Containment and East Asian Development

Sun Yixian

founded Kuomintang Party and. overthrew Qing dynasty

Chinese Communist Party

Chinese party led by Mao Zedong. Goals:

• Create a centralized government

• Regulate the agricultural output

• Regulate education and society

• Redistribute land

Mao Zedong

• Face, figurehead, and ideological fire of Chinese Communism

• Saw Russia’s success as a communist country and wanted to follow something similar

• Believed he had to get the peasants on board

Kuomintang

Chinese party formed through nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood, led by Jiang Jieshi

Jiang Jieshi

leader of Kuomintang

the Long March

• Kuomintang controlled cities

• Communist sought to control peasants

• They ran away from nationalists rather than fighting them because they didn’t have the capacity to face them

• When they needed provisions they would stop in a small village and gently explain Marxism and Communism to the peasants

  • They described it as land redistribution, equal access to resources, and less control from the leader

• In contrast, nationalist would kill, rape, and rob villages 

• Communists were good at building a good reputation for themselves as poor individuals 

cold war

indirect military, political, economic competition between US and USSR, capitalism vs communism

iron curtain

Churchill’s ideological barrier between the communist USSR and the non-communist countries of the West

containment

US attempt to prevent the spread of communism by providing military and economic aid for countries to resist soviet expansion

Truman Doctrine

US political policy of preventing communist expansion into free countries that want to be self-supporting

Marshall Plan

economic aid from US to Europe ($13 billion)

Potsdam Conference

Germany divided into 4 zones occupied by US, France, Britain, and USSR

Hundred Flowers Campaign

• allowed citizens to openly criticize and give advice to government

• Zedong thought that intellectuals would agree that his campaign would be perfect, but they actually thought against it 

• Trap or heal people?

  • He originally thought that people would be on their side so he gave lots of free speech opportunities but when he realized it mostly became dissent he later decided to turn it into anti-rightist campaign

The Great Leap

• China should have a new, industrialized, centrally planned economy to surpass Western rivals 

• Collectivization 

• Failed because:

  • Farmers who had no industrial experience were forced into factories

  • Communes were too big and Communist local leaders couldn’t control them efficiently

  • Zedong gave the workers a goal without instruction so they had to figure out themselves 

• Consequences: 

  • Widespread famine

    • 36-45 million affected 

  • Collapsing industrial and agricultural output

  • Deep discontent amongst the peasantry

  • Great Chinese Famine

    • Droughts, typhoons, along yellow river  

Cultural Revolution

• wanted to get rid of the 4 Olds: culture, tradition, customs, and old ideas

• Mao’s revolution for the workers

• wanted to renew people’s loyalty to communism

• destroyed lots of ancient Chinese culture

Tiananmen Square

Chinese state cleared out student demonstrators demanding economic and political reforms

Deng Xiaoping

• Came to power after Mao died

• Introduced 4 Modernizations

  • Improvement and investments in:

    • Agriculture

    • Industry

    • Science

    • Defense 

• Permitted foreign companies to invest in China

  • China became a major industrial exporter

• China Model

  • Privately owned companies

  • Communist party owns land, utilities, buildings, infrastructure

Korean War

North Korea invaded South Korea

demilitarized zone

stalemate at 38th parallel

Ho Chi Minh

leader of nationalist Vietnamese party inspired by Woodrow Wilson’s self determination and self rights

Viet Minh

Vietnamese nationalist party

Geneva Conference

peace talks dividing Vietnam at 17th parallel

Vietnam War

• war between North and South Vietnam

• North Vietnam = communist led by Ho Chi Minh

• South Vietnam = authoritarian republic backed by US

Viet cong

 Southern Vietnamese army and their supporters

Khmer Rouge

communist political group

Pol Pot

leader of the Khmer Rouge

Cambodian Genocide

Khmer Rouge killed all intellectuals and highly prioritized labor. They had a totalitarian regime where people no rights

Berlin Aircraft

• Soviet Union created a blockade preventing the western powers to supply their territory in Germany

• Because of this USSR flew in resources

• And eventually the Soviet Union eliminated the blockade