CHINA - HISTORY 2P

Boxer Rebellion/Rising

1900

Anti-foreigner movement → Boxer Rising, revolt against loss of C. sovereignty (C. controlled by foreign nations) joined by Manchu government (e.g. Britain & Hong Kong) - threatened Europeans

Movement triggered by Hundred Days of Reform intended to help adapt to Western civilisation

Defeated by international army but revealed discontent & ineffectiveness of imperial authority

Other revolutionary groups in C.

Sun Yatsen led republican movement to try and promote progressive Western principles (democracy, nationalism, socialism) - he founds Guomindang (GMD)

Revolution against Manchus

1911

Military insurrection couldn’t be suppressed - dynasty abdicates

Yuan makes deal w/ Sun Yatsen & takes over as president of Republic

Early Republic Yuan

1912-16

Develops later - first confusion and uncertainty - Yuan solves none of C.’s political/econ. problems

Era of Warlords

1916-27

No structure after Yuan - warlords divide land

C. forced to submit to Japan’s ‘21 Demands’ → intense nationalism created

1919 - ‘4 May Movement’ anti-foreigner demonstrations - Europeans ignore request to return territories in Versailles Settlement + revolutionaries embrace Marxism → found CCP

CCP & GMD (Guomindang) come together in 22 in revolutionary alliance to rid C. of warlords & imperialists

White Terror

1927

CCP & GMD successfully crush warlords

Sun’s successor as head of GMD turn on CCP (Chiang) - practically obliterate them in ‘WT’

CCP only survives bc MAO ZEDONG flees & undertakes organisation of party using peasant guerrilla warfare

Long March to Yanan

1934

In desperation, Communists embark on Long March (to escape Chiang attack) - 10km - establishes Mao as leader of CCP - develops own Marxism-Leninism

Fights Nationalist troops on the way, spread communist ideas among people

Rape of Nanjiang

Starts off Sino-Japanese war - one of most appalling war crimes of twentieth century by Japanese troops in Nanjiang

Japan took food from C,.used them as slave labour, they had to work in terrible conditions with harsh punishments

Sino-Japanese War

1937-45

Japan tries to extend control & occupy C.

Renewal of CCP-GMD alliance in response - however Chiang’s priority is always destroying CCP, offers limited resistance to J. (despite US & UK support)

Mao’s fierce nationalism gains support of people - after Japan attack on Pearl Harbour 41 USA gives support to GMD (X CCP) → root of Mao’s anti-Americanism - Mao also dismissed by USSR/Stalin too however

Chiang’s Mistakes

By defending and avoiding confrontation with Japanese, he:

• Lost support of own forces & pop.

• Did not take back territory from Japanese

• Afraid of developing efficient GMD officers in case they overthrew him

Mao’s defence against Japanese

Used guerrilla tactics, surprising Japanese troops in ambushes and capturing their weapons

Peasants supported Red Army - lived among them - would warn villages of Japanese soldiers & protected them with mines

Communists put ideas into practice: rent reduction laws - landlords paid back the extra money they took, taxes on richer people

→ gains control of Chinese countryside

Civil War GMD-CCP

After Japan surrender in 45 (due to US atomic bombs) - US & Stalin support Chiang rule (Stalin doesn’t want rival)

Chiang/GMD losing conflict (bc resistance to Japan had been weak, corruption in party, ineffective w/ inflation) - Red Army → People’s Liberation Army

Support for GMD declines rapidly - middle class & intellectuals defect, troops defect - nationalists driven out

Mao’s Red Army respects peasantry contrasts GMD’s cruelty (food requisition & forced military recruitment) - won Mao a following → helps 49 CCP victory (FOUNDING OF CHINESE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC)

3 long-term factors for CCP’s success

1. LEADERSHIP - cult of personality, won loyalty of key party members such as Lou Shaoqi, Lin Biao & Zhou Salami, commanded fear & respect / Chiang was too fearful of his position, had little loyalty

2. PEASANT REVOLUTION - wide poverty and poor quality of life - communism appealed to them - he argued it should be led by peasants, gave them land & liberated them from landowners, along w/ social reforms

3. GUERRILLA WAR - this depended on the support of the peasants - Japanese occupation provided Mao w/ opportunity to defend & gain support - soldiers in GMD badly treated, left to the R.A.

