The Rise of Modern China

The Rise of Modern China

Modernization: Aims?

  • National Salvation
  • Political, economical, social and military modernizations
  • 18

China’s Historical Modernization

  • Two ways to achieve Modernization
    • Revolution
    • Reform
  • Phases of modernization
    • Implements and Techniques
    • Institutional reform
    • Intellectual reform

Modernization: Implements and Techniques

  • Solid ships and effective guns
  • “Learn the Superior techniques of the barbarians in order to control the barbarians”
  • “Chinese learning for the foundation, western learning for application”
  • Self-Strengthening Movement

Modernization: Institutions/Systems

  • Modern Governance
  • Modern Citizens
  • Constitutional Monarchy? Republicanism?
  • Late-Qing Movement

Modernization: Intellectual Reform

  • Thoughts
  • Attitudes
  • Characters
  • May Fourth Movement

Late Qing: Administrative Reform

  • Creation of new offices
  • Reduction of redundant personnel
  • China's first ever election

Late Qing: Educational Reform

  • Eight-legged essay was replaced
  • Civil Service Examination was abolished
  • Select students to study abroad

Early Republican Era

Yuan Shikai

  • Sun Yixian and Huang Xing 黃興
    • Peaceful and legal means to capture power
    • The founding of Guomindang (KMT) 國民黨 to capture power in Parliament
  • The national election of Dec 1912 – Jan 1913
  • Achievement of Guomindang:
    • (i) Lower House: 269/596269 / 596
    • (ii) Upper House: 123/274123 / 274
  • Song Jiaoren was elected to be Premier

Yuan Shikai

  • The assassination of Song Jiaoren in Shanghai (20 March 1913)
  • The £25 million Reorganisation Loans 善後大借貸 from banks of Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia (April 1913) to finance his army without parliamentary discussion
  • Dismissal of 3 GMD military governors and suppression of Sun’s ‘Second Revolution’

Yuan Shikai

  • The Secondary Revolution
  • Revolutionary Party of KMT outlawed
  • Parliament and local assemblies dissolved
  • Yuan’s Constitutional Compact
  • Monarchical dream

Warlords

  • Characteristics of a typical ‘warlord’
    • (i) Self-interest and unprincipled in behaviour
    • (ii) Commanding a personal army and answering to no national authority
    • (iii) Controlling or seeking to control territories (control finance, resources and manpower)

Warlords

  • Politics: 1300 warlords; 140 battles; Political Disintegration and military Conflicts
  • Society: Militarization of Society
  • Republic existed in name only
  • Famine

May Fourth Movement

The May Fourth Incident (Early May – Late July 1919)

  • The First World War (1914 – 18) and the Shandong issue
  • Student demonstrations, strikes and boycott of Japanese goods (4 May – 4 June)
  • The May Fourth Incident (4 May): demonstrations against Japan’s privileges in Shandong
  • General student strike (19 May)
  • Arrest of about 1000 students by Beijing government (3 June)
  • Student strike over, Cai Yuan Pei reinstated

Hu Shi on the May Fourth Movement

  • The ‘literary revolution’ 文學革命
    • Intellectual transformation
    • Use of the vernacular 白話
    • Realism in Chinese literature

New Culture Movement

  • Appearance of new poetry, dramas, short stories and essays
  • ‘New thought tide’ 新思潮 and total attack on tradition
    • Looking to the West for inspirations: utilitarianism, evolution, empiricism, socialism, anarchism, science 賽因斯 and democracy 德莫克拉西
    • Hu Shi 胡適: ‘Down with Confucius and Sons’ 打倒孔家店

The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party

The Founding of CCP

  • April 1919: the Paris Peace Settlement favoured Japan (the right to administer Shandong was transferred from Germany to Japan)
  • Soviet gestures in 1920
    • The Karakhan Declaration 加拉罕對華宣言 (March 1920): to give up all rights and privileges in China
    • Comintern agent helped organise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

The Founding of CCP

  • The 1st Congress of CCP 中國共產黨第一次全國代表大會 in Shanghai (July 1921)
  • Chen Duxiu elected as the Secretary of the CCP’s Central Bureau

Sun Yat Sen and the CCP

  • The Comintern
    • Comintern agents S. A. Dalin 達林 and Adolf Joffe 越飛 (1922): successful
    • The ‘Sun-Joffe Joint Manifesto’ 孫文越飛宣言 (Jan 1923):
      • ‘Alliance with the Soviets’ 聯俄
      • ‘Admission of the Communists’ 容共: The First United Front 第一次國共合作
    • Neither the GMD and the CCP was enthusiastic about an alliance

The Northern Expedition

  • Launched in 1926
  • Chiang’s troop marched to Beijing with the help of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan
  • Zhang Zuolin was killed when he was fleeing to Manchuria
  • His son, Zhang Xueliang pledge allegiance to KMT, symbolizing the end of North Expedition

Rural Revolution vs Urban Revolution

  • Urban Revolution vs. Rural Revolution
  • CCP instructed by Comintern to stage Urban Revolution
  • The first Chinese soviet 蘇維埃 (governing area) as a revolutionary base.
  • Zhu De 朱德, Chen Yi 陳毅, the birth of the Fourth Red Army 紅四軍
  • The rise of other revolutionary bases
  • Mao insisted Rural Revolution

