Chapter 1 Introduction and Methodology: The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) is engaged in a delicate balancing act; on the one hand to continue promoting economic liberalisation, and on the other, to maintain its communist ideological foundations. Market reform, or the transformation from a command economy to a market economy, has been on going since The Reform and Opening period, which was ushered in by CCP leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978. This contributed to huge social and economic development, which has had numerous positive impacts for the State, principally, allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to stay in power. However, in order to embrace market reform, the State had to relinquish partial control on their monopoly of information. This loosening of power occurred through easing restrictions on information allowed into China, and relaxing controls on who could influence the market. However, the State has also adapted to changing communication that came with market reform to stay in power. It has done this through modifying the structure of its propaganda system throughout different eras and using political narratives as a way to reconcile the tension between the market and State. However, the market has also adapted to the State through influencing the information and ideas that come with changing communication flows. Private firms have made cosmetic shifts to appear more in line with socialist values. More importantly, mass media has created
Since the start of the 20th century, with the fall of the Qing dynasty, when China was in shambles with no industry, a corrupt government and no international presence, all the way up until today, where China has evolved into one of the strongest internationally recognized countries with a highly globalized market, the relationship between the Chinese people and its government has been debated on whether or not Chinese society is one ruled and dominated by a central government or a society where social change occurred because of bottom-up forces leading to a government for the people. China, since 1949, has been a country, which has been run by a single party state, known as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). The CCP is organized under the basis of a central, unchallenged party governing the people by the means of communism. Throughout the past century, the CCP has dictated and maintained a rule over the livelihood of its people by monopolizing Chinese politics and penalizing those who opposed it, through central command planning and on the other spectrum, radical economic reforms at the end of the 20th century in the interest of keeping the CCP in power.
Since the market orientated economic reforms were introduced in 1978 (Khan, Hu (1997, P103) China’s economy has seen a 10% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per year (Vincellete, Manoel,
In 1949 china was under the expression of a communist state. The regime of china was set up in similarity to the regime of Vladimir Lenin in the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong was part of the communist party. He followed the vision of Karl Marx, by envisioning a society under his regime that all shared equal prosperity and communism. In order to bring this vision to reality, he wanted to eliminate all capitalism and its emphasis on property rights, profits, and free-market competition. In the 1950’s in the rural of china, Mao banned free markets, which involved peasants selling farm products. However the trade of capitalism still existed through the private enterprise of remnants. Mao was dissatisfied with the outcomes towards an economy of Marxism. So he strived for a stronger approach by coming up with the Great Leap Forward. However, after the intense economic development that china had suffered from the great leap forward, it left millions of individuals throughout china suffering from the masses and deaths from the collapse of the food system. Because of the major consequences that were suffered from this approach it was unable to be left unnoticed. So, in 1960 after Moa Zedong declined all responsibility towards the disaster from the Great Leap Forward, Lui Shao-chi and Deng Xiaoping were left to rectify and administer the crisis. However, their attempt to repair the economic damages towards china, only led to the reverse of Mao’s earlier policies. That were
The economy of China boomed once Deng opened its market to foreign investment. It was this shift that caused Wong to start to feel “schizophrenic” (186), and made her reflect on exactly who she was and what she truly believed in. It was also here that a small sentiment of democracy begin to upheave.
China has always been renowned for being successful in the domains of science and arts, however in previous decades, China has been ravaged by famines, civil discomfort and foreign outsourcing. China was consumed by this injustice until well after the Second World War when Mao Zedong introduced Communism adapted from the U.S.S.R, and created an autocratic socialist system which imposes firm constraints upon the Chinese social, political and economic system. It wasn't until the 1980's China's following leader Deng Xiaoping who focused focused on developing China into a
At first these plans along with an extremely ingenious propaganda campaign stirred great optimism and productivity within the Chinese people, but as years went by the initial flare and excitement went out and few of these promises, reforms and goals had been reached. In some cases the promises were lies. The real actions of the Communist party showed quite a different picture than the lie of democracy that it was feeding the people. The new government never was a democratic one. As a matter of fact it was a dictatorship controlled by the China’s Communist Party (CCP). Throughout the years the communist government consistently and cruelly suppressed any attempts for the country’s democratization.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Maoist government in China implemented a socialistic economy wherein the state controlled nearly every aspect of national and economic development. The process of making the Chinese economy public took the better part of the decade, but resulted in an explosive rate of expansion. Both the nation’s industrial and agricultural sectors grew exponentially until finally reaching a tapering off point during the late 1960s.
