Paper Topic: The brief analysis of Chinese history from 1949 to 2009 China, one of the most rapidly developing countries in the past half-century on the earth, leaves a complicated question to the rest of the world. “Who saved China? ” There are hundreds of thousands explanations for this simple question, but none of them are totally correct. The historians of China divide four stages from the reform of People Republic of China to present, which mean China, had experienced four important revolutions from 1949 to 2009.
These revolutions made China became one of the most rapidly growth countries in the world. The beginning chapter will discuss the importance of socialism system to China in 1949. A simple definition of socialism is “For the socialism, actually it is the universal happilism. ” This is a very useful definition for us to understand why socialism was important to China in 1949. Before 1949, China experienced the revolution from feudality system to democracy system. There were two new political parties in that time, the Kuomintang of China and the Communist Party of China.
The Kuomintang of China was built by Sun Yat-sen, who believed in democracy, and the Communist Party of China was created by the group of politicians (followed by Mao Zedong), who believed in socialism. The Kuomintang of China seemed to run democratic policy in the surface, but the inside of the system was full of corruption, unfairness and putridity. The people in China were suffering from the exploiting of the upper class. At that time, the Communist Party of China came out and blazon forth the new believe in socialism.
Of course, the Communist Party of China was struck by the Kuomintang. The war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party last for years and end with the victory of the Communist Party. The reason of the Kuomintang lost the war was because they forget to add an important figure into their estimation of military power. There were over 200 millions people who suffered under the class exploiting of Kuomintang. Over 50% of Chinese totally population were willing to fight with the current government, thus outcome of the war wouldn’t surprise us.
The Communist party gathered most of the suffered people together and built the new country with the basic principle ‘universal happilism’. On the other hand, there was an economics reason of why only socialism can save China in 1949. After the victory of Neo-democracy revolution, there were only three ways to China’s economy. The first way was limited the socialism state-operated economy and developed the capitalism market. The second way was operating a parallel development, that means developed both socialism and capitalism.
The last way was limited the capitalism market and run socialism market. The history of China had proved that the first way was totally failed since 1911. The second way was totally a bubble that was created by some idealism. These two isms couldn’t co-exist in any universe. So, only the third way was suitable for China in 1949. The proletariat had already established the power in both politics and economy. The victory of the civil war provided a certain outcome that was —“In 1949 only socialism can save China. After 1949, China step into a steady growth stage in both economy performance and average living standard. But it didn’t last for a long period. Things changed in 1979, after the culture revolution, Chinese economy experienced a very terrible period. The government deficit was extremely high; the technology and industrial factors were far behind the world average level. Although the total GDP arrived 362. 4billions(CNY), which was two times than the total GDP in 1965(171. 6billions), people were still suffering from the low technology.
The government realized that agriculture factors couldn’t be the lifetime industry for China. A great leader, Deng Xiaoping, thought Chinese economy should take a big reform. In 1979, the government decided to abandon the planned economy system and turned into free market economy. The basic idea of this reform was aimed at releasing the social productivity, pushing the socialism system to a new level and built a Socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics. This reform resulted a series of positive consequences. The beginning policy of the reform was focus on the ownership of farmland. Family co-operate liability of farmland” helped the farmer to get their own farmland thus protect their basic income, encouraged their productivity and helped to build the first perfect competition market in China. This policy was first used in XiaoGang village in AnHui province. Some other policy will be listed below with a simple explanation. The important policies used during the reform: 1. Created 4 special economic zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Xiamen and Shantou. The special economic zones encouraged the foreign investment overseas and increased the quantity of import and export.
The special economic zones were different from the normal port cities because of the low tax required and some special management system of foreign investment company. 2. After September 1979, the head government announced a new policy on ownership of farmland. The policy clearly pointed out that farmland would belong to the family who farm it. Land taxes were no longer needed to pay. There was a very popular jingle in China during those years, “We poor farmers are finally become the master of ourselves. We are no longer the bondman of landlord.
Now, we are the landlords! ” This kind of encouragement helped China to build a solid foundation in basic industry. 3. After 1984, Chinese government decided to open 14 more port cities to incent the trading with foreign countries. Those cities were Dalian, Qinhuangdao, Tianjin, Yantai, Qingdao, Lianyungang, Nantong, Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Zhanjiang and Beihai. The increase in port cities really made the quantity in trading better off. The east coast now took the leading actor of this whole reform play. 4.
