and conveying official secrets to a foreign journalist and was sentenced to
15 years in prison. By the end of 1979, the Chinese democracy movement
had been effectively silenced, and the Petitioners movement had been
stifled. Dengs coalition was now split right down the middle, with its
more progressive members supporting greater political openness and
tolerance, while more orthodox cadres emphasized the vital importance of
party discipline and the four cardinal principles. It was a fissure that would
resurface many times in the 1980s.
Concerned over the rising volatility of Chinas political situation, liberal
members of Dengs reform coalition concluded that a few well-aimed
political reforms could go a long way toward disarming popular unrest in
China, as they recently had in Poland. Deng was receptive to this argument
and in August 1980 proposed a wide-ranging blueprint for systemic political
reform. But when Dengs more conservative colleagues fretted that political
reforms would stir up more protest and dissent, Deng reversed himself,
calling for new legislation to outlaw unauthorized organizations, protest
marches, and demonstrations. Defending the need to take decisive action
126
Names to Know
Hu Yaobang (19151989): A liberal who actively supported Deng Xiaopings
reforms, Hu was tabbed to succeed Hua Guofeng as party chief in 1982. Hus
death in April 1989 triggered the Tiananmen student protests.
Zhao Ziyang (19192005): The Chinese premier and general secretary of
the CCP in the 1980s. He helped design and implement Deng Xiaopings
market reforms. Zhaos prostudent sympathies during the 1989 Tiananmen
protests resulted in his ouster and house arrest.
Important Term
Petitioners movement: The protest movement organized by Fu Yuehua
in the winter of 1979 to give voice to victims of Cultural Revolution
persecution.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Link, Stubborn Weeds.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Questions to Consider
1. What were some major focal points of policy disagreement
between CCP liberals and conservatives in the early years of Deng
Xiaopings reforms?
2. How did events in Poland influence Dengs decision on how to address
petitioners protests in 1980?
127
eng Xiaoping played two different roles within the reform coalition.
One was that of paramount leader; the other, less publicized role
was that of power balancer. In this latter role, Deng mediated among
the contending factions in his coalition in an attempt to keep the whole thing
from flying off the tracks.
In his role as Chinas paramount leader, Deng lacked Mao Zedongs autocratic
powers. He was neither party chairman nor prime minister nor president.
Instead, his power derived not from any institutionally defined leadership
position but from a combination of his personal prestige and seniority within
the party. Key decisions were made by Deng in consultation with a small
group of a half dozen or so of his senior colleagues. It was Dengs job to
make sure that neither the youthful reformers nor their more conservative
elders gained exclusive dominance over the policy-making process. And it
was in his role as mediator and political balancer that Deng steered China
through a series of deepening policy conflicts and minicrises in the 1980s.
The existence of sharp differences within the reform coalition was clearly
revealed when party leaders began to formulate their assessment of Mao
Zedongs role in modern Chinese history. Right from the start, committee
members disagreed intensely over whether Maos achievements ultimately
outweighed his mistakes and whether his sins should be characterized as
high crimes, ordinary misdemeanors, or just mistakes. When liberals on
the committee pushed for a harsh verdict on Maos policies during the Great
Leap and the Cultural Revolution, Deng personally intervened, insisting
that the historical role of Mao Zedong must be affirmed. When the final
resolution was approved by the Politburo in the summer of 1981, it treated
Mao rather gingerly. The chairmans errors were whittled down to just a
128
handful; and they were said to be the errors of a great revolutionary. Thus
the ghost of Mao Zedong was finally laid to rest, but the costs of burying
Mao were enormous. China had paid dearly for
the chairmans sins, and the countrys 1 billion
people would never again put their blind trust in With Dengs
a single godlike figureor in the party that had blessing,
followed him so readily. The age of skepticism the partys
had begun.
conservative
Toward the end of 1979, a number of Chinese culture warriors
artists and writers began to pick at Chinas launched a fullunhealed cultural and political wounds. The blown attack on
result was a spontaneous outpouring of new spiritual pollution
popular literary forms and genres. One new
in the autumn
genre, wounded literature, portrayed in graphic
terms the personal sufferings of the laobaixing of 1983.
during Maos decade of destruction. Taking
their cues from the downtrodden petitioners at
Democracy Wall, writers in this genre took the raw, fragmentary complaints
of individual persecution and injustice in everyday life and lent them added
literary poignancy and gravitas.
Conservative members of Dengs reform coalition were not at all happy with
such writers. In their view, intellectuals who focused on the darker side of
Chinese society were doing their country a grave disservice. By the end of
1980, signs of tightening political censorship were growing increasingly
obvious. When Deng withdrew his blueprint for political reform in December
1980, Chinas conservatives felt emboldened and launched a new campaign
against bourgeois liberalization in culture and the arts. Foreign films,
fashions, and even hairstyles now came under attack.
From the outset of reform and opening up at the end of 1978, party
conservatives had argued that foreign commercial and cultural imports would
pollute and corrupt Chinas pristine socialist values, but Deng had remained
adamant that China would be able to keep such things under control. Now
Deng seemed to be having second thoughts. Employing a new term to
describe such evil tendencies, Deng referred to them as spiritual pollution:
129
Do not imagine that a little spiritual pollution doesnt amount to very much
and is not worth making a fuss over. If we do not immediately curb
these [tendencies] the consequences could be extremely serious.
With Dengs blessing, the partys conservative culture warriors launched
a full-blown attack on spiritual pollution in the autumn of 1983. Initially
aimed at liberal intellectuals and humanist theoreticians, the campaign soon
spilled over into Chinese society and popular culture at large. Its targets were
now expanded to include anything and everything that could be regarded
decadent or immoral in bourgeois society.
