China
People’s Republic of China
• World’s most populous nation (1,273,111,290)
• World’s second largest economy after the
United States (purchasing power parity: $ 4.5
trillion)
• Oldest continuous (and self-conscious)
civilization in the world.
• Syncretism (Marxism + Confucianism +
heritage of Empires)
Chinese Legacies:
1. More than two millenia of strong
rule under a single ruler (First
Emperor unified China and *ended
feudalism in 221 B.C.E.).
Entrenched beliefs on that China
can remain united only under a
unified, strong, and centralized
power. Unitary state.
Chinese Legacies
2. Inventors of Bureaucracy
(China had the most developed
pre-modern bureaucratic
organization. Recruitment of
officials through exams. Well
organized but not large ≈
20,000)
Chinese Legacies:
3. Confucian tradition of moral governance
(development of groups of “gentlemen” who
could judge and decide in a wise and moral
way). Legitimacy of Confucianism, stable and
well governed society
– Recruitment of public officials through tough
examinations on Confucian philosophy and
moral principles (three levels) –Tradition of
rule by educated elites (wealth + scholarship)
*no feudalism
• Peasant (but no feudal) society
• Strong central authority of a well-
organized state (monarchy also based in
Confucianism through the “mandate of
heaven”)
≠ West/Japan
≈ (pre-colonial) Mexico
Chinese (Main)Historical Periods
– Zhou Dynasty (BCE 1122-255)
– Qin Dynasty (BCE 255-206)
– Han Dynasty (BCE 206-221 AD)
(Period of disunion 221-589)
– Tang Dynasty (618-907)
– Song Dynasty (951-1280)
– Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1280-1368)
– Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
– Qing (Manchu) Dynasty) 1644-1911
– Republic of China (1912-1949)
– People’s Republic of China (1949- )
Mid-19th century:
Crisis of the Empire
• Demographic crisis (caused by a
long period of peace and good crops
during the Qing/Manchu dynasty in
1644)
• Population = 410 millions in 1850.
– Rebellions
Taiping Rebellion (largest
rebellion in human history):
• Impoverished peasants join forces (differences
between the value of copper and silver… linked
to imports of opium from the West). Western
influences
– Leader Hong Xiuquan (learned on Christianity
and thought of himself as Jesus’ brother)
– Claims: communal ownership of land &
equalization of wealth
• Western led and financed “Ever Victorious Army”
was organized to defeat the Taiping (1864).
• (Military and economic) Exhaustion of the
Chinese central state in suffocating the Taiping
rebellion Localization and Militarization of
the Chinese society
From the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries
• China Battleground for different forces and
powers (≠ Japan, in China No new elite
emerged)
• Warlordism (peak in 1910/20s) & Western
and Japanese Imperialisms
• Cosmopolitan/Self-Strengthening/Nativist Mov
• Self-Strengthening Movement (1860s-1894/5)
– Desire to integrate Chinese and Western culture (“Chinese learning as
the essence, Western learning for practical use.”). Long-lasting
influence (Deng Xiaping in 1978), but never worked well (Technology
brings cultural values with it). China’s defeat by Japan in 1895 ended
the mov.
• Movement Towards Revolution
– Sun Yat-sen (1911 Revolution ended the Qing dynasty
and the Confucian-based system of government)
1911-1949 Chinese Civil War
Nationalism
• Roots in 1895 by Kang Youwei’s led rebellion of
examinees against the Qing’s dynasty (the Qing
signed peace with Japan)
• Rise of mass nationalism (May 4, 1919). Student
protests & rejection of the government’s signature of
the Versailles Treaty (that turned German concessions
in China to Japan).
– Critique of the Confucian past (for its elitist
character)
– Rapid growth of the movement
Strengthened the Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD)
Creation of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in
1921
Nationalist/Communist Front
Kuomintang government (1920-25)
Sponsored by the Communist International
•Expeditions:
– 1926 to the North led by Chian Kai-shek (murder
of thousands of Communists Radicalization of
the Communists)
– 1927 to South-Central China led by Mao Zedong
the Long March (military disaster but
symbolic success of mythological proportions)
1931 Japanese invasion
•Communist Victory in 1949 (unifies China with the
exception of Taiwan)
Chinese Communism
• ≠ Russian Communism, the Chinese
Communist regime achieved support and
popularity (Pragmatic, peasant grassroots
influences, fronts)
– Land reform, socialization of the economy
• Stability and unity
• Rapid economic recovery
(but)
Dramatic Shift
Totalitarian Shift
• Once in power, the CCP started a policy of
• Censorship
• Persecution of the opposition (landlords,
GMD supporters, pro-Japanese criticized,
jailed, and even executed)
• Wide local penetration of society by the
state
• 1950 First Five-Year Plan (industrialization)
– Fast economic growth, but exhaustion of the
countryside. Newly created inefficient
bureaucracy
Mao, complex and contradictory
-Insisted on the value of research but ignored reality
– A brilliant man, despised intellectuals
– The leader of a peasant revolution, led millions of
peasants to starvation and death (industrialization)
Maoism
Good Principles: Bad Principles:
Practice Contradictions
Sinification of Marxism Mass
Mobilization
Mass line
Will Power
United Front
Hundred Flowers
• 1957 After Kruschev’s critique of Stalin, Mao
(against party advice) called for criticism and
debate
• Overwhelming demands (people’s
requirements to open up the political system
allowing other parties)
• Mao’s shift: “anti-rightist” campaign (every
organization had to denounce 5% of their
members as “rigthists”… 500,000 people
ostracized)
• Radicalization
Great Leap Forward (1958-1960)
• Goals: industrialization and decentralization (local self-
sufficiency). Extreme and wasteful policies
• Mao’s Will to power (raw human labor against difficult
economic situation).
– Result: around 20 million people died of starvation.
• Severe political repression (to hide the results of the Great
Leap Forward), and
• Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): opposing the “four olds”
(old customs, old habits, old culture, old thinking), Red
Guards would intervene in people’s lives in search for
“bourgeois” and “rightist” elements. Affecting all realms of
Chinese life (ended with Mao’s death). Thousands died.
• Red Guards sent to the countryside to “learn” from peasants
• Ended in 1976 after Mao’s death (a member of the “Gang of
Four,” Mao’s wife and 3 other leaders were arrested).
State structure
Legislative: National People’s Congress (NPC)
(supposedly elected every five years, meets
once a year and it is the highest authority on
paper) (increasingly active role in recent
years, it has reduced bureaucratic
apparatuses and organized Committees)
Administrative:
– State Council (Headed by the Premier, who is
elected by the NPC after recommendation of
the Party). Vice Premiers
– Ministries
Party and Government
• Long-lasting ties between Communism
and Nationalist sentiment
• Overlap between party and state structure
(≈ Soviet Union)
– Party Chairman Secretary General
– Democratic centralism
Deng Xiaoping
• Amazing socioeconomic transformation
• Free Trade Zones
• Dramatic process of economic reforms and
modernization
– End of isolationism
– Emergence of a modern private economy
– Increasing inequality.
– Migration
– Corruption
– Growth of a lively civil society (and political opposition
met with repression)
Challenges
Tensions between an emerging society and a
still-closed political system
(Protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 left over
700 deaths)
Need to create new consensuses and ideas
(revival of nationalism and Confucianism)