The government cleared the guideline of economic reform. “One focus, two basic foundation” and “Technology is the prior productivity” led Chinese economy into a new stage. “In 1979, only capitalism can save China” is a statement, which implies the economic reform brought back the strong China. The word “capitalism” is not the normal definition we used. I figure out it’s actually the metaphor of “The Socialist market economy with Chinese characteristic. ” This is what the mainstream Chinese politicians’ word on ‘capitalism’ related topics in the case of economic reform.
After the economic reform, the new thought from west world came into China. The idea of freedom and democracy were highly promoted between students and workers. Under the situation of highly increased economy performance, Chinese immature economic system brought a high inflation rate over years (almost 26% all over the country) and carried with a high unemployment rate. The negative emotion merged with the new thought led a terrible effect on Chinese government. A revolution that almost destroyed the power of communist party happened in 1989.
The socialism, according to the definition that mentioned early in this essay–the universal happilism didn’t really make any sense in 1989. The government didn’t solve the problem of terribly corruption, and the high inflation made most of workers lived under pressure. According to the sources online, the blasting fuse of this revolution was the death of Yaobang, Hu, who was the Former President of PRC. Yaobang supported the enlightened side in the party. His death made most of students felt unset and encouraged them to persuade freedom and democracy.
Chinese government didn’t realize the consequences of this revolution in the first place and keep ignoring them. The revolution stepped into second stage; some students sit on the stairs which in front of Tian’anmen and announced to refuse the autocratic government but only revolution can bring them the freedom. The head government figured out the riot was not that easy. They decided to solve the trouble in a cold way. This wrong plan actually made the students angrier ever. The students decided to abandon the school and started up to convince the workers and whole class of people to against the government.
The community party of China faced the most difficult time ever. On June 4th 1989, the riot was on its darkest time. Government decided to use army to squash the turmoil. Tanks, machine guns and armored car drove in Beijing city. The military force was used to scotch everything against the government. Shooting, dying and bleeding everywhere across the Tian’an men. After that inhumane night, students and workers gave in, they bended their will under the machine guns and the dead bodies of their friends and families. Government used barbarous way to scotch the riot.
Although every side paid terrible cost for this war, the violent couldn’t stop growing inside of youths’ mind. The government started to take positive action this time. Dengxiao Ping decided to become the current leader of China. He dismissed the former president and head government group. Jiang Zemin, Lee peng stepped into the play. Dengxiao Ping said:” Whenever we meet any problem, we should keep in mind that Chinese socialism was based on the happiness of every single citizens. Anything avoid this principle should be cut and listed as counterrevolution. This was the third time that Dengxiao Ping came out to save the coummnist party of China and his principle was used until now. He published lot of books and guideline for the next generation government. He believed that China should have a new style of socialism with its own characteristics. This is the only way to keep reform and improve the country. In 1989, China abandoned the traditional socialism structure and step into a new page. This is a remarkable year because China changed the structure of socialism of Marxism. The neo-socialism was successful used in future development.
Nowadays, China has stepped into the rank of developed countries. The strong economy foundation and firmly currency make a big difference compared with 20 years ago. In 2006, global economy recession happened. This is a good chance that China proved their successful economy reform to the rest of world. The capitalism countries in Europe and North America experienced a deadly wound through this global recession. The free market economy was questioned by the world. Chinese special market economy was the only economic system alive after these years. It proved that the straight free market must be failed at last.
The only way to bring back the growth is to engage in a totally new economic structure and most of the economists called it—”Market economy with Chinese style” During the past 6 years, the non-break off support from China to United State has brought back some growth in this year. The GDP increase rate gets back to 7%, which is close to natural GDP growth rate. The inflation rate is well controlled by Fed. Chinese support helped a lot in the climb game from the bottom of valley. Steve Jobs said a famous sentence on January 9th 2007, the release of iPhone. He said:” Today, we re-invent the cell phone.
Today, we re-define the smart phone. ” In my case, I would like to quote it and make some changed. “In 1949, China bought the socialism, In 1949, China bought the capitalism. In 1989, China re-invented socialism, In 2009, China re-defined capitalism. ” Word count: 1942 Work Cited: 1. “Neodemocratism and Neosocialism”, Professor. Wang, Zhanyang, Publish: Dec 2004. 2. “China Daily”, 19 December 2006. Retrieved 2 June 2010