G & P in C C

Week 3:

09/10

Chinese People Polittial Consultative Conference

  • “We Have united and through the people’s War of liberation adn the great people’s revolution overthrown both domestic and foreign oppressors, proclaiming the founding of the people’s republic of China

  • From tihs moment on, he Chinese people, who make up one-fourth of humanity, have stood up

  • The 1st CPPCC Plenary Session in Beijing established the People’s Republic of China

  • Mao Zedong presided and delivered a speech

  • The Common Program established China as a people’s democratic dictatorship led by the proletariat and allied with democratic classes

  • Implement democracy for teh majority while enforcing dictatorship over a hostile few

  • Front Inscription (Mao Zedong)

    • “The People’s Heross are immortal"

  • Back inscription

    • Eternal glory to the people’s heroes who sacrificed their lives

    • In the people’s Liberation War and the People’s Revolution over the past three years, the past thirty years, and since 1840-for national independence and the people’s freedom and happiness

The Early Years of the PRC

  • Mao declared in 1949: “We have taken only the first step in a march of ten thousand li”

  • Transition: From opposition and rebel group to a ruling party

  • Main Priorities:

    • Strengthen ties with the USSR

    • Restore China’s international prestige after the “century of humiliation”

    • Establish a unififed governing apparatus to consolidate control over China

    • Revitalize the urban economy to ensure stability and growth

    • Implement nationwide land reform to reward the peasantry

  • But…had to aaddress all these areas simultaneously

  • Cold War Era: No room for neutrality

    • either the U.S. or USSR

  • China’s choice: Allied with the Soviet Union

  • Mao visted Moscow in 1949, emphasizing the significance of the Sino-Soviet relationship

  • U.S. Relations: Hints of China considering alliance with the U.S. were overshadowed by the rising McCarthy era’s anti communist sentiment

  • The Korea War further strained relations, with U.S. intervention against Chinese interests

The Korean War

  • Legacy of WWII

  • Korea was divided by 38th parallel

  • North side occupied and supported by the Soviet Union

    • Kim Il-sung

  • The South side: Occupied and supported by teh U.S.

    • Syngman Rhee

  • Surprise North Korean Attack

  • U.S. Responses:

    • U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet to Taiwan Strait

    • U.S. Backed United Nations Troops

    • Battle of Inchon

  • China’s Response:

    • Resist US aggression and Aid Korea

    • Chinese People’s Volunteer Army joined

    • Led by Marshal Peng Dehuai

  • Domestic Audience: Pride and Hope

  • International Audience: ?

  • The Death of Mao An’ying

Hundred Flowrs Campaign

  • In February 1957, Mao gives speech “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” signaling willingness to hear criticism

    • “to let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend”

    • encourage intellectual criticism to improve Party governance and socialism

  • Mao reframed criticism as “bourgeois” and counter-revolutionary

  • Waited to “lure snakes out”

  • Launched Anti-Rightist Campaign in June

  • Systematic attack against outspoken critics

Anti-Rightist Movement

  • Anti-Rightest Campaign: Intense, wide reaching

  • Targeted intellectuals urban popluation

    • By teh end of 1959, over 300,000 intellectuals were labelled as “rightists”

    • Widespread purges, imprisonment, labor camps, internal exile

  • Rightest label had long term consequences

  • Campaign instilled widespread societal fear

  • Initially aimed to maintain party dominance

Giant Leap Forward

  • The Great Leap Forward emerged in late 1957 and expanded dramtically in 1958

  • Goals: Rapid industrial and agricultural growth

  • Economic ambition became linked to hopes for a rapid transition toward communism

  • Earlier revolutionary and economic successes reinforced confidence in Mao’s judgment

  • Mao became impatient with caustious economic planning

  • Steel output became a highly visible measure of revolutionary achievement

  • The 1958 national steel target was set at roughly twice the previous year’s output