Important Terms
bourgeois liberalization: A leftist epithet used to denounce the liberal
reforms of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in 1980s.
spiritual pollution: In the early 1980s, CCP conservatives used this term to
criticize Western cultural influences as decadent, immoral, and materialistic.
wounded literature (a.k.a. scar literature): Essays and novels published in
the early 1980s depicting the suffering endured by the Chinese people during
the Cultural Revolution.
130
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Link, Stubborn Weeds.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
131
U
Lecture 37: To Get Rich Is Glorious, 19821986
ntil the early 1980s, all private commercial activity was strictly
prohibited in urban China; it was openly derided as a vestige of
capitalism. But now, with as many as 10 million rusticated youths
flooding back into Chinese cities from a decade of enforced exile in the
countryside, massive numbers of young people had little or nothing to do. In
this situation, government leaders decided that small-scale private commerce
could help relieve the pressure of burgeoning unemployment. Thus were
born the getihuself-employed individuals and households.
Under socialist ownership, the prices of all goods and services in the urban
economy were set by the state, and customers could take or leave them. Sales
clerks were state employees: Their jobs, wages, and benefits were guaranteed
for life under the regimes iron rice bowl policy. Their firms did not need
to turn a profit or provide high-quality goods and services. And since all
sales revenues were remitted directly to the state, there was no incentive for
enterprise managers to improve the quality of their product or service. Staff
employees did not care, because they did not have to. They just put in their
time and picked up their paychecks. That, in a nutshell, was the story of
Chinas centrally planned economy. But now the getihu had begun to expose
the endemic weaknesses of the planned economy, and it did not take long for
enterprising young people to begin challenging state monopolies throughout
the service sector.
After 30 years of heavy-handed state socialism, China was finally
experiencing Adam Smiths invisible hand, and Chinese reformers were
gradually introducing a broad range of urban economic innovations. In
addition to permitting small-scale private commerce, the fiscal system was
now decentralized to encourage provinces and localities to display greater
132
Important Terms
getihu (individual households): The first private entrepreneurs permitted to
engage in small-scale commerce in post-Mao China.
iron rice bowl: The policy of providing lifetime employment and welfare
benefits to Chinese state employees. This policy was gradually restricted in
the 1980s and eliminated in the 1990s.
134
Photos.com/GettyImages/Thinkstock
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Gittings, The Changing Face of China.
Goldman, From Comrade to Citizen.
Link, Stubborn Weeds.
Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth.
Schell, Discos and Democracy.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
135
In the winter of 1984, two of the three highest ranking Communist Party
officials in ChinaParty General-Secretary Hu Yaobang and Premier
Zhao Ziyangappeared in public for the very first time wearing not
their traditional Mao jackets, but Western-style suits and ties. It was a
fashion statement that spoke volumes about Chinas desire to join the
modern world.
A
Lecture 38: The Fault Lines of Reform, 19841987
136
The term widely used in China to describe the envy and resentment that
stemmed from rising income disparities was hongyan bing, or red-eye
disease. Hongyan bing was not so much an outgrowth of some people
getting rich before others, as Deng Xiaoping had anticipated; rather, it
reflected the fact that those who were getting rich often did so through no
particular talent or virtue of their own.
Before the onset of Chinas economic reforms in 1979, the ratio of average
incomes earned by people in the top and bottom 20 percent of the Chinese
population was only about 2.5:1. By the late 1980s, this ratio had more than
doubled, to almost 6:1. In the same 10-year period, Chinas Gini coefficient
rose dramatically, from .18 (one of the lowest in the world) to .38 (which
was at that time the highest of any socialist country). When a countrys
Gini coefficient nears .40, many economists regard this as a danger sign,
portending a rise in social discontent.
Urban distress was rising, and Chinas college studentslong a barometer
of underlying societal tensionswere growing increasingly restive.
Throughout most of 1986, there was little overall consistency or coherence
to the students grievances. But that changed rather suddenly in the autumn
of 1986, when campus discontent began to coalesce around a single common
denominator: the demand for
student empowerment. Two
Ratio of Average Incomes
developments served to drive
Bottom 20%
this coalescence. The first was
Top 20%
a revival of Dengs ill-fated
1980 proposals for systemic
7
political reform, and the
6
second was a wildly popular
5
speaking tour undertaken
4
by freethinking university
professor Fang Lizhi.
3
During the Mao era, Fang had
been repeatedly criticized and
persecuted for his political
views. He now gave voice to
2
1
Before 1979
Late 1980s
137
Important Terms
Gini coefficient: An index of the degree of inequality in income distribution.
A coefficient of less than .30 indicates relatively modest inequality; greater
than .45 indicates a high level of inequality.
hongyan bing (red-eye disease): The envy displayed by low-paid white
collar workers in the state sector toward self-employed private entrepreneurs
in 1980s.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Friedman, Pickowicz, and Selden, Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in
Village China.
Nathan and Link, The Tiananmen Papers.
Schell, Discos and Democracy.
Questions to Consider
1.
What were some of the key socioeconomic problems that emerged from
Chinas piecemeal economic reforms in the mid-1980s?
2.
How did unscrupulous cadres and state enterprise managers exploit the
two-track pricing system to their own benefit?
139
The spike in commodity prices even led some city dwellers to long for
a return to the good old days of Maoist egalitarianism. As one urban
housewife lamented in the late summer of 1988, Under Mao, society
was in chaos, but prices were stable; under Deng, society is stable, but
prices are in chaos.
140
that term, they broke important new ground. Unfortunately, party hard-liners
managed to block the proposals from being formally adopted.
