Paper 3 China

Benson proof of material and social progress under the rule of Mao

rapid industrial expansion, agricultural recovery by 1976, and infrastructural growth through new railways and improved roads

• life expectancy dramatically rose from 36 years in 1949 to 65 years by 1976

• women achieved equal status and employment opportunities outside the home through the rural commune movement

• literacy rates climbed significantly as schools and colleges multiplied

Maurice Meisner

The Maoist economic record is flawed but compared favourably with comparable stages in the industrailiation of other countries (Germany, Japan, and Russia).

Bettelheim (Deng’s apporach to economic reforms)

Deng Xiaoping’s post-1976 reforms represented a fundamental "great leap backward" toward capitalist restoration rather than a genuine development of socialism. Argued Deng was intent on moving China back to capitalism.

Meisner’s defense of Deng’s socialism

• Deng was not trying to restore capitalism; decentralizing the inefficient command economy was necessary to eventually create the material conditions required for true socialism.

  • Marx and Lenin both stated that socialism could only emerge in highly developed capitalist economies; thus, market reforms were necessary at first

Deng’s view on his approach to economics 1

"It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."

Deng’s view on his approach to economics 2

"Not introducing reforms will take us down a blind alley."

Meisner calculation of industrial growht rate

average annual industrial growth rate of 11.3% between 1952 and 1977

• official post-Mao economic statistics showing that gross industrial output grew thirty-eight fold and heavy industry output grew ninety-fold during this time

Three great differences

eliminate the divisions between intellectual and manual labor, industrial workers and peasants, and town and country

fail:  rural per capita consumption only rose from 62 to 124 yuan while urban consumption more than doubled from 148 to 324 yuan

Dillon statement of two political slogans

• pragmatist slogan "Seek truth from facts" was championed by Deng Xiaoping and his reformist Rightist supporters to prioritize empirical results

• the dogmatic slogan "The two whatevers" was supported by Jiang Qing's Leftist faction and initially adopted by Hua Guofeng to demand absolute obedience to Mao's past instructions (Gang of Four)

Mao Successor

Huaguofeng was selected following Zhou Enlai’s death

• Leftist did not oppose due to view as moderate leftist to block deng

• Rightist accepted as stable centralist perferable to gang of four who could help deng rehabilitationt

• Mao personal endorsement

1976 Tiananmen Square Qingming Festivle

Qingming Festival, massive crowds gathered spontaneously in Tiananmen Square to mourn Zhou Enlai and posted poems criticizing Mao and the Gang of Four

• Party leadership ordered the police to quietly remove the wreaths, which sparked massive riots on April 5th that were met with brutal police and militia force to beat and arrest protesters

• Deng Xiaoping being stripped of all his positions, and Hua Guofeng being officially promoted to First Vice-Chairman and Premier

Deng second removal

fled south to Canton under the protection of General Ye Jianying, the Defence Minister

• he was a moderate military elder who wanted to safeguard purged cadres from Cultural Revolution excesses

Ye recognized that Deng possessed the unique administrative brilliance needed to rebuild China's economy, and hiding him in Canton preserved a powerful reformist leader to challenge the Gang of Four

Jiang Qing

• attempting to seize Mao's papers to alter his words, and promoting historical Chinese empresses to prime the public for female rule

• controlling national media and the urban militia

• instructed local party organs to bypass Hua's government, published newspaper articles attacking Hua as a revisionist, and allegedly plotted a military coup and the assassination of rivals for October 6

Hua takes down Gang of Four

Hua defeated the Gang of Four by executing a swift, pre-emptive military-police coup on the night of October 6, 1976, arresting them when they arrived for a midnight meeting

3 perspectives of Jaing Qing

• The official CCP post-Mao perspective demonized Jiang Qing as a power-hungry, malicious conspirator who was the primary scapegoat for the entire disaster of the Cultural Revolution

• Jiang Qing's own perspective was that she was a completely loyal revolutionary soldier merely executing Chairman Mao's direct wishes

• The general public held deep hatred for her, as seen in widespread public demands to punish her and celebrating her arrest

Charges against Gang of Four

betraying Chairman Mao and the principles of the Chinese Revolution, causing the deaths of 35,000 people during the Cultural Revolution, and falsely framing and persecuting 750,000 people. 48 specific offenses

Hua actions

Replace Mao: Hua took the Chairmanship of the Party and Military Commission, adopted the "Two Whatevers," and imitated Mao's style to project legitimacy