“The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers,” by Richard McGregor is a book which provides detailed insight into the Communist Party of China, revealing many of the secret underpinnings of how the party is run, and explores the question of how they have continued to stay in power for so long. While other strong socialist powers, such as the Soviet Union and Eastern Germany, fell at the end of the 20th century, the CPC was able to stay in control and ultimately come out of that period even stronger. In McGregor’s own words “the party picked itself up off the ground, reconstituted its armor and reinforced its flank. Somehow, it has outlasted, outsmarted, outperformed, or simply outlawed its critics, flummoxing the pundits who have predicted its demise at numerous junctures.” Instead of letting its own ideologies weaken its power, the CPC has continually adapted and transformed its policies and goals in order to maintain their stronghold over the nation. Through his impressive list of Chinese scholars and political contacts, McGregor is able to lay out the fundamental workings inside the Chinese government and the impressive actions they’ve taken to remain such a powerful organization.
After Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 , a new generation of leaders had emerged . Deng Xiaoping , who had been expelled from the Communist party during a cultural revolution soon became Mao’s successor . Deng quickly moved China into a more pragmatic direction . “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black , as long as it catches mice”. This was one of his famous quote . What he meant was that he did not really care about whether a policy was socialist or capitalist . His own policy set the stage for China’s rapid rise on the global stage .
China's transition from the leadership under the iron fist of Mao Zedong to the more liberal Deng Xiao Ping gave the People's Republic a gradual increase in economic freedom while maintaining political stability. During Mao's regime, the country focused on bolstering and serving the community, while subsequently encumbering individual growth and prosperity. Deng advocated a more capitalist economic ideology, which established China as an economic force in the global community while endowing its citizens with more liberties and luxuries than previously granted.
Deng Xiaoping has been the individual with the most impact on China since the 1970’s. Along with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, he is looked at as one of the key figures in evolution of communism in China . Deng Xiaoping will be remembered as a national hero, but this was not always the case. The real story of Deng includes the fact that, on more than one occasion, his peers ostracized him. During his lifetime he has been a part of the many changes in China throughout the twentieth century. He was by Mao Zedong’s side through all of the struggles of the Chinese Communist Party; battling with Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang over
Deng Xiaoping felt that the quickest way to build a better China was to improve living conditions immediately, to give people the level of morale they need for further development. At that time, he realized that China’s economic need to reform; he found very effective ways to reform the China’s economic. His goals were to open up the China’s market to the outside world,
. Xiaoping implemented significant change going from a centrally planned economy run by the state, towards a private entrepreneur market based economy. This transition to a new type of socialist thinking, known as the socialist market economy, proved highly successful as it allowed China to move from a nation in poverty ruled by a single person to the second largest economy in the world. A more sudden or abrupt change could have easily resulted in the fall of China’s economy, similar to what certain European countries experienced in 1991 at the end of the cold war between the super powers.
From post-1976 onwards, Deng Xiaoping and his conservative pragmatist government would bring great reform to China, which would allow her to tide over the troubles caused by the crisis in communism. Indeed, it would seem that his economic reforms were the main reason for China's survival, as opposed to political reform. Under Deng Xiaoping, action was taken to move China from a Soviet-style command economy to a more capitalist market economy. On the other hand, political reform was not as pronounced as Deng wished to retain the traditional communist style of party dictatorship.
The purpose of this essay is to show how the economy of China has, and is changing, becoming the second largest economy in the world today. Although China is currently under the leadership of Xi Jinping, this essay will concentrate primarily on the actions undertaken by then President Mao Zedong, followed by then President Deng Xiaoping, (sans mention of Hua Guofeng). Given the relative infancy of Xi’s assumption of power, economic policies still remain largely rhetorical in form. Likewise, the majority of literature concerning economic policies under Xi are largely speculative, often citing strategies and ambitions as opposed to thereby, lacking a solid basis for rational induction In addition to China’s lack of transparency, In addition, it will be shown that the methodology behind the Chinese economy demonstrates the implementation of varying levels of the characteristics associated with the schools of Realism, Marxism and Liberalism. Thus, China’s approach to global trade in the 21st Century is pluralistic, testamentary to the failed economic