Simple Timeline Overview

Agrarian Reform Law

1950

CCP workers go to villages, share out land between peasants, encourage putting landlords on trial in ‘People’s Courts’ (accused of high rents, mistreating tenants → imprisoned, executed) → increases peasant support for Mao

Mutual aid teams formed - peasants worked on each other’s land to become more productive (didn’t happen quickly enough - FAMINE RISK AS FOOD PROD. TOO LOW)

Co-operatives

1953

Land jointly owned, one large crop grown efficiently - resources pooled for equipment, fertilisers & seeds

Opposition from peasants who didn’t want to give up private land they’d fought for - pressured into it - by 57 90%+ belonged

Economic Policy - Mao

• Prices and wages at fixed low rate, black marketers punished → inflation ended

• Increased business taxes

• Took over banks and stabilised currency

• Rebuilt railway links destroyed in war → allowed for coal to be brought to industries

Five-Year Plan - Overview

1953-57

Businesses taken over by the gov, planned what should be produced/who’s in charge

5YRP → ambitious programme to build new industries, supervised by thousands of Russian scientists & engineers on 700 projects, C. students sent to train in Soviet universities

Focus on heavy industries (steel, coal, chemicals) → provide raw material for planes, trains & engines & thus transport

Industries started from scratch in new cities rather than old industrial ones

Five-Year Plan Results

Astounding results - workers surpassed all targets apart from crude oil & electrical power

Population of China’s cities grew due to new jobs

Social Reforms - Mao

• Free healthcare, medicine focused on prevention as not very advanced

• Cities cleaned up, committees to tidy up streets, campaign against rats (one rat tail per week per family)

• Literacy drive & education on Maoist Communism - had to pass literacy checkpoints, by 60s 90%+ could read/write

• Education improved for better workforce - only BASIC though, as Mao suspicious of higher education (college degrees = danger for Communism)

• Businesses & banks under state control

• New rights for women to stop femicide of babies, servitude, prostitution & arranged marriages

• Divorce made easier (for women too!) & nursery access increased

Control over Chinese society - Methods - Mao

‘Propagandists’ spread Communist ideas (1.5M, also in workplaces) → put up posters, discussion groups, accusation groups (to talk about own & others’ failures to be good Communists), story-telling groups & memory (recall suffering pre-Communist times) - OBLIGATORY ATTENDING (more if you needed re-education)

Propagandists had targets to meet → half a million posters attacking waste & intolerance in society produced in two years by students

Roadside loudspeakers reporting Communist reform programmes’ successes + advice on neatness, cooking, where not to spit & how to defeat US imperialism

During Korean War, prop.s competed to get most people to see anti-US film

Control Pt 2 - How people were exposed

Exposed those who may oppose (foreigners, missionaries or businessmen → forced to leave)

Those not influenced by prop denounced at accusation meetings, loudspeakers set up outside homes yelling their “crimes”

Those who didn’t cave sent to labour camps for “re-education” or sent to live with peasants (many killed)

People hid feelings & criticisms → loyalty to Mao, fear of being singled out as anti-Communist

Hundred Flowers

1956

Mao announces period of reflection on how C. is run, encourages open debate of ways to run gov - “let a hundred flowers bloom” - then deeply upset with criticism - year later period ends abruptly

Critics arrested, re-educated or lost jobs

Great Leap Forward - Overview

1958

New revolution to inspire people - get ordinary people involved in small-scale industry, join co-operatives as communes with targets (FOCUS: STEEL PRODUCTION)

Field work, mining, smelting in backyard furnaces, building infrastructure

There was opposition & resistance but process continued

Great Leap Forward - Impact & Success

Steel production x2 → seemed like success

Actually a failure - quarrel with Khrushchev who withdrew advisors from C. - technical expertise lost & iron from furnaces was impure and unusable

Farming methods did not suit all the land, less food received for hard work - less incentive, less work

Drought set farming production back → FAMINE, at least 30M dead between 58 & 62

Successes were actually fraud, figures faked, failure humiliated Mao - he loses control

DENG XIAOPING AND LIU SHAO-QI IN CHARGE NOW - reorganised communes, made them smaller, land given back to peasants

Cultural Revolution

Though he resigned as President in 59 he took charge again when middle-class gained wealth at expense of lower class

He published “Mao’s Little Red Book” celebrating his achievements - called for young people to rise up against anti-Communists elements

Deng & Liu dismissed - C.R. puts C. in crisis

Young students become Red Guards and cause chaos - children denounce parents, teachers → torture and abuse - Mao’s wide organises demonstrations

Performed house raids, humiliated, stolen possessions

Factories, offices ransacked, anything considered anti-revolutionary (books, art, tech) + imprisonments, unfair trials, people driven to suicide

By 67 out of control - Red Guard divides into factions, fight street battles with peasants or militia - PLA steps in to restore peace

Why the youth? (C.R.)

Brought up in political environment, had a shock factor, wanted to establish absolute loyalty - used terror - youth are the ideal agents

Brought up in personality cult of Mao & the doctrine of ‘class struggle’ - easy to manipulate & prone to violence

Phrases: “rebellion against authority”, “revolution in education”, “destroying an old world”

Easy to use teachers or parents as victims

Cultural Revolution- Effect on Daily Lives

EDUCATION - more important to make youth loyal than educated, less than 1% of pop had a degree, and a minority attended school

FAMILY - weakened, criticised as one of “Four Olds” - Mao & CCP > parents

HEALTH - less training of doctors & improving healthcare - suspicious of doctors

RELIGION - one of “Four Olds”, public worship forbidden & clergy rounded up and sent to prison camps, secret worship occurred

CULTURE - Mao’s wide develops Communist-approved culture & removes trad culture - strict censorship