Rehabilitate Deng: he yielded to public and military pressure by restoring Deng to his top vice-premier and military posts in July 1977

Carry out modernization: To carry out modernization, he put Deng in charge of the Four Modernizations and launched a heavy-investment industrialization plan

Deng political moves

Deng promoted the slogan "Practice is the sole criterion for judging truth" to undermine Hua's "Two Whatevers" and shifted the Party's focus to economic modernization at the 1978 Third Plenum. replaced Hua's allies, installing Zhao Ziyang as Premier in 1980 and Hu Yaobang as General-Secretary in 1981. passed a resolution assessing Mao's legacy as 70% right and 30% wrong to demystify Mao, cementing his own position as paramount leader at the 12th Party Congress in 1982

Hua fall from power

stripped of his administrative authority and pressured into resigning his premiership in 1980 and his party chairmanship in 1981

completely bloodless and institutionalized

Three main aims of seventh five year plan Deng

• Give greater autonomy and profit-making focus to state enterprises. 

• "Smash the iron rice bowl" to increase worker productivity through the fear of unemployment0

• To allow prices of goods to be determined by “market forces”

Three goals of seventh five year plan

• Increase agricultural/ industrial output by 38%

• Spread the 9-year compulsory education system, in order to train 5 million professionals

• Increase import export volume by 35%

Evidence of deng agriculture success

Dismantled the inefficient Great Leap Forward commune system by breaking them up into smaller, family-managed production units. Under Wan Li, < 90% of Chinese farming households were operating under the HRS by 1983.

Agricultural productivity rose by 15% overall, with 5% of that increase directly attributed to the HRS.

China became the world's largest agricultural producer; grain output rose to 500 billion kg by 1996.

Township and Village enterprises

• Provided employment for millions of surplus agricultural laborers, preventing overwhelming mass migration to cities. 

• By 1989, they accounted for 58% of the total value of China’s rural economic output. 

• Over 25% of TVEs were run by rural women, allowing them to make a huge contribution to family incomes. 

• By 1984, over 4 million people were employed or self-employed in TVEs. It was through these, rather than standard farming, that rural living standards initially improve

Two pieces of evidence stagnation of agriculture

• Growth in grain production declined (rice more profitable)

• Food shortages/ falling living standards in rural areas

Agri reform negative impact on one child policy

• Because families could now pass land-lease contracts to children, rural families wanted more children, specifically sons, to maintain and inherit the farms. 

  • These traditional outlooks about inheritance led to a spike in abortions of female fetuses and female infanticide. 

  • In 1985, the government had to relax the policy, allowing rural families to have two children, which undid the state's original plan to stabilize the population at 1.2 billion by 2000.

Deng Industrial reform success

• The Phase 1 reforms granted 400,000 state-owned factories the autonomy to set wages, adjust prices, and sell surplus goods for private profit. 

• Phase 2 officially separated state enterprise ownership from daily operations management, allowing managers to adopt capitalist techniques to drive production.

Deng Industrial reform less effective because opposition slow implementation

• Resistance from conservative planning officials and heavy industry managers meant that over 50% of Chinese industry remained directly state-controlled as late as 1990. 

• Industrial workers resisted losing their socialist protections (danwei work units), which historically guaranteed housing, pensions, healthcare, and inherited employment.

guan dao

“official profiteers”. The term emerged due to widespread corruption among Party and government officials who flouted regulations, took bribes/commissions from foreign firms in SEZs, and engaged in official profiteering

Special Economic Zones

Tax Concessions: 15% corporate tax was waived for the first two years of profitability. Zero import duties were applied to any raw production materials or industrial equipment.

Established inthe Southern Costal Regions

Were given regional autonomy. Non-residents needed special permission and an internal passport to travel because Deng was also aware of “bad influence”

How did Deng secure full control of CCP by 1982

• Hua resigned in 1980

• ending the Gang of Four trials and passing the resolution that Mao was ‘70% good and 30% bad’, which made it possible to move forward and away from Maoism.

