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

Realism is one of the most dominant international relations theories in the academic world. But within Realism, Realists are split on a number of issues. A perfect example of which being the rise of China. Over the past 30 years China has increased not only in population and power, but has also achieved one of the strongest economies in the world. The rise of China is seen as problematic by many realists. Since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has enjoyed a position of hegemony in the unipolar power structure of the world. Many fear that the rise of China could upset the current balance of power. One such individual is a prominent realist scholar, John Mearsheimer. He believes that war with China is inevitable and “calls for the US to do whatever it can to slow China’s rise.” Another political theorist Jonathan Kirshner wrote this paper to counter many of Mearsheimer’s claims, stating that Mearsheimer’s offensive realism “is wrong, and dangerous”. Kirshner suggests that instead of using offensive realism we should look instead to the theories roots in classical realism to analyse the rise of China.

The program includes initiatives to bolster the national economy and gain global influence through exploiting natural resources, increased missile program, and development of a eugenics program to foster a greater generation (Lieberthal 3). The program is an attempt by China to become a world power by the end of the decade. While China has started developing these programs it is still necessary for them to build a large amount of infrastructure to become a global leader. People that worry about China’s comprehensive national power program fear a slow increase of China’s influence in global conflicts and economic presence. While a slow increase in China’s influence would change the global dynamic, America would remain as a global power. However if war with China and a large selloff of American debt, China would quickly rise to as a global power by reducing America’s economic stability. War with China and a selloff of United States debt would create drastic changes in American stability, and should be of greater concern than China’s comprehensive national power

The recent interactions of emerging and established states suggest that the existing standards of the current global economy are shifting. According to Stewart Patrick in his article “Irresponsible Stakeholders? The Difficulty of Integrating Rising Powers,” the United States must accommodate for emerging states within the global economy and refrain from enforcing their values of an open and liberal international economy in order to achieve effective cooperation. Similarly, Andrew Nathan and Andrew Scobell argue in their article “How China Sees America: The Sum of Beijingʻs Fears” that as China gains more influence within the global economy, the United States will have to respond appropriately to maintain its economic values. Both articles ultimately assert that

The United States and China have had a well-documented rocky relationship. It has become common knowledge that America is in debt to China for around a trillion dollars. With countries like the United States indebted to them, there seems to little doubt that China is well on it's way to becoming a super power. Author John Tkacik agrees with this notion, and suggests that all evidence points to China becoming a military superpower. He goes on to state that in less than a decade, China will become America's only competition for both military or strategic influences. On the other hand, however, author Samuel Bleicher disagrees due to the disadvantages of having a Communist government, as well as, weak economic, social, and legal structure. He

The United States held 24.6% of world income in 1980 and 19.1% in 2011. (Sachs 2012) Many also believe that China is set to become the world’s largest economy in the near future. However, the ‘danger’ for US power is not that China will become the strongest economy on the global scale. As Drenzer argues, China ‘won’t prosper economically, as it won’t embrace capitalism’. In the long run, the danger to the US is that US power will decline ‘on all fronts’, not just economically. (Drenzer, Rachman & Kangan)

It is no longer appropriate to say, “China is quickly emerging as a global superpower.” The fact is China is just that. Realizing this the United States of America has attempted to once again turn its focus eastward. Continuing problems at home and in the Middle East however have made doing so difficult. Additionally more and more frequently attempts at influencing the ongoing narrative in the Asia- Pacific region have been rebuffed. Even allies have found strength in the emergence of a system that fails to conform to previously prescribed methods and ideals. This leads to a fundamental question America must answer quickly. Has the growing hypocrisy of idealistic political rhetoric versus actual foreign policy finally undermined American credibility with developing nations, or for the purposes of this paper more specifically China? The answer is yes.

The main reason why the Communists came to power in China was because of the failing policies and actions used by Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalists) of which the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) took advantage. However in addition to that, there were also significant factors such as the poor conditions during the beginning of the twentieth century in the Republic of China and the Japanese War (1937 – 1945), that led to the insufficiency and weakness of the GMD (Chinese Democratic Party) during the Civil War. Their leader, Chiang Kai-Shek, lost the support of the majority, mainly peasants and intellectuals, to the CCP, which contributed to their success in war. In addition to GMD's actions, Mao

China’s history continues to shape its contemporary thinking, foreign policy and diplomacy with the West. In order to understand China’s politics and its civilization in general, it is important to look into its history and its traditional philosophy. This book examined many key events in Chinese foreign policy from the classical era to the present day, with an emphasis on the decades after the rise of Mao Zedong. The Chinese’s response and its approach to diplomacy and foreign policy were seen during

