The Rise Of The Chinese Economy

China is the second largest economy in the world. It has become the fastest growing economy in the world with an average rate of 10% for the last thirty years. The largest exporter and second largest importer of goods has brought China to be ranked first in the foreign exchange reserves. The country with thousands of years of history, started off and continues today as mostly an agrarian economy. Over time China's economy continues to change and prosper. Starting with the first economic change in the early twentieth century, which occurred when the GMD (the Nationalist Party) lost control due to its poor economic performance. This in turn led to their defeat by the CCP. During that time many peasants lost their farmland and this led to a peasant

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 China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World, by Ho-fung Hung. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

During Mao’s time, he strongly stressed his principles of the “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution”. However, due to these philosophies, China’s economic and social foundations crumbled and was severely damaged. The country was severely poor and economic production slowed. After Mao passed away, Deng Xiaoping emerged as Mao’s successor. He launched comprehensive economic reforms. These reforms aimed to decrease the role of the state in the economy and gradually introduce private forms of production in agriculture and industry. Because of these reforms, production increased by leaps and bounds and poverty was reduced dramatically. However, there was a problem that was arising. There was a lot of corruption and nepotism that was beginning to take over the economy. The gap between the wealthy and poor was growing and people began to see it as unfair.

When Chairman Mao took control of the Chinese government as leader of the newly established Communist Party, he was most notably commended for helping unite China after years of civil war. After the previous regime left the country nearly bankrupt, Mao faced the challenge of rebuilding China’s economy, and he believed that it could only be accomplished through true Communism, modeled after the Soviet Union. Mao’s vision was highly approved by the people initially as it reinvented the working class and gave more power to peasants, but it was not long before the country would see the detrimental impacts of Chairman Mao’s goals. The Communistic approach to rebuilding China made several changes in the agricultural sector that lead to severe consequences, before the country eventually recognized its problem and identified a solution.

The changes in China’s economy can be traced to between 1976 to 1978, when the Cultural Revolution had effectively ended and widespread social, economic, and political conflict that accompanied it. The Culture Revolution was motivated in large part by revolution ideology and an attempt to purge the state of its “liberal bourgeoisie” elements, hence the forced reeducation and relocation from the cities to rural areas of millions of Chinese citizens . As the havoc wrought by the Cultural Revolution dissipated, China’s leaders focused on the goal of enriching their impoverished nation. The nation had been paralyzed economically by the chaos that had ensued . While there was agreement among China’s political leaders regarding the need for economic change, the road forward for the nation was unclear.

China has been an enigma for centuries, always one of the world 's most impressive civilizations and cultures known for "outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences" (CIA, 2000; p. ch), often by differences measured not in months or years, but in centuries. China 's fall to communism and the strict dictatorship of Mao Zedong is well documented, as is the economic experimentation instituted by Deng Xiaoping after Mao 's death in 1978.

Unlike other communist nations such as the Soviet Union, China adopted a gradual approach and it succeeded in making a relatively smooth transition from a planned economy to a free market economy. So far, I am more than satisfied with this course and I hope to continue my interest in Chinese economy through Xiamen exchange program.

My grandparents lived through the last decade of China’s so-called “century of humiliation” (between 1839 and 1939), they experienced some of China’s darkest times such as the Japanese invasion and China’s great leap forward which almost destroyed the country, but China always fought back against fearful odds and after the economic reform in 1979, everything finally seems to back on the normal tracks with China’s GDP (sort of a measure of the economy) is only second to US in 2015. With a steady supply of cheap and massive working class who could manufacture goods at a relatively low cost, China was able to revive its economy using the manufacturing power and that in turn has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty.

“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Located in Eastern Asia, China is a country known for being a worldwide economic superpower that has had a communist government for several years. Beginning in 1978, China, under Deng Xiaoping’s rule, began to incorporate capitalistic ideas in the government. Deng created various reforms unlike any of the policies or reforms in prior years that began to reconstruct China’s economy through modernization and by establishment of international trade.

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

From 1949-2012, China has undergone many reforms. It has been a socialist, communist, and a weird combination of market economy/communist. These reforms are essential in explaining how China has become a major world power. China turned to socialism in 1949, because it seemed like the only answer to the numerous problems China had to face after nearly 20 years of fighting. This is the first step down the road to economic prosperity.

The history of modern China starts on October 1st of 1949 with the victory by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Chinese Civil War and the consequently proclamation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by Mao Zedong . From 1949 until 1976, Mao started to implement in China his idea of a communist society with a centrally controlled economy based on the Soviet model. In order to achieve the massive changes towards the implementation of communism, he developed several ambitious projects, guided by the Five-Year Plans that included the Great Leap Forward, started in 1958, and the Cultural Revolution (between 1966 and 1976). It’s estimated that the implementation of the Maoist ideals was responsible for more than 65 million deaths in China, mostly by forced

In the past 35 years, China has experienced significant transformation and modernization of its democracy and governance. This modernization process was brought by the death of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People’s Republic of China and the Chairman of the country’s Communist Party since 1943. Prior to his death, Chairman Mao had started a Cultural Revolution in 1966 in attempts to revive socialism in the country and eliminate capitalistic corruption and bureaucratic inflexibility. The initiation of the Cultural Revolution was preceded by several political and social campaigns that urged Mao to propel the country towards the much anticipated socialism, which was regarded as a promised paradise. Following Mao’s death, China has experienced considerable transformation due to socialism, which has in turn resulted in modernization of the Chinese government and democracy. The other changes brought by socialism include economic transformation to an extent that the country is a major economy in today’s world.