  • Backyard furnances drew large numbers of people into small scale metal production

  • Household implements were melted down, often producing metal of little practice value

  • In 1958, a rural collectives were combined into much larger people’s communes

  • Communes brought agricultural production, local administration and social services into a single organization

  • Collective dining halls and communal services were intended to free labor for production

  • Household autonomy and conrol over resources were sharply reduced

  • Access to food increasing dependedon collective insittutions and local officials

  • Inflated production reports

  • Local officials exaggerated grain output

  • Political presssure discouraged accurate reporting

  • Fear of being labled “rightist” or disloyal

  • State procurement quotas based on false figures

  • Excessive grain extraction from countryside

  • Food shortages worsened

  • Launching satellites

Lushan Conference

  • Original purpose: contain “leftist tendency” in the Great Leap Forward

  • Criticizied the excesses of the Great Leap strategy. Highlighted the abandomnet of consultative decision-marking and the onset of a potential crisis

  • Mao Zedong’s reaction: Saw the criticisms as a threat, possibly influenced by teh Russians. Responded with a blistering attack on critics

  • Mao challenges the attendees: Support him or face the possibility of Mao raising another army to overthrow the Communist Party

  • Party leadership sides overwhelmingly with Mao

  • Peng Duhuai and supporters labeled as an “antiparty” group and purged

  • Peng demoted and sent to garden in Beijing suburbs

  • Lin Biao: Appointed in Peng’s place as minister of defense and vice chairmen of the military affaris commission

Seven Thousand People Congress

  • Liu Shaoqi:

    • 30% natural disaster, 70% man made calamity

    • Privately: “So many people have starved to death - history will record you and me! people eating people - it must be written in the books

  • Lin Biao

    • “The three red flags (Socialist construction, the great leap foward, and the People’s Communes) are correct

    • The problem lies in the implementation of Chairman Mao’s ideas

09/08

  • Warlord / World War (Can’t read handwriting) Era

    • accept international aid from the soviet Union

    • KMT need a united front with the communists

    • Viewed first modern victory academy

    • Nationalist party allowed communist to join the party

    • First president of military academy

      • Important for KMT: Chiang Kai-Shek

    • CPC

      • Important figure: Mao

    • Chiang launched a purged and killed or jailed 90% of the communist members

      • Communists escaped to country side and established a mini community - Jiangxi Soviet

    • Zunyi Coference

      • MAO put into highest ranking position

      • became leader of faction, party, and military

    • Xi’an Incident

      • Chiang Kai SHek is kidnapped

      • not technically called a coup de ta

      • ‘suggest’ Chiang to resist Japanese invasion

      • After incident Zhang Xueliang was held under house arrest and Yang Huchang had his entire familiy killed

        • those are the two generals behind the entire attack

    • Main reason why main party lost China in 4 years

      • did not trust each other

      • Mao and Chiang meet each other and have dinner

      • Inflation didn’t have much to do with the communists

    • Finally out of the

Week 1:

The Imperial System

  • The Qing dynasty (1644-1911) was China’s last imperial dynasty founded by the Manchus

  • Governance carried out by a professional civilian bureaucracy

  • Legitimacy grounded in Confucian ideology, not popular sovereignty

  • Confucianism

    • Three fundamental Bonds

    • Rule Subject

      • Ruler provides moral leadership

      • subject owes loyalty and obedience

    • Father Son

      • Father guides and disciplines

      • The son shows filial piety

    • Husband Wife

      • The husband leads the household

      • the wife follows and maintains harmony

    • Five Constant Virtues

      • Benevolence - Compassion and humanity

      • Righteousness - Moral correctness and justice

      • Ritual Propriety - proper behavior and social norms

      • Wisdom - moral judgment and learning

      • Trustworthiness - honesty and integrity

    • Govern by Virtue, Not punishment

    • The power of Morality in leadership

    • Personal Morality and Governance

      • A person capable of managing their own life is fit to govern others

      • Failing self governance disqualifies one from leading others

  • The Emperor

    • “Son of Heaven”