Meanwhile, urban discontent continued to mount. In addition to widespread
fears of inflation, labor problems began to increase in 1988. By the middle of
that year, more than half a million workers had been laid off from state-owned
enterprises, and it was announced that the nations unemployment rate had
doubled from the previous year. Under the new rules of market competition,
inefficient and poorly managed state enterprises found that they were unable
to earn sufficient income to meet their tax obligations. Enterprise failures
were most common in rural townships and villages, where large numbers
of indigenous, low-tech manufacturing ventures had sprung up in the early
1980s to serve local needs in the aftermath of agricultural decollectivization.
By the end of the 1980s, tens of millions of rural dwellers were migrating to
urban areas in search of employment.
With the threat of industrial layoffs and bankruptcies now looming larger,
labor unrest also began to spike. To cap off this picture of growing societal
distress, a major upsurge in corruption, commercial speculation, and
profiteering by party members and their families was also reported. In the
spring of 1988, a leading Communist Party newspaper published an editorial
commentary listing several types of economic crimes and misdemeanors that
had recently reached epidemic proportions. According to the commentary,
the laobaixing were getting very angry, and they had good reason to be.
The peoples anger soon found an outlet: When Hu Yaobang died suddenly
of a heart attack in April 1989, thousands of Beijing students took to the
streets, demanding his posthumous rehabilitation. When the government
refused to acknowledge the students demands, the demonstrations grew
larger and spread to other cities. Concerned about Chinas fragile political
unity and stability, Deng cautioned the protesting studentswho now
numbered in the many tens of thousandsthat they were being manipulated
by unpatriotic elements and that their protests had created turmoil. Far
from calming the situation, however, Dengs warning served to catalyze
even larger, more widespread urban protests. Daily demonstrations at
Tiananmen Square now drew more than a hundred thousand participants
and supporters.
141
In the second week of May, a student hunger strike was initiated in Tiananmen
Square. Timed to coincide with the first official visit to China by the new
Soviet Party chief, Mikhail Gorbachev, the strike captured the attention, and
sympathy, of the worlds media. Deng was humiliated, and he was furious.
Refusing to negotiate with the rebellious students until they first called off
their hunger strike and left Tiananmen Square, Deng was determined not to
back down. The stage was being set for a violent showdown.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Goldman, From Comrade to Citizen.
Nathan and Link, The Tiananmen Papers.
Questions to Consider
1.
What were the main causes of the 1989 student protest movement?
2.
How did Deng Xiaoping attempt to balance soft- and hard-line demands
within the CCP during the run-up to the 1989 student protests?
142
stopped in their tracks. The people of Beijing had spoken. And their verdict
frightened the wits out of the government.
On the afternoon of Saturday, June 3, reports came that Chinese army units
were using tear gas against demonstrators in Beijing. The demonstrators
fought back with rocks and bottles. Shortly afterward, CNN reported that an
army jeep had run over three civilians near Tiananmen Square, killing them.
Other acts of scattered violence followed. Things had reached the point of no
return.
The PLAs deadly drive to recapture Tiananmen Square from student
demonstrators commenced shortly after dark on June 3. From several outlying
muster
points,
armored
military columns slowly
On the Timeline
converged on the center of the
April 15, 1989
city. Their instructions were
Death of Hu Yaobang triggers
to clear the square by dawn,
student demonstrations.
using all necessary force. The
order had been given by Deng
April 26, 1989
himselfchief architect of the
Deng Xiaoping labels student
very reforms that had inspired
movement unpatriotic.
Chinas students to question
May 115, 1989
the autocratic power of the
Student demonstrations grow larger;
Communist Party.
hunger strike begins.
them while being attacked from the rear by angry citizens armed with iron
rods, bricks, and makeshift Molotov cocktails. Hundreds of buses and
trucks were set ablaze. In the confusion, a few dozen PLA soldiers became
separated from their units, only to be set upon by enraged mobs.
When the dust settled at dawn, Tiananmen Square had been physically
liberated, but at a dreadful cost: Hundreds of civiliansperhaps more than
a thousandhad been killed and several thousand wounded. The real totals
may never be known. Forty soldiers also died, and up to a thousand others
were injured. But the damage to Chinas national psycheand international
imagewas greater still. As Deng was heard to comment shortly after June
4, We restored order, but lost the hearts of the people.
Almost immediately after the carnage ended, the government circulated
a list of most-wanted counterrevolutionary criminals. The list was
topped by a number of prominent intellectuals, students and labor activists.
Among them were Wang Dan, Wuer Kaixi, and Fang Lizhi. Thousands
of Chinese students in the United States, Australia, and Western Europe
demonstrated nightly in front of Chinese embassies and consulates. A
handful of Chinese diplomats abroad defected, while Chinas highly
esteemed minister of culture resigned in protest. At least one senior
government official, the widely respected Deputy Foreign Minister Zhang
Wenjin, committed suicide, despondent over the brutal suppression of the
student movement.
Throughout the last half of 1989 the Chinese government made a massive
effort to suppress any questions or criticisms of its behavior during the
crackdown. Deng personally praised the heroic actions of the PLA in
putting down the counterrevolutionary turmoil in Tiananmen Square.
And Zhao was now officially condemned and stripped of all his posts for
having split the party through his show of support for the students. In the
aftermath of the Tiananmen trauma, conservatives were in the drivers seat.
Hu Yaobang was dead; Zhao Ziyang was in disgrace; Li Peng was in Dengs
good graces; and political reform was taken off the table, indefinitely. The
delicate balance that Deng had maintained so carefully throughout the 1980s
was now destroyed.
145
Names to Know
Wang Dan (b. 1969): A leader of the Tiananmen student protest movement
of 1989. Wang was arrested shortly after June 4 and served four years in
prison before being granted compassionate release. He later earned a Ph.D.
in History from Harvard University.
Wuer Kaixi (b. 1968): A college student of Uyghur ethnicity who gained
prominence in the 1989 Tiananmen protests as a leader of the student
hunger strike. Wuer enraged Chinese premier Li Peng by rebuking him on
national television.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Nathan and Link, The Tiananmen Papers.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
If so, who do you think should be held responsible for the debacle of
June 34, and why?