• resigned his formal government posts to force his elderly opponents to retire, replacing them with younger, pragmatically minded allies in response to this criticism of him being too old

Deng concept introduction economic pathb 1984 June

concept of ‘economics in control’, rather than the Maoist idea of ‘politics in control’

• economic pragatims over political dogma

Socilaism with capitlaist characteristics

• Reduce state control

• Market incentives (Reduced state tax on enterprise profit (1983-84) from 55→33%)

• SME LEasing: priv group lease small and medium enterprise (SME) while gov control big

• Legal protection: protect investment

issues of cultural revolution

• Unemployment: ~20 million Chinese citizens were unemployed

• Malnutrition: ~100 million people were malnourished

• Deficit: The government was running a 6.5 billion yuan deficit

• Technological backwardness: China's scientific research, technology, and military forces were out of date compared to advanced Western countries

• Economic inefficiency: lack of incentive to work harder because of firm central government control over production and a significant focus on community 

• Disenchantment among many citizens

• Economy suffered from waste, overstaffing, low productivity and bureaucratic stagnation

Four modernisations

• Agriculture

• Military

• Industry

• Science and Technology

Hua Ten Year Plan

• 120 Mass Projects: The plan aimed to establish 120 massive industrial projects

• Steel production targets: To rise from 21 million tons in 1973 to 180 million tons by 1999. 

• High targets were also established for oil, petroleum, coal, electricity, railways, and water transportation. 

• To support industrial growth, the plan aimed to modernise agriculture through improved irrigation and mechanisation, releasing rural workers to move into urban factories. 

• Hua declared that China's industry would catch up with the world's most advanced nations by the year 2000. 

  • The targets proved far too ambitious, and the financial costs were unsustainably high. 

  • Hua had developed no concrete plan to raise the massive capital required to fund this expansion

  • The first year of the plan alone consumed 37% of China’s total GDP which was unsustainable.

Bettelhiem Capitalist Accusation

Argued Deng was intent on moving China back to capitalism. ‘ A leap backward’

Meisner defense of Deng socialism

While Deng had no intention of building a Western-style socialist democracy, he also had no desire to restore capitalism. In Deng's view, decentralizing the inefficient command economy was a necessary prerequisite to eventually create the material conditions required for true socialism. 

Deng idea agriculture was economic sector most in need of modernization

• Grain production had increased, but it was still at the same per capita level (higher population)

• 80% of the population was rural → most were working in agri

• Better productivity in agri will lead to more workers available for factories

Agricultural reforms

• Still collectivized farms, but smaller production units than large communes, units had more freedom to make decisions instead of bureaucrats

• Raised subsidies and prices paid to farmers

• Central planning continued (targets/quotas), but also directives to increase productivity

• Wanted to increase production and output by mechanizing farming, increasing chemical fertilizer, improving irrigation

• The government set targets to increase agricultural production by 4-5% per year and to boost national food production to 400 million tons by 1985. 

• Also aimed to mechanise 85% of all farming, promote the widespread use of chemical fertilisers, improve field irrigation, and establish 12 dedicated commodity and food base areas to streamline distribution.

Household REsponsibility System (HRS) in agriculture

• a new system created by Wan Li,  who would later become the Premier in 1980

• The system involved renting plots of land out to farming families, who would independently farm and produce their own crops unlike the communes

• Once they gave the quota crops to the government the surplus could be used by the family for whatever they wanted

  • This incentivised the farmers to work harder

• Xiang was a new regional group of authority that would hand out quotas and rent land instead of the central government they effectively replaced the communes. Each xiang still had to meet state food production quotas, but this was now to be done by individuals and their families, who contributed their share of the local quota

• First example was 18 peasant families in Xiaogang village had unilaterally decided (in defiance of the local authorities) to implement what they called a ‘responsibility system

State owned enterprise

• Factories that had contractual agreements with the state

• supervisory body for each State-Owned Enterprise (SOE): the Industrial Responsibility System

  • each SOE signed a contract with the state: a fixed portion of profits went to the government, while the SOE kept the surplus as an incentive to improve productivity and product quality. 

• The Industrial Responsibility System created a government based on establishing a supervisory body for each State-Owned Enterprise (SOE)

• 1980 - 6,600 reformed SOE had been created

Perspective on SOE (Worker)

• Had great benefits before: high job security, wages, benefits (housing medical pension)

• Were not excited that reforms inviting profit incentive because that could cut away at their benefits/ wages

• By 1980, 6,600 reformed SOEs had been established. Provided job security, social care, medical care.

Perspective on SOE (Premier Zhao)

• Wantecx to create more incentives for increasing productivity and output by creating a profit incentive

• Hoped to ‘improve the attitudes’ of workers, but had to move them away from their privileged position

Benefit of Open Door Policy

• Increase foreign trade rapidly, increase cash used to improve science, tech/capital and managerial skills, loans available eventually from IMF to upgrade industry, gets investment from foreign countries (FDI)

• Workers, government has more money, currency reserves to invest in China

• Improved relationship with other countries as trade increased, Taiwan may be returned to China, China recognized by UN

Disadvantages of Open Door Policy

• Took a weaker stance on Taiwan

• Grow further apart from Communism and closer to capitalism

• Increase in Western firm control and influence over Chinese economy

Democracy Salons

open-air student forum and discussion group established at Peking University (Beida) in 1988 that became a major intellectual precursor to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests

Fang Lizhi

A general amnesty for all political prisoners to mark upcoming national milestones: the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 70th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement.