In his article, “The Future of the Liberal World Order”, John Inkenberry discusses what he sees as a global shift in power, from the Western and Northern powers such as the United States and Great Britain to the more Eastern and Southern developing states like China, India and Brazil. This potential shift in power has sparked a fear in many people. This fear, as the global power switches from West to East and North to South, stems from the thinking that these new nations that are coming to power will abolish the liberal world order that we all know. I however believe that instead of challenging the United States for power and changing the world order to more reflect their ideologies, these emerging nations will instead seek a greater position of leadership in the already existing world order. Firstly, I will provide an argument of Inkenberry’s main arguments and why realists’ have started to worry. Second, I will show how China is rising to threaten the United States superpower position in today’s world order, and finally I will illustrate ways which show that China is not challenging the Liberal World Order and why.

The Chinese Communist Revolution succeeded to dispose of capitalism and imperialism. The Communists and the Nationalists started their fight in the 1920s; however, Japanese invasions forced the two sides to formulate a temporary truce to battle off the Japanese at the time of World War Two. During the war, the Nationalist Army started to fade and weaken while the Communists grew and prospered because strong guerilla tactics helped the Communists dominate against the opposition (Schaff, 2009). At the time, China was managed by European countries who took no action against the Japanese occupation, and so, China economically began collapsing. Zedong used the war to his advantage as an opportunity to see how strong his reign over the army was. Ultimately, Chairman Mao Zedong led the Communist Party to victory over the Nationalists to form the People’s Republic of China (Young, 2001). Social and economic ailments and the unfair treatment of peasants gave rise to the communist revolution in China, which resulted in the destruction of the economy and a tilt to the balance of authority between the Western powers and Communists.

The events that have taken place over the past couple of centuries, and more so the past decade, have monumentally impacted the relationship between the United States and China for better and for worse. Today, China and the U.S. have evolved into two of the most elite superpowers in the world, and they classify as some of the most prominent leaders in economics, military, technology, and universal innovation. Currently, the United States is just weeks away from electing their next president, cyber-attacks are being investigated exponentially, and the South China Sea Debate continues to be disputed. The outcomes of all these events will undoubtedly affect the relationship between China and the United States for the next 10 years.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more integrated and willing to cooperate within the global political and economic systems than ever in its history. However, there is growing apprehension in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. in regards to the consequences of rising in economic and military power in China. Descriptions about Chinese diplomacy in the policy and scholarly are less positive lately concerning China’s obedience to regional and international rules. There was little debate in the U.S. and elsewhere in regards to whether China was or was not part “the international community.” Scholars and experts in the early 1990s have contended

Realism assumes that under a balance of power, the overriding aim of all states is to maximize power and become the only hegemony in the system. States only help themselves in the anarchic international system. Therefore, China’s rise is regarded as a disconcerting threat to the U.S.’s primacy of power in the present international stage. The power shift in East Asia is creating security dilemmas; the U.S. thus demands more security to its Asian allies including Philippines, Japan and South Korea. The rapidly-rising Chinese power would inevitably challenge the current international balance of power and appear aggressively in the eyes of weaker power such as the Philippines. Therefore it seeks help to its ally, the U.S., to counterbalance the power of China. China intends to gain more resources and to transform current international order to its favor according to its national interests. The 2010 Chinese White Paper on National Defence states that: “Contradictions continue to surface between developed and developing countries and between traditional

Snyder claims that realism failed to predict the Cold War. Given this, Mearsheimer states “China cannot rise peacefully.” Since realists describe the world as a self-help system, according to Posen, every country “must look to its own interests relative to those of others” and because “security is the preeminent issue in an anarchic world, the distribution of capabilities to attack and defend should matter.” Thus, because China’s strive for regional hegemony inevitably threatens the power dynamic of the global system, the U.S. will, according to Mearsheimer, take an offensive realist approach that will eventually lead to war. In addition, as seen in post-Cold War, economic stability greatly determines the distribution of power. Friedberg notes, that the projected “speed and magnitude of China’s growth in recent decades appears to be unprecedented” and as early as 2015, “China’s economy could overtake that of the United States.” Although the U.S. faces an unprecedented challenge to economic power, according to Ikenberry, China has signaled cooperation by “redoubling its participation in existing institutions, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit or working with the other great powers in the region to build new ones.” Nevertheless, following the actions of the U.S. post WWII, China strategically makes “itself more predictable and approachable” to reduce “the incentives for other