Chapter 31: Asia and the Pacific

Communist China

Civil War and the Great Leap Forward

  • By 1945, there were two Chinese governments.
    • The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, based in southern and central China, was supported by the United States.
    • The Communist government, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, had its base in North China.
  • In 1946, full-scale war between the Nationalists and the Communists broke out.
  • By the spring of 1949, the People’s Liberation Army had defeated the Nationalists
  • The Communist Party, under the leadership of its chairman, Mao Zedong, now ruled China.
  • Chinese leaders hoped that collective farms would increase food production, allowing more people to work in industry.
    • To speed up economic growth, Mao began a more radical program, known as the Great Leap Forward, in 1958.
    • Existing collective farms, normally the size of a village, were combined into vast communes.
  • The Great Leap Forward was a disaster.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

  • Mao now faced opposition within the Communist Party.
    • In Mao’s eyes, only permanent revolution, an atmosphere of constant revolutionary fervor, could enable the Chinese to overcome the past and achieve the final stage of communism.
  • In 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
    • To further the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards were formed.
  • Vicious attacks were made on individuals who had supposedly deviated from Mao’s plan.

China After Mao

  • In September 1976, Mao Zedong died at the age of 83.
  • Under Deng Xiaoping, the government followed a policy called the Four Modernizations, which focused on four areas— industry, agriculture, technology, and national defense.
  • A new agricultural policy was begun.
    • Collective farms could now lease land to peasant families who paid rent to the collective.
  • Overall, modernization worked.
    • Industrial output skyrocketed.
    • Per capita (per person) income, including farm income, doubled during the 1980s.
  • Despite these achievements, many people complained that Deng Xiao- ping’s program had failed to achieve a fifth modernization — democracy.
  • The problem began to intensify in the late 1980s.
  • In the late 1980s, rising inflation led to growing discontent among salaried workers, especially in the cities.
  • Some Communist leaders were divided over how to respond.
  • Throughout the 1990s, China’s human rights violations and its determination to unify with Taiwan strained its relationship with the West.

Chinese Society Under Communism

  • From the start, the Chinese Communist Party wanted to create a new kind of citizen.
    • During the 1950s, the Communist government in China took steps to end the old system.
  • The new regime also tried to destroy the influence of the traditional family system.
  • During the Great Leap Forward, children were encouraged for the first time to report to the authorities any comments by their parents that criticized the system
  • At the time, many foreign observers feared that the Cultural Revolution would transform the Chinese people into robots spouting the slogans fed to them by their leaders.
  • For most people, this shift meant better living conditions.
  • The new attitudes were also reflected in people’s clothing choices.

China and the World: The Cold War in Asia

  • When Chinese Communists came to power, American fears about the spread of communism intensified.
  • Korea was a part of the Japanese Empire from 1905 until 1945.
    • There was great tension between the two governments.
  • In September 1950, UN forces — mostly Americans — marched northward across the 38th parallel with the aim of unifying Korea.
  • Three more years of fighting produced no final victory.
  • Western fears led to China’s isolation from the major Western powers.
  • Faced with a serious security threat from the Soviet Union, along with internal problems, Chinese leaders decided to improve relations with the United States.

Independent States in South and Southeast Asia

India DIvided

  • At the end of World War II, British India’s Muslims and Hindus were bitterly divided
  • On August 15, 1947, India and Pakistan became independent.
  • On January 30, 1948, a Hindu militant assassinated Mohandas Gandhi as he was going to morning prayer.
  • India’s new beginning had not been easy.

The New India

  • With independence, the Indian National Congress, renamed the Congress Party, began to rule India.
    • Accordingly, the state took over the ownership of major industries, utilities, and transportation.
  • Nehru died in 1964.
  • In 1966, the leaders of the Congress Party selected Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi (who was not related to Mohandas Gandhi), as the new prime minister.
  • India faced many problems during this period.
    • One result was worsening poverty for many people.
    • Growing ethnic and religious strife presented another problem in India.
  • Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv replaced his mother as prime minister and began to move the government in new directions.
  • Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister from 1984 to 1989

Pakistan

  • Unlike its neighbor India, Pakistan was a completely new nation when it attained independence in 1947.
  • Many people in East Pakistan felt that the government, based in West Pakistan, ignored their needs.
  • In 1971, East Pakistan declared its independence.
  • After a brief civil war, it became the new nation of Bangladesh.
    • Both Bangladesh and Pakistan (as West Pakistan is now known) have had difficulty in establishing stable governments.