The release of prominent democracy activist Wei Jingsheng, who had been imprisoned since 1979

Death of Hu Yaobang

The death of Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, sparked the Tiananmen Square protests by giving grieving students and citizens a powerful symbol for political reform and free speech

• He wanted to make China's economy and government more open

• Conservative party leaders forced him to resign in 1987 because they thought he was too lenient.

• April 17: Students started gathering in Tiananmen Square to honor Hu and ask for reform.

• April 22: Tens of thousands of people attended his official funeral outside the Great Hall of the People

Beginning of tiananmen 1989

during the official state funeral and day of mourning for the reformist Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, three university students—Zhou Yongjun, Guo Haifeng, and Zhang Zhiyong—performed a highly dramatic symbolic act of protest.

• Refusal to meet: The students specifically demanded to see Premier Li Peng to hand over the petition, but he refused to come out. Instead, two low-level staff members eventually took the document, but no formal acknowledgment or dialogue was granted

April 26 editorial in People’s Daily

insulted the protesters' patriotism and united a previously fractured student body. By escalating the rhetoric into an existential political threat, the editorial destroyed the possibility of moderate dialogue and left no room for compromise.

Zhao ziyang fall from power

• Zhao believed the students were fundamentally patriotic and that their core demands

• By adopting a conciliatory tone, Zhao aimed to win over the moderate majority of students and citizens

• Zhao strongly disagreed with the language of the People's Daily editorial published on April 26, which branded the student movement an "anti-party, anti-socialist turmoil."

• Zhao's strategic calculations directly collided with Deng Xiaoping’s uncompromising view on political stability, permanently shattering their political partnership.

• Following his final public appearance in Tiananmen Square on May 19—where he famously told students, "We have come too late"—Zhao was stripped of his political power.

Gorbachev visit China 1989

massive accelerant for the Tiananmen Square protests and severely damaged the international perception of the Chinese Communist Party

• Protesters deeply admired Gorbachev for his sweeping political and social reforms (glasnost and perestroika) in the Soviet Union

• Knowing that the eyes of the world would be on Beijing, student leaders launched a tactical mass hunger strike just days before Gorbachev's arrival.

• By the time the summit concluded, the momentum had surged exponentially, with crowds swelling to over one million demonstrators in Beijing

• The utter chaos and perceived "loss of face" during the visit shattered any remaining tolerance among party elder

• CCP leadership sidelined moderate elements (such as Zhao Ziyang) and declared martial law on May 20, setting the stage for the eventual June 4 military crackdown.

Li Peng May 18 televised interview

The Li Peng's May 18 meeting with students collapsed without agreement as the rigid dialogue yielded no concessions, and the leadership subsequently decided to move forward with imposing martial law

• Meeting with party elders and senior leaders, the leadership resolved that the unrest represented severe national turmoil

• The Politburo backed taking decisive steps, paving the way for the formal announcement of martial law in Beijing the following evening.

Zhao Ziyang Tiananmen Public Apperance

• A Pleaded Request to Stop the Hunger Strike: Zhao’s primary objective was to implore the students to end their seven-day hunger strike immediately to protect their physical health and preserve their lives

• He began with a direct confession of failure, telling the crowd, "Students, we came too late. We are sorry." This signaled to the students that the political tides had turned against him and that the party hard-liners had already finalized plans to clear the square

• Zhao famously contrasted himself and the aging party elders with the youth, stating, "We are already old, it doesn't matter to us anymore... You are still young, you must live healthily and see the day when China accomplishes the Four Modernizations."

• He validated the students' patriotic motives, agreeing that their criticisms of the government and concerns regarding official corruption were reasonable and necessary, promising that these issues would eventually be resolved

primary reasons provided by the text for the failure of the pro-democracy movement in 1989

Organisers were not united in what they wanted

beyond more freedoms and reform of the party there was little to unite

Problem that among protesters some wanted violent confrontation so did not want to discuss compromise

lack of unity and list of demands made it easier for deng to claim repression was necessary to prevent china descending into chaos