146
Toward the end of his Southern Tour, Deng issued a pointed warning to
his conservative senior colleagues. Old age, he said, tends to make people
more rigid and stubborn, rendering them afraid to make mistakes. If such
people cannot display greater flexibility and tolerance in their thinking, he
admonished, they would be well-advised to lie down and take a nap.
In the late summer and fall of 1989, the Soviet bloc erupted in turmoil, as a
massive popular revolt against Communism spread throughout Eastern and
Central Europe. Chinese leaders watched in morbid fascination as the aptlynamed Velvet Revolution swept through the region, toppling Communist
governments one after another, from Berlin and Budapest to Prague and
Warsaw. Seeking to assuage their discomfort, Beijings hard-liners began
to spin the story of Eastern Europes collapse: It wasnt the failure of
147
communism that caused the collapse, but rather the reformist liberal programs
of Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika,
they argued, had fueled massive popular demands for political and economic
liberalization throughout the Soviet bloc.
148
Name to Know
Jiang Zemin (b. 1926): This former Shanghai party secretary was brought
to Beijing in May 1989 to replace the discredited Zhao Ziyang as CCP
general secretary. Jiang is best known for his 2001 theory of the three
represents, which encouraged Chinese capitalists to join the CCP. He
retired in 2003.
149
Important Terms
peaceful evolution: Chinas fear that Western countries will undermine
Communism by introducing bourgeois culture, values, and institutions.
Southern Tour (nanxun): Deng Xiaopings emergency five-city tour of
prosperous coastal zones in January 1992, undertaken to rekindle support for
his economic reforms and open policy.
Velvet Revolution (19891991): The sudden, peaceful collapse of
Communist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe, culminating in the
disintegration of the USSR.
Suggested Reading
Baum, Burying Mao.
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Shambaugh, Deng Xiaoping.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
150
To the very end, Chinas paramount leader persisted in his view that the
partys monopoly of power must never be relinquished. And in his last
known verbal instruction, issued in the summer of 1994, Deng exhorted
his comrades to draw the proper lesson from the former Soviet Union.
The Chinese Communist Partys status as the ruling party must
never be challenged.
equally before the law, party members and cadres continued to escape
serious punishment for their misdeeds.
With more and more people feeling anxious about the future, by the mid-1990s
most stress indicators had turned strikingly negative, necessitating a cautious
assessment of the countrys outward appearance of economic prosperity
and dynamism. The coexistence of high industrial and commercial growth
rates alongside swelling armies of impoverished rural migrants descending
on corruption-plagued cities lent the country an unsettled, agitated air. And
this, in turn, lent a certain poignancy to the fading cries of alarm sounded
by Chinas few remaining elderly conservatives. With China now seemingly
perched on an overheated economic bubble, it was unclear just how, or when,
the bubble might burst. To prevent a sudden rupture and to achieve a soft
landing, Zhu unveiled in July of 1993 a 16-point program designed to curtail
credit, limit new investment, reduce inflation, and generally cool down
Chinas overheated economy. Just one year after stepping on the accelerator
of reform, Zhu now began to apply the brakes.
Zhus two most important contributions to Chinas soft landing in the
1990s, however, came after he was promoted to replace Li Peng as premier
in 1998: He tackled the tasks of reorganizing Chinas debt-ridden stateowned enterprises and bringing China into the World Trade Organization.
Although Zhu was widely reviled within China for giving up a number
of Chinas traditional sovereign prerogatives in exchange for World
Trade Organization (WTO) membership, most economists agree that it
was Chinas entry into this exclusive international club that spurred
Chinas rise from a mildly impressive regional trading power to a global
economic powerhouse.
Name to Know
Zhu Rongji (b. 1928): As Chinas economic czar in the early 1990s, Zhu
inherited a series of economic crises, including an excessive money supply,
rising inflation, and chaotic financial markets. After achieving a successful
soft landing, he was named premier in 1998. The unsung hero of Chinas
economic miracle, Zhu restructured Chinas tax, banking, and state enterprise
systems and steered China into the WTO.
153
Important Term
state-owned enterprises (SOEs): The backbone of Chinas socialist
industrial economy. Under Zhu Rongji, SOEs were consolidated and
converted to shareholding enterprises.
Suggested Reading
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Naughton, The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth.
Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan.
Questions to Consider
1. How did cadres misuse of funds undermine rural economic confidence
in the 1990s?
154
Important Terms
Belgrade embassy bombing (May 1999): The accidental destruction of the
PRC embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by a U.S. stealth bomber. The United
States claimed that outdated maps caused an error in targeting.
EP-3 incident (April 2001): A U.S. spy plane collided in midair with a
Chinese fighter jet, forcing the U.S. plane to land in South China. The
incident sparked anti-American protests in China.
157
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Deng, Chinas Struggle for Status.
French, Tibet, Tibet.
Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power.
Kynge, China Shakes the World.
Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen.
Questions to Consider
1.
How has resurgent Chinese nationalism since the early 1990s differed
from the type of nationalism prevalent in the May 4th era?
2.
If envy and resentment are two sides of the same coin, how should
we best understand Chinas continuing love/hate relationship with the
United States (and the West)?
158
ince the onset of the Deng Xiaoping era 30 years ago, no single issue
has signified Chinas drive to restore its damaged national pride more
than the quest to reunify the two lost Chinese territories of Taiwan and
Hong Kong.