Cultural Revolution - long-term consequences

1M dead

Education of a whole generation lost

Industrial production fallen

Faith in CCP lost

Red Guards sent to countryside to be re-educated, but shocked at conditions of peasants - communism had not helped

Death of Mao

Lin Biao plots to kill Mao but is murdered before it

Leadership splits into Deng Xiaoping, Zhou Enlai & Mao & Gang of Four (wife & three supporters)

Mao dies, Gang of Four arrested, put on trial for Cultural Revolution

Mao’s legacy is tarnished - seen as a monster, ruthless, violent, compared to Stalin/Hitler

Four Modernisations +Fifth

Early 1970s

Zhou & Deng build better relationships w/ capitalist countries - ZHOU INTRODUCES MOD.

4 Mod.: industry, agriculture, science & tech, army

Hula Kuo-Feng becomes chairman, then replaced by Deng in 78

Adds 5th - greater personal freedom

→ standard of living better, radios, tvs & more could be bought, housing & education was good and diet had improved

Deng realised he had to address whether the people should have more of a say in the gov

Agricultural Reform - Deng

State rents commune land to individual farming families, percentage of if sold to state at fixed prices, surplus sold by family in ‘FREE MARKETS’

→ incentivised agriculture, increase in crop production

Success of contract responsibility system reinforced Deng’s popularity

Industrial Reform - Deng

Basis for China becoming superpower

Undermine position of industrial worker of Marxist ideology & turn to capitalism to provide investment for growth

Workers used to have job security, subsidised housing, medical care, pensions, & it was hard to be fired

Deng decentralises command economy - autonomy to state businesses, profit goal

Benefits lost, but quality of products rises

Opens up to world in 80 - loans from IMF & WB + foreign investment

Decollectivisation of land

Socio-cultural Reform - Deng

Birth control required, no free schooling or healthcare for unauthorised second children

Late-term abortions & femicide as a result - sons wanted - girls lost in marriages

Population growth declines massively

Uighurs mistreated due to internal migration

New access fo Western literature & Hollywood films - demand for entertainment boosted - new music, dancing & smuggling of Western products

Political Reform - Deng

Understood shortcomings of CCP - initiates plan to get senior CCP members to retire & cleanses ranks, got youth to become part

More freedoms demanded (esp by students) & criticisms of Deng appear

Wei was an outspoken leaders of movement, put on trial receives 15 year sentence

Problems faced in 1976

Economically devastated, debt, unemployment, undernourishment

Lagged behind in innovation & industries, not enough food, social and cultural problems as result of C.R.

Political disenchantment (esp w/ Communist ideals)

Tiananmen Square

1989

Chinese students protest against gov corruption → demand for greater democracy

Triggered by potential new CCP leader who criticised new rules for college graduates to have forced labour dying - from memorial to demonstrations - heirs to May the 4th movement

Deng doesn’t disperse crowds, they camp for weeks & go on hunger strike

Gorbachev visits - when it’s over, the gov acts & tanks move in

Shoot & crush protesters under tanks, destroy movement - thousands of arrests & executions - some flee to West to set up resistant movements there - worldwide condemnation

Some sent to labour camps

China & the USSR

Initially good - Korean War strengthened bond, friendship treaty between Mao & Stalin

Mao disliked Khrushchev’s ideas about Communism & suspicious of trying to improve relations with West - friendship treaty broken in 1960, remained cold until mid 80s

Russia worried about Mao’s nuclear weapons plan

China & the US

In 60s USA was very suspicious of China, since they had helped equip Viet Cong - fearful of them wanting to spread Communism in SE Asia

Blocked China’s entry to UN, backed Chiang’s Nationalist China & rebuilt Japan as buffer against China

Nixon wanted to improve relations with China - his Secretary of State (Kissinger) visits China, China allowed into UN & other symbolic gestures

72 friendship treaty, trade & investment

After Mao - Deng’s policies

Deng wanted ‘open door policy with West’, valuable foreign trade brought to China, & USSR hostility ends

Economic reform (also continued by successor) - becomes more capitalist economy but without democratic rights

World’s largest economy ? Major superpower

Critics of conditions & lay for Chinese workers and lack of human rights, disregard for environment, exploitation of Tibet, censorship

Main China Problems - 1989 onwards

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY - rivers are polluted and full of sewage, not suitable for drinking or fishing, air quality is low due to greenhouse gases and reliance on coal

CORRUPTION, SEX & DRUGS - drug trade appeared after Mao, eg heroin, country girls lured to cities and kidnapped - bought by men as bride

POPULATION CONTROL - very low birth rate, family planning relaxed however for two children to be allowed

LEISURE - new pastimes emerged, new opportunities - resembles any other developed nations, middle class exists

INTERNET - censorship on topics such as Tiananmen Square

INEQUALITY - large income gap rural vs urban, large disparities in regions, women enjoy more freedoms now, though the ratio of men to women is a bit off, minorities such as Tibetans experience violence and injustice from the gov