Southeast Asia

  • Colonies in Southeast Asia, like colonies elsewhere, gained their independence at the end of World War II.
  • In July 1946, the United States granted total independence to the Philippines.
  • The Netherlands and France were less willing to abandon their colonial empires in Southeast Asia.
  • The situation was very different in Vietnam.
  • Over the following years, France fought Ho Chi Minh’s Vietminh for control of Vietnam without success
    • Both sides agreed to hold elections in two years to create a single government.
  • In March 1965, President Lyndon Johnson decided to send U.S. troops to South Vietnam to prevent a total victory for the Communists.
  • By the end of the 1960s, the war had reached a stalemate—neither side was able to make significant gains.
  • The reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule had an immediate impact on the region.
    • In the beginning, many of the leaders of the newly independent states in Southeast Asia admired Western political and economic practices.
    • By the end of the 1950s, however, hopes for rapid economic growth had failed.
  • In more recent years, some Southeast Asian soci- eties have shown signs of moving again toward more democratic governments.
  • Across South and Southeast Asia, women’s roles have changed considerably.
  • After independence, India’s leaders sought to extend women’s rights.
  • The constitution of 1950 forbade discrimination (prejudicial treatment) based on gender and called for equal pay for equal work.

Japan and the Pacific

The Allied Occupation

  • From 1945 to 1952, Japan was an occupied country—its lands held and controlled by Allied military forces.
  • An Allied administration under the command of United States general Douglas MacArthur governed Japan.
    • Under MacArthur’s firm direction, Japanese society was remodeled along Western lines.
  • On September 8, 1951, the United States and other former World War II allies (but not the Soviet Union) signed a peace treaty restoring Japanese independence.

The Japanese Miracle

  • In August 1945, Japan was in ruins and its land occupied by a foreign army
  • Japan’s rapid emergence as an economic giant has often been described as the “Japanese miracle.”
    • Japan's new constitution embodied the principles of universal suffrage and a balance of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
    • At the same time, the current Japanese political system retains some of Japan’s nineteenth-century political system under the Meiji.
  • Today, the central government plays an active role in the economy.
  • Japan’s economic system has been described as “state capitalism.”
  • Some problems remain, however.
    • Two recent prime ministers have been forced to resign over improper financial dealings with business associates
  • During their occupation of Japan, Allied officials had planned to dismantle the large business conglomerates known as the zaibatsu.
  • The occupation administration had more success with its land-reform program.
    • At the end of the Allied occupation in 1952, the Japanese gross national product was one-third that of Great Britain or France.
  • Other analysts have cited more practical reasons for the Japanese economic success.
  • During the occupation, Allied planners thought they could eliminate the aggressiveness that had characterized Japanese behavior before and during the war.
    • Efforts to remake Japanese behavior through laws were only partly successful.
  • The subordinate role of women in Japanese society has not been entirely eliminated.
    • Women now make up nearly 50 percent of the workforce, but most are in retail or service occupations.
  • After the Japanese defeat in World War II, many of the writers who had been active before the war resurfaced
  • Since the 1970s, increasing wealth and a high literacy rate have led to a massive outpouring of books.
  • Haruki Murakami is one of Japan’s most popular authors today.

The “Asian Tigers”

  • A number of Asian nations have imitated Japan in creating successful industrial societies.
  • In 1953, the Korean Peninsula was exhausted from three years of bitter war.
  • After several years of harsh rule and government corruption in South Korea, demonstrations broke out in the capital city of Seoul in the spring of 1960.
    • South Korea gradually emerged as a major industrial power in East Asia.
  • Like many other countries in the region, South Korea was slow to develop democratic principles.
  • After they were defeated by the Communists and forced to retreat to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek and his followers established a capital at Taipei.
  • Chiang Kai-shek’s government maintained that it was the legitimate government of all the Chinese people and would eventually return in triumph to the mainland.
  • Protection by American military forces enabled the new regime to concentrate on economic growth without worrying about a Communist invasion.
    • A land-reform program, which put farmland in the hands of peasants, doubled food production in Taiwan.
  • Prosperity, however, did not lead to democracy.
  • A major issue for Taiwan is whether it will become an independent state or will be united with mainland China.
    • Singapore, once a British colony and briefly a part of the state of Malaysia, is now an independent state.
    • In Singapore, an authoritarian political system has created a stable environment for economic growth.
    • Like Singapore, Hong Kong became an industrial powerhouse with standards of living well above the levels of its neighbors

Australia and New Zealand

  • Both Australia and the country of New Zealand, located to the south and east of Australia, have identified themselves culturally and politically with Europe rather than with their Asian neighbors.
  • In recent years, however, trends have been draw- ing both states closer to Asia.
    • First, immigration from East and Southeast Asia has increased rapidly.
    • Second, trade relations with Asia are increasing rapidly.
  • Whether Australia and New Zealand will ever become an integral part of the Asia-Pacific region is uncertain.