      • Divine right to rule

      • Mediator between heaven and society

      • Responsible for order, prosperity, disasters

    • Inner Court vs. Outer Court

      • Outer court: scholar official bureaucracy

      • Inner court: relatives, concubines, eunuchs

    • Personal rule often clashed with formal institutions

  • The Bureaucracy

    • Merit based htrough Confucian exams

    • Exams centered on Confucian classics

    • Bound ambitious elites to conservative Ideology

The Middle Kingdom

  • China was doing well in the 18th century

    • Long term polittical stability and internal peace

    • Effective administrative institutions

    • Strong agricultural production and large domestic markets

    • Cultural confidence and intellectual flourishing

    • No urgent internal pressure for systemic reform

  • China viewed itself as teh civilization center of the world

    • Foreign relations organized through the tributary system, not equal diplomacy

    • Emphasis on ritual hierarchy rather than sovereignty or treaties

    • This worldview was shaped by historical success, not ignorance or arrogance

Century of Humiliation

  • From Middle Kingdom to Crisis

    • The Industrial Revolution dramatically increased Western military and economic power

    • Western states no longer accepted the traditional tribute system

    • China responded incrementally, but each limited response created new problems

    • External pressure gradually moved from the periphery to the core of the Qing system

  • First Opium War

    • Qing officals initially treated Western powers as anotehr version of traditional “barbarians”

    • The war exposed a growing gap in military power between China and the industrializing West

    • Treaty of Nanjing (1842)

    • Concluded, it was first of the “Unequal Treaties” between China and foreign imperialist powers

      • China had to open up five treaty ports

      • China had to grant extraterritorial rights to British citizens

        • British citizens subject to British, not Chinese, law

      • China had to pay reparations: 21 Million Silver Dollars

      • China had to cede Hong Kong

  • The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1850-1864)

    • The Taiping Rebellion was one of several massive domestic rebellions of several massive domestic rebellions in the mid ninteenth century

    • Leader: Hong Xiuquan

      • Failed imperial examination candidate

      • Influenced by Christian missionary texts

      • “younger brother of Jesus”

    • God Worshippers’ Society

    • At its height, the Taiping controlled much of the central and easetern China south of the Yangtze River

    • The rebellions caused enormous destruction and severely weakened the Qing state

    • The Qing increasingly relied on provincial armies to suppress rebellion

  • Self Strengthening Movement (1861-1895)

    • Self strengthening movement

    • Goal: “Strengthen China
      to resist foreign powers and modernize the state

    • Learn Western technology, preserve confucian values

    • “Chinese learning as essence, Western learning for use”

    • “use the barbarians’ superior techniques to control the barbarians”

    • Built modern shipyards and arsenals

    • Produced guns, cannons, ammunition, steam engines

    • Established naval bases and coastal defense infrastructure

    • Imported and adapted Western machinery and weapons

    • Zongli Yamen (1861): New Diplomatic institution

    • First permanent foreign affairs office

    • Managed treaties, negotiations, and foreign relations

    • Staffed by elite Manchu

    • Expanded education to include foreign languages, science, engineering

    • Sent students abroad

    • Created technical schools and translation bureaus

    • Promoted practical learning over classical literary training

    • China’s first large scale modernization effort

    • Improved military capacity and industrial base

    • Helped delay the collapse of the Qing state

    • Politically attractive: Promised national security and modernization without systemic political change

    • Sino-Japanese War : Japan’s victory shocked China and exposed deep systemic weaknesses

      • Japan’s success: effective modernization + strong military

    • Defeat triggered anti-Qing and revolutionary movements

      • Defeat was especially humility because Japan had historically been viewed as China’s “younger” or “lesser” neighbor

    • Many Chinese began to question not only Qing leadership, but the traditional system itself