Post Korean War Relations And The Rise Of The People 's Republic Of China

Mao Zedong, the leader of China during the third quarter of the 20th century, organized two movements in his country in an attempt to develop China 's economy through the establishment of communism. Through The Great Leap Forward, Mao planned to change the layout of the Chinese economy by forcing collectivism on his country and implementing other ways to speed up production. Since this movement failed, he then implemented The Cultural Revolution. It consisted of the same goals but was carried out through violence and was also an utter failure. These two movements failed because of the lack of organization with which they were performed. This lack of organization manifested itself in a number of different ways. The government did not care about their people, the reforms themselves were not planned out in detail, the government did not think about the spontaneity of young people, they did not consider the effect violence would have on their country, they did not realize the decline in education that would result from the participation of students in the revolution, they did not plan well economically, they did not examine the negative effects of communes, and they did not foresee the large number of deaths that would plague their country. Although designed to rapidly increase China 's economic growth through communism, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had the opposite effects and significantly diminished China 's economy. The two direct causes of the failure

In 1958, soon after the Anti-Rightist Movement, Mao Zedong announced "The Great Leap Forward" movement in attempt to increase agricultural and industrial production and modernize China's economy. The author of the book doesn't talk much

The begins of Mao’s Cultural Revolution begins with the Hundred Flowers Campaign which took place during 1956-1957, the government embarks on this campaign with the hope that the tension between government and scholars can end, but this approach does not work and backfires. The next event which takes place in the Anti-Rights Campaign (1957-1958), this campaign disciplines those who spoke out during the Hundred flowers Campaign, a significant amount of people lots many jobs due to this and are sent away by government. This leads into the Great Leap Forward (1958-1959), this just happens to be one of Mao’s more intense programs of economic reform, in this program Mao’s main attempt was to modernize China’s economy, the consequence of this resulted in Mao’s having a temporary loss of power. He believed that all he needed to develop was agriculture and industry and believed that both

Prior to Communism in China, it was known to be a chaotic country on the brink of self-destruction. With the emergence of the party leader Mao Zedong, came a new hope, which filled its inhabitants with the belief that China would return to its former historical greatness. American and Chinese relations before 1971 were in simple terms described as “uneasy”, due to the American, Soviet Cold War. It was not until President Richard Nixon visited China and realized the high value of having China as a ally that relations between the two powers began to become positive. Unknown at the time, it is assumed in the book Chinese Lessons written by John Pomfret, that the relationships he formed with the people he met in China would change his outlook on life and Communist China forever.

Around the time Ma Yin Chu began to publish articles on population, the Communist rule took over in China. The Communist were ruled by Mao Zedong. Mao directed most of his energy into the Chinese economy. In 1958, Mao created an economic plan called the great leap forward. This plan called for the people to use their will power to improve the economy. The lack of technology and capital made the plan back fire and lead the people into the great famine.

Mao ZeDong is one of the greatest leaders in the history of New China. The influence of Mao’s theory is profound and lasting. He is a great thinker, poet, and a highly intelligent military strategist. Under his leadership and the actions he performed during The Long March, Chinese Civil War then defeating the Kuomintang Party to built the New China are the main epic episodes. Mao ZeDong's extravagant actions made two of the many changes to China. They are the shift from a capitalist system to a socialist system and the achievement of China's independence against Japanese imperialism (Somo, 2013a). The influence of Mao’s theory has been widespread to the world up until this day. Especially, in the countries of the third world have

The Great Leap Forward is a Maoist approach to ruling China; it is distinct from the soviet model. After the hundred flowers Mao started to take criticism negatively and created an “Anti rightest campaign” that targeted intellectuals and anyone with an independent mind. Mao’s Anti rightest campaign allowed him to continue on with GLF plan without any constraints from the party. The Great Leap forward can be seen as a simple intensification of the Big push strategy; there were massive increases in the rate at which resources were transferred from agriculture to industry. Mao implemented the idea of “communes” in the countryside. A commune was a large-scale combination of governmental and economic functions. It was used to mobilize labor for construction projects, provide social series and develop rural small-scale industries. Mao rejected material incentives and monetary rewards, bonuses were eliminated and free markets were shut down. In 1958, there was a spectacular autumn harvest (grain); Leaders were blinded because of growth in industries. Agricultural workers were moved to rural factories and Agricultural workers were told to reduce the acreage

To achieve this diplomatic strength, Richard Nixon first turned toward China. For decades, China had posed unique opportunities to America. However, these opportunities shriveled when in 1949, Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China, a communist republic aligned more with the USSR than with the United States. Given America’s animosity towards the Soviet Union, this animosity extended itself to the People’s Republic of China and to Mao Zedong. Just over twenty years later, though, even though Mao still held considerable power, the USSR and China began to drift apart.