For more than 150 years, Hong Kong was a symbol of imperialist aggression
against China. Seized by Great Britain at gunpoint after the Opium Wars,
Hong Kong remained a British colonial enclave until 1997. Under the SinoBritish Joint Declaration on Hong Kong, signed in 1984, China agreed to
allow Hong Kong a high degree of local autonomy and to not interfere
with Hong Kongs existing economic, administrative, and legal institutions
for a period of 50 years. The general framework known as one country, two
systems, gives Hong Kong substantial autonomy over its domestic affairs
and commercial relations while reserving to Beijing sovereign authority over
diplomatic and military affairs.
Since the 1997 handover, Beijing has made no attempt unilaterally to change
Hong Kongs political, legal, administrative, or economic institutions; and
the basic legal rights and political and civil liberties of Hong Kongs citizens
have been retained largely intact. Despite early fears that the handover would
spell the death of Hong Kong, in most respects it has been business as usual
since 1997.
Despite their many similarities, the cases of Taiwan and Hong Kong are
quite different. Taiwans long separation from mainland China was a de
facto situation based not on a binding legal obligation but on the vicissitudes
of a bitter civil war. Indeed, the very bitterness of that civil war ensured that
many Taiwanese would reject the idea that their fate should be dictated by
159
the Communist regime across the Taiwan Strait. Hence, Dengs one country,
two systems formulation never gained much traction in Taiwan.
At the height of the Cold War, Taiwan received major U.S. development
assistance. As a result, the island experienced an economic miracle.
Politically, however, Chiang Kai-shek continued to rule Taiwan with an iron
fist, permitting no opposition to the political monopoly enjoyed by the GMD.
After Chiangs death in 1975, Taiwan slowly began transitioning to democracy.
In 1988, Lee Teng-hui became the first native-born Taiwanese president. This
proved to be an important turning point in Taiwans politics, for almost as
soon as Lee assumed the presidency, he began to reveal a strong attachment to
the cause of Taiwanese independence.
Despite early fears
that the handover
would spell the
death of Hong
Kong, in most
respects it has
been business as
usual since 1997.
Names to Know
Chen Shui-bian (b. 1951): A vocal supporter of Taiwan independence and
the president of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008. His Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) ended a half-century of GMD rule in Taiwan, but
his provocative proindependence rhetoric angered Beijing and irritated
Washington. Chen and his wife were convicted of bribery and embezzlement
in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison.
Lee Teng-hui (b. 1923): The first popularly elected president of the
Republic of China. A native Taiwanese, Lee served as president from 1988
to 2000, presiding over Taiwans democratic reforms and advocating Taiwan
independence. Lee split from the GMD after the 2000 presidential election.
Ma Ying-jeou (b. 1950): This Harvard-trained lawyer and former GMD
mayor of Taipei was elected president of the Republic of China in 2008. Ma
is opposed to both Taiwan independence and reunification with China and
has forged closer economic ties with China.
Important Terms
one country, two systems: The slogan coined by Deng Xiaoping in the
early 1980s, promising substantial autonomy for Taiwan and Hong Kong
after reunification with China.
soft power: International influence gained through exemplary behavior,
cooperativity, and moral suasion.
Suggested Reading
Ash, Ferdinand, Hook, and Porter, Hong Kong in Transition.
Baum, China Watcher.
Deng, Chinas Struggle for Status.
Hughes, Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era.
Kynge, China Shakes the World.
161
Questions to Consider
1. Why has the modern history of Taiwan and Hong Kong evoked such
strong nationalist emotions in China?
2. Why have the people of Taiwan consistently rejected the one country,
two systems formula, while Hong Kong has embraced it?
162
income gap was the vast army of rural migrant workersmembers of the
so-called floating populationwho lived and worked on the fringes of
urban society.
Compounding the problem of a steadily rising rural-urban income gap was
the phenomenon of widespread official corruption. According to estimates,
illegal graft, corruption, bribery, and kickbacks eat up as much as 3 percent
of Chinas GDPwell over $100 billionper year. The widespread
existence of corruption has helped stymie
repeated efforts by central government leaders
In an effort to
to increase the transparency and accountability
of local government.
become more
market friendly, the
From the moment of its birth in 1921, the
party abandoned
Chinese Communist Party identified itself
its long-standing
with the laboring massesthe workers and
peasants. But since Dengs Southern Tour
ideological hostility
of 1992, the economic reality in China has
toward capitalists.
been that workers and peasants have been
eclipsed by a new class of entrepreneurs and
merchants. To legitimize the contributions of
these high-flying new economic elites, and to ensure their cooperation
with the regime, Jiang Zemin offered them privileged membership in the
CCPs ruling coalition. Under the theory that the party should represent
the advanced classes and the advanced forces of production, some
5 million Chinese entrepreneurs and businessmen were recruited into
the party in the first six years of the new millennium. And in an effort
to become more market friendly, the party abandoned its long-standing
ideological hostility toward capitalists. The result was a marriage of
mutual convenience between traditional Communist political power and
newborn entrepreneurial wealth. But doubts remained whether a rigid,
one-party political system could effectively deal with the mounting
strains and stresses of a modernizing, pluralistic society.
164
nce a sleepy
fishing village on
the border with
Hong Kong, Shenzhen for
the past 20 years has been
the fastest growing city in
the world. With average
annual economic growth
of more than 25 percent,
Shenzhen is packed to
the rafters with 12 million
people, almost 60 percent
of whom lack valid urban
household registration.
Because of its close
proximity to Hong Kong
and its status as one of
four original Special Economic Zones, Shenzhen has long enjoyed
preferential foreign investment status and tax benefits. It ranks first
among Chinese cities in foreign direct investment and third (after
Shanghai and Beijing) in the number of high-rise buildings and starrated hotels. It also has the worlds fourth busiest container port.