Mao’s theory and strategy of rural revolution

  • Seizure of state power by armed force
  • Encircling the cities from the countryside
  • The importance of a revolutionary party and a people's army
  • Party commands the gun

Long March

  • Ningdo Conference: Mao under heavy criticism
  • The Long March 長征 (Oct 1934) to Yan’an 延安, Shaanxi (Oct 1936)
  • The Zunyi Conference 遵義會議 (6-8 Jan 1935) and the ascendancy of Mao Zedong

Japan’s Military Invasion

  • Decline of military strength
  • Peasant discontent: KMT only relied on the support of elites
  • Inflation
  • Expansion of Communist power

Victory over Japan (1945) and the Civil War

  • Opportunity to advance along the modernization path
  • Relaxed international environment
  • Factors conducive to modernization
    • Rising tide of nationalism
    • Mass participation

Victory over Japan (1945) and the Civil War

  • Nationalist offensive and Communist retreat (Jul 1946 – Jun 1947)
  • Communist counter-offensive and Nationalist defeat (Jul 1947 – Oct 1949)
  • Battle of Manchuria 遼瀋戰役
  • Battle of Huai-Hai 淮海戰役
  • Battle of North China 平津戰役
  • Communists across the Yangzi
  • PRC established 1 Oct 1949

PRC's New Democracy (1949-53)

  • Private Ownership
  • Coalition Government with other Democratic Parties
  • Democratic Dictatorship
  • CPPCC
  • Common Programme

CCP in Urban Areas during New Democracy

  • Three Antis Movement, against:
    • Corruption
    • Waste
    • Bureaucratism
  • Five Antis Movement, against
    • Bribery
    • Tax evasion
    • Theft of state property
    • Cheating on government contracts
    • Stealing of economic information

CCP in Rural Areas during New Democracy

  • Land Reform
  • Liberation of rural production
  • Make way for industrialization

Transition to Socialism

  • National Peoples’ Congress replacing CPPCC as the supreme organ of power
  • Constitution of the People’s Republic of China
  • Five-Year Plan
  • Soviet-mode Factory Management
  • Scientific and Technical Education
  • Central Planning
  • Heavy Industry > Light Industry > Agriculture

Anti-rightist Movement

  • Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom
  • They criticized one-party rule
  • The situation went beyond tolerable level
  • On 8 June 1957, editorial in People’s Daily stopped Hundred Flowers Campaign
  • 550,000550,000 designated as Rightists

Great Leap Forward

  • Simultaneous Development of
    • Agricultural sectors and Industrial sectors
    • Heavy and Light Industries
    • Big Enterprises and SME
    • Central Industry and Local Gov-supported Industry
    • Native technology and Foreign technology

Great Leap Forward

  • Nationwide Iron and Steel Production Campaign
  • Massive water conservancy
  • Enormous Waste and Loss
  • China’s ecosystem destroyed
  • 15-20 million people starved to death

GLF and Readjustment

  • Mao retreated to second line
  • Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping and Chen Yun took charge
  • Mao vs Liu

Mao’s counter-attack and the Cultural Revolution

  • Comments on the New Historical Opera Hai Rui Dismissed from Office
  • Jiang Qing
  • Central Cultural Revolution Group (CCRG) created
  • Gang of Four and Red Guards

Mao's counter-attack and the Cultural Revolution

  • Seize Power Movement
  • Tan Zhenlin
  • Maoist Cult
  • Lin Biao and his coup d'etat

Mao’s counter-attack and the Cultural Revolution

  • Jiang vs Zhou
  • Four Modernizations
  • Zhou died in Jan 1976
  • Hua Guofeng
  • “With you in charge, I am at ease”

Mao’s counter-attack and the Cultural Revolution

  • Mao died in Sep 1976
  • Gang of Four arrested
  • Cultural Revolution came to the end.

Open Door Policy

  • Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers"
  • Start of Deng Era

Open Door Policy

  • Class struggle credo repudiated
  • Mass Movements no longer used
  • Professionals entrusted
  • Pragmatism
  • Economic liberty, not Political Liberty

Open Door Policy

  • Rural Reform
  • Special Economic Zones
    • Shenzhen
    • Zhuhai
    • Xiamen
    • Shantou

Open Door Policy and Upholding CCP's Legitimacy

  • Four Cardinal Principles
  • Socialist Path
  • Proletarian Dictatorship
  • CCP leadership
  • Marxism-Leninism-Maoism

Resolution on History: 1979

  • Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party since the Founding of the People’s Republic of China
  • Mao’s role

Open Door Policy and the leadership

  • Reformers: Deng, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang
  • Socialism with Chinese characteristics
  • Chen Yun and Deng: The Economy
  • Price Reform
  • Enterprise Reform

Beijing strike

  • Protest: Against corruption
  • Tiananmen Square
  • Deng's 16 characters

Deng's Southern Tour

  • Only one good principle: Develop the Economy
  • Socialist Market Economy confirmed

Deng and Zhu Rongji

  • Overheated Economy
  • Macroeconomic Regulation and Control
  • Financial Order restored
  • Post-Deng Era