When he put himself as the leader of China, he renamed the country, “The people's republic of China”. In 1958, Zedong wanted a more Chinese form of communism, so he launched “The Great Leap Forward”. This was an attempt to improve agricultural and industrial production, which were major parts of the Communism promise. Soon, his idea led to poor harvests, famine and the deaths of millions. Mao Zedong’s leadership position was weakened. In order to reactivate his power, Mao Zedong called for a cultural revolution.” He said, “If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.” -Mao Zedong. (brainyquotes.com). In the cultural revolution, he wanted to purge his country of all its impure elements, and renovate the revolutionary spirit and build support of Communist principles. In the process, he killed one and a half million people. One year after, 1967, cities were on the verge of anarchy, Chairman Mao sent in the army to restore order. Zedong started to feel pressure from other countries to stop treating his citizens badly, so he looked for a way to make himself look better. He decided to meet with the American President Nixon, as China and America are complete opposites, in terms of government, and try build a bridge to establish peace and show how

This would lead to an “unending series of defeats,” including the “British in 1942, the French and British jointly between 1856 and 1860, and by the French again in 1864,” and the Japanese in 1894 (Spence 35). Revolutionary efforts led by men like Kang Youwei and Sun Yat Sen would eventually overthrow the Qing Dynasty. Even after several failed uprisings, Sun Yat Sen was still able to maintain a, “steady stream of support of new followers, and he was always able to get enough funds from overseas Chinese,” (Spence 110-111). On the first of January, 1911, Sun Yat Sen and his fellow revolutionaries would found the Republic of China (Spence 135). In 1945, after emerging victorious in a conflict with Japan, China’s Nationalist and Communist Parties would enter into a civil war, with Mao Zedong and the communists winning the conflict and founding the People’s Republic of China in 1949 (Spence 359). China under Mao would be subjected to killings and acts of propaganda meant to control a population being molded for communism. Mao’s legacy is a strange one. Even though he did help give many Chinese more rights than ever before, his willingness to keep the population under control would create a very controversial China to say the least (Spence 387).

The worsening of political and ideological relationship between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev led to the Sino-Soviet Split. In 1960, China and Soviet Union were believed to be the two largest states with the communist approach internationally (Ross 3). The origin of Sino- Soviet split can be found from the era of 1940’s, when China fought the Sino-Japanese war (1937-45) against Japan (Kuo 64). At that time the Communist Party of China (CCP) was led by Mao Zedong. During the same time, the Communist Party of China (CCP) was also fighting the Chinese Civil War (Lynch 7). The second fight was against the nationalist Kuomintang (Marks 10). The Nationalist Kuomintang was led by Chiang kai Shek. The overlapping wars persuaded Mao to ignore the advices and directions by Stalin. During the Second World War (1939-1945) Mao followed the lead of Stalin and agreed on the Joint Anti-Japanese Coalition with leader of Nationalist Kuomintang, Chiang Kai Shek (Hershberg 149). The treaty of friendship was signed with Nationalist Kuomintang in 1945. After 3 months of Japan’s surrender Stalin broke the treaty (Li 4). In 1950, Mao Signed Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship & Alliance (Li 409). The alliance resulted in $300Mio loan at a very minimal interest rate along with the military alliance for the period of 30 years. In 1954,

Within the historical literature on modern China, Mao Zedong’s 1958-1962 campaign known as “The Great Leap Forward,” designed to rapidly progress China to a communist utopia, remains a controversial topic. All scholars concede that the Leap failed in its goals and had a massive death toll, yet they diverge in their stances on how and why it did so. In this essay, I will contrast the arguments of historians S.E. Smith and Maurice Meisner chronologically by their respective depictions of the Leap’s exposition, progression, and blame, to expose the key differences in interpretation. These complex moments in history, understood and presented so differently by the two scholars, should thus be closely examined by students studying The Great Leap, as they represent

The Great Leap Forward, an economic and social campaign led by Mao Zedong, was an ill-fated attempt at industrializing China in just five years. Mao believed that through prioritizing agricultural and industrial production, the Chinese economy would increase rapidly and the country would become as modern as countries like the United Kingdom in just a few years. However, many factors were not properly considered and the Great Leap Forward resulted in millions of deaths and a drastic drop in the economy.

The Great Leap Forward was a creative yet disastrous interruption in Chinese economic development. It is one of those "moments" in Chinese history that is the epitome of Mao Zedong's willingness to experiment, as well as his political genius in seizing control of the forms of government out of the hands of his intellectual and political adversaries within the Communist Party of China. Given that more conservative leaders, such as Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, were not in agreement with Mao on the policies of the Great Leap Forward. The implementation of these policies resulted in disaster, generating a crisis in Chinese society as well as a massive famine that would in the end be resolved in ways unfavorable to Mao's political, economic,

Mao built communes throughout areas of china which contained on average five-thousand families. These turned out to be well controlled communities where the residents gave up all ownership of possessions, land, etc. The elderly and young children were looked after so healthy family members could work and not have to worry about them. Mao in May of 1958 launched another plan: the Great Leap Forward. This was Mao's economic plan to transform China into an industrial nation in two years. The plan was to decentralize agriculture and create communes which would promote heavy industry and agricultural production. The Great Leap Forward seemed to symbolize Mao's embrace of technology and industry. In 1958 700 million people had been placed in to 26, 785 communes. Small villages would set rice quotas and economic priorities and work as a group, sharing resources for the harvest. Communes can be seen as based on the Confucian idea of obligation. Traditionally, Confucianism obligated a child to respect a parent. Communes, according to Mao would replace that obligation to parents, with an obligation to Communism. The government worked tirelessly to keep workers motivated by vast propaganda tools. Devices such as, political speeches played in the fields, or goal setting was common. Also back-yard steel smelting furnaces were used which unfortunately produced poor qualities of steel, and over-consumed coal which led to a massive shortage.