Among the impressive by-products of Shenzhens rapid economic
growth are a large, well-educated middle class; a wide array of
nongovernmental organizations; a vigorous mass media; and a
relatively efficient and responsive municipal government. Not
surprisingly, there is also a Dickensian underside to Shenzhens rising
prosperity. Many of the citys millions of migrant workers are young
women with no marketable skills, some of whom wind up scammed
into prostitution or kidnapped by human traffickers. For those
migrants fortunate enough to find regular factory or construction
work, their wages barely exceed the rent they pay for their dingy,
crowded dormitory rooms.
165
Important Terms
floating population: Up to 150 million poor farmers who have migrated to
Chinese cities since the 1980s. They are generally treated as second-class citizens.
Singapore model: The Chinese goal of emulating Singapore by creating
an affluent, orderly, law-abiding authoritarian society with few democratic
checks and balances.
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Deng, Chinas Struggle for Status.
Fallows, Postcards from Tomorrow Square.
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Questions to Consider
1. How have rising economic inequality and local government corruption
affected social stability since the 1990s?
2. Is the CCPs quest for neo-Confucian harmony and consensus, a la
Singapore, likely to provide a viable substitute for pluralistic political
contention in China? Why or why not?
166
Probably the greatest advances in the free flow of information in recent years
have come not from traditional media but from Internet chatrooms, weblogs,
and text messaging. Because these new electronic media have proved
especially difficult to police, the authorities in charge of electronic media
surveillance have tried to foster a climate that maximizes self-censorship
and deterrence. Under the watchful eye of the State Councils Information
Office, tens of thousands of Internet police have been recruited and trained
since 2000. Collectively known as Big Mama, these cybercops have shut
down more than 100,000 unlicensed Internet cafes since 2002. On college
campuses, thousands of student monitors have been hired to scrutinize
postings in chatrooms and on electronic bulletin boards and blogsites and
to report offenders to local Internet police. To remind netizens not to stray
from approved content, the ubiquitous cartoon cybercop icons Jingjing
167
168
1992
2008
200,000
590,000,000
E-mail accounts
18,000
315,000,000
Important Terms
edge-ball: Tactic used by investigative reporters to test governmental limits
on free journalistic inquiry.
great firewall of China: The system of governmental regulations, automated Web
filters, and human surveillance designed to censor unwanted Internet content.
information revolution: The rapid spread of new electronic means of
communication since the 1980s, marked by the proliferation of cell phones
and Internet use.
Jingjing and Chacha: Pop-up cartoon police icons that appear on Chinese
websites to remind Internet users to avoid controversial sites and subjects.
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Fallows, Postcards from Tomorrow Square.
Fewsmith, China since Tiananmen.
Pan, Out of Maos Shadow.
Peerenboom, Chinas Long March to the Rule of Law.
Pei, Chinas Trapped Transition.
Shirk, China.
Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan.
Questions to Consider
1.
2.
In what ways can the growth of civil society in China help strengthen
environmental protection and the quest for expanded civil and political
rights?
169
While the Olympics had been widely expected to help open China up,
they served instead to close down China even more tightly.
O
Lecture 47: One World, One DreamThe 2008 Olympics
170
Important Terms
black jails: Informal detention centers set up in Beijing in 2007
2008 to hold unruly petitioners demanding fair compensation for preOlympic eviction.
genocide Olympics: A term coined by activists seeking the boycott of
the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of Chinas support for brutal regimes in
Myanmar and Sudan.
171
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Fallows, Postcards from Tomorrow Square.
French, Tibet, Tibet.
Questions to Consider
In what respects did the 2008 Beijing Olympics serve as a showcase for
both the best and worst aspects of Chinas rise to global prominence?
2.
1.
172
Chinas
economy is expected to
surpass that of the United States
before 2025.
1980s, while South Korea attained it in the early 1990s. Since then, both
countries have successfully transitioned from oppressive dictatorships
to pluralistic democracies. Assuming that China emerges intact from the
prolonged global recession that began in 2008, it can be expected to reach
the $6,000 per capita income threshold sometime within the next decade.
Barring an unforeseen catastrophe, and given Chinas continued global
engagement and adherence to market-friendly economic policies, it would
not be unreasonable to expect to see a more politically open and pluralistic
China emerge by around the year 2020. One cause for optimism is rising
domestic pressure for greater social and political openness. A more open
and pluralistic China is more likely to be a responsible stakeholder in the
global community.
Important Term
responsible stakeholder: Term coined in 2005 by Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick to describe the United States preferred role for China in
world affairs.
Suggested Reading
Baum, China Watcher.
Kynge, China Shakes the World.
Shirk, China.
Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen.
Questions to Consider
1. To what extent has China become a responsible stakeholder in
international affairs?
2. Is Chinas growing need for natural resources and raw materials likely to
lead to increased competition (and rivalry) with the West?
175
Timeline
B.C.E.
c. 600 ................................ Earliest hydraulic irrigation in China.
551.................................... Confucius is born.
c. 500 ................................ Iron plow appears in China.
300.................................... First Chinese dictionary.
221.................................... China unified under Emperor Qin Shihuang Di.
220.................................... Construction begins on Great Wall.
c. 190 ................................ Silk Road links China and Near East.
C.E.
Timeline
Timeline
178
179
Timeline
180
181
May 1920, 1989 ............. Martial law imposed in Beijing; citizens block
army convoys.
June 34, 1989 ................. Deng Xiaoping orders Peoples Liberation Army
to clear Tiananmen Square; hundreds killed.
June 14, 1989 ................... Zhao Ziyang purged for splitting party,
replaced by Jiang Zemin.
AugustDecember 1989... Communist regimes collapse in Eastern and
Central Europe.
Timeline
183
Glossary
antagonistic contradictions: Maoist reference to fundamental threats to
state security posed by class enemies. Such contradictions are to be resolved
through criticism and struggle. See also contradictions among the people.
Anti-Rightist Rectification movement (June 19571958): The struggle
against bourgeois intellectuals and wayward CCP members following the
termination of the Hundred Flowers campaign.
Autumn Harvest Uprisings (19271928): A series of ill-fated, armed
insurrections carried out by the CCP in a desperate attempt to avoid
annihilation by Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist army.
Awaken China Society: See Xingzhong Hui.
backyard blast furnaces (19581959): Indigenous kilns used in rural
areas to smelt crude steel during the Great Leap Forward. Most of the steel
was unusable.
Battle of Huai Hai (November 1948January 1949): The turning point in
the CCP-GMD civil war. PLA troops surrounded 500,000 GMD soldiers,
decimating them in three stages.
Beida: Nickname for Peking University, a contraction of Beijing Daxue.
Belgrade embassy bombing (May 1999): The accidental destruction of the
PRC embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by a U.S. stealth bomber. The United
States claimed that outdated maps caused an error in targeting.
Glossary
184
185
Glossary
187
Four Modernizations: Slogan first coined by Zhou Enlai, and later revived
by Hua Guofeng, calling for the rapid modernization of industry, agriculture,
science and technology, and national defense.
four olds: The Red Guards were mobilized in 1966 to destroy old habits,
old ideology, old customs, and old culture.
free-rider problem: Classic dilemma posed when all members of a large
group share equally in the benefits of membership without adequate
monitoring of individual contributions.
Gang of Four: Radical clique led by Mao Zedongs wife, Jiang Qing,
responsible for launching violent factional struggles during the Cultural
Revolution. They were tried and convicted in 1980.
Gate of Heavenly Peace: The literal translation of Tiananmen, the southern
entrance to Beijings Forbidden City.
Gemingdang (Revolution Party): Organized by Sun Yat-sen while in exile
in 1914, this party aimed at overthrowing the regime of Yuan Shikai.
genocide Olympics: A term coined by activists seeking the boycott of
the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of Chinas support for brutal regimes in
Myanmar and Sudan.
getihu (individual households): The first private entrepreneurs permitted to
engage in small-scale commerce in post-Mao China.
Glossary
188
Glossary
Joint Declaration on Hong Kong: The 1984 agreement signed by Britain and
China promising that Hong Kong could retain its economic, administrative,
and legal institutions for 50 years after reunification with China.
Keynesian stimulus: An economic policy geared to combat recession by
pumping money into the economy via low interest rates, government jobs,
and infrastructure investment.
190
191
Glossary
192
one divides into two: The radical Maoist thesis that all antagonistic
contradictions are zero-sum struggles, resulting in victory by one side or the
other. See also two combine into one.
open cities: Fourteen Chinese cities that in 1984 were granted
discretionary authority to make trade and investment decisions without
central authorization.
Open Door policy (1898): The policy initiated by President William
McKinley that was designed to morally restrain foreign powers from
dominating China and to maintain equal access among foreign countries.
Opium Wars: Wars launched by European powers in 1839 and 1856 to
punish the Manchu government for restricting foreign commercial access
to China.
parliamentary road to socialism: Nikita Khrushchevs thesis that socialism
could be achieved without violent revolution in the age of nuclear weapons.
Mao Zedong rejected this thesis as revisionist.
peaceful evolution: Chinas fear that Western countries will undermine
Communism by introducing bourgeois culture, values, and institutions.
peoples democratic dictatorship: The Maoist form of government
involving multiclass dictatorship over class enemies. See also dictatorship
of the proletariat.
Glossary
194
ping-pong diplomacy (April 1971): Term used for the U.S. table-tennis
teams visit to Beijing at Zhou Enlais invitation, which inaugurated the
Sino-American dtente.
PLA: Peoples Liberation Army, the army of the Peoples Republic
of China.
poisonous weeds: Mao Zedongs 1957 characterization of art and
literature that served to undermined socialism, CCP leadership, or
Marxism-Leninism.
Politburo: The small executive body elected by the Party Congress that is
the CCPs center of power. It meets frequently and exercises responsibility
for party policies when the Central Committee is not in session.
PRC: Peoples Republic of China.
Qing dynasty (16441911): See Manchu dynasty.
Qingming Incident: See Tiananmen Incident.
Rape of Nanjing: See Nanjing Massacre.
Red Guards (a.k.a. hongweibing): High school and college
students mobilized by Maoists in 1966 to launch attacks on
bourgeois powerholders.
Republic of China (ROC): The government founded by Sun Yat-sen in
1912 and transformed by Chiang Kai-shek after 1927. The ROC was exiled
to Taiwan in 1949.
Republican Revolution: See Xinhai Revolution.
responsible stakeholder: Term coined in 2005 by Deputy Secretary of State
Robert Zoellick to describe the United States preferred role for China in
world affairs.
195
Glossary
Silk Road: The network of ancient trade routes linking western China to the
Near and Middle East.
Singapore model: The Chinese goal of emulating Singapore by creating
an affluent, orderly, law-abiding authoritarian society with few democratic
checks and balances.
196
197
Glossary
198
199
warlord era (19161926): The period after the death of Yuan Shikai during
which regional militarists ruled independent provincial kingdoms. Warlord
armies were defeated by Chiang Kai-sheks Northern Expedition of
19261927.
Whampoa Academy: The military academy founded in Canton by Sun
Yat-sen in 1924 to train the Revolutionary Army.
whatever faction: The sobriquet given to Hua Guofengs supporters in
1977, referring to their habit of blindly upholding whatever Mao Zedong
said or did.
White Lotus Rebellion (17961799): A peasant rebellion against excessive
imperial grain taxes in Central China.
With you in charge, Im at ease (Ni banshi, wo fangxin): Mao Zedongs
April 1976 bequest to Hua Guofeng, anointing Hua as the his successor.
women with bound feet: Classical Maoist reference to conservative
cadres who are afraid to boldly innovate.
work teams: The traditional CCP method of solving social and organizational
problems by sending teams of party and government workers to basic-level
units to investigate local conditions. Criticized by Mao Zedong in 1966 for
suppressing the masses.
wounded literature (a.k.a. scar literature): Essays and novels published in
the early 1980s depicting the suffering endured by the Chinese people during
the Cultural Revolution.
Glossary
200
201
Biographical Notes
Bo Yibo (19082007): One of eight original CCP immortals. A top
economic planner, Bo was among the first to concede the tragic death toll of
the Great Leap Forward. He was imprisoned and beaten repeatedly by Red
Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew (b. 1928): President Jimmy Carters national security
advisor, Brzezinski championed the normalization of relations with China as
a counterweight to rising Soviet expansionism.
Chen Duxiu (18791942): A leading intellectual in the May 4th era, Chen
launched the influential New Youth magazine and cofounded the CCP (with
Li Dazhao). Chen was expelled from the CCP in 1929 as a Trotskyite.
Chen Gongbo (18921946): A founding member of the CCP, Chen quit the
party in 1922 and joined the Guomindang. After the Japanese invasion, Chen
collaborated with Japan. At wars end, he was tried as a traitor and executed
by firing squad.
Biographical Notes
202
Biographical Notes
Biographical Notes
206
Biographical Notes
Qin Shihuang Di (c. 259210 B.C.E.): The first unifier of the Chinese
empire. Known for his cruelty, he burned Confucian books and buried
Confucian scholars alive. Mao Zedong once boasted that when it comes to
cruelty, we surpass Qin Shihuang 100 times.
Qishan (17901854): The Manchu imperial envoy known as the manager
of barbarians. His diplomatic efforts to limit British military forays in
18401841 failed, and he suffered permanent exile.
Qiying (17871858): Qiying replaced Qishan as the chief Chinese
barbarian handler in 1841. He employed dilatory tactics to slow British
encroachments. Failing to deter Britain, he was recalled in disgrace.
208
209
Wang Dongxing (b. 1916): Mao Zedongs principal bodyguard during the
Cultural Revolution, Wang was subsequently put in charge of the Central
Committees archives. After Maos death, he blew the whistle on Jiang Qing
for attempting to usurp power.
Wang Guangmei (19212006): The glamorous wife of Liu Shaoqi, Wang
was envied and resented by Jiang Qing. In 1967, Wang was tricked into
leaving her Zhongnanhai sanctuary and was captured by Red Guards, who
publicly humiliated her.
Wang Hongwen (19351992): A Shanghai factory security officer and
revolutionary rebel, Wang rose during the Cultural Revolution to become
vice chairman of the CCP Central Committee at age 35. He was arrested in
1976 as a member of the Gang of Four.
Wang Jingwei (18831944): He was initially a leader of the left wing of the
GMD, but Wangs disdain for Chiang Kai-shek led him to collaborate with
the invading Japanese in 1937. Wang died in disgrace in Japan at the end of
World War II.
Wang Ming (19041974): Mao Zedongs pro-Stalinist rival in the early
1930s. His policies were discredited by Mao at the start of 1934s Long
March. After three decades in the USSR, Wang was publicly lauded in 1968
by the Soviets, who heralded him as the true leader of the CCP.
Biographical Notes
Wen Jiabao (b. 1942): Chinas premier since 2003. His warm personality
complements Hu Jintaos more detached style. Mentored by Zhu Rongji,
Wen has a populist approach and preference for welfare economics over
unrestrained capitalism that have endeared him to ordinary Chinese.
Wu Han (19091969): A playwright, historian, and deputy mayor of Beijing.
His writing group published essays critical of Mao Zedong in 19611962.
His 1961 opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office was an allegorical criticism
of Maos 1959 purge of Peng Dehuai.
Wu Shuqing (b. 1932): A conservative who was appointed president of
Peking University after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Wu opposed
renewed economic reforms he claimed would promote inflation, inequality,
and unemployment.
Wuer Kaixi (b. 1968): A college student of Uyghur ethnicity who gained
prominence in the 1989 Tiananmen protests as a leader of the student
hunger strike. Wuer enraged Chinese premier Li Peng by rebuking him on
national television.
Yang Kaihui (19011930): Mao Zedongs second wife and the daughter
of Maos favorite teacher. Yang joined the CCP in 1921. In 1930, she was
captured, tortured, and executed by the GMD.
Yao Wenyuan (19312005): A member of the Gang of Four. Yaos
November 1965 article attacking the Beijing Opera Hai Rui Dismissed from
Office marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
Yongle (13601424): The third emperor of the Ming dynasty (r. 14021424).
He commissioned seven major oceanic expeditions, led by the great Chinese
navigator Zheng He. With Yongles death in 1424, maritime exploration
ceased for 400 years.
Yuan Shikai (18591916): The last commander of the Manchu imperial
army. Yuan transferred his loyalty to Sun Yat-sen after the revolution of
1911, only to seize power from Sun a few months later. Yuan died after an
unsuccessful attempt to restore the dynastic system.
211
Biographical Notes
Zhu De (18861976): Cofounder of the Chinese Red Army, Zhu helped turn
the PLA into a well-disciplined guerrilla force. After 1949, he became the
PLAs commander in chief and the CCPs vice chairman.
Zhu Rongji (b. 1928): As Chinas economic czar in the early 1990s, Zhu
inherited a series of economic crises, including an excessive money supply,
rising inflation, and chaotic financial markets. After achieving a successful
soft landing, he was named premier in 1998. The unsung hero of Chinas
economic miracle, Zhu restructured Chinas tax, banking, and state enterprise
systems and steered China into the WTO.
213
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Notes
Notes
Notes
Notes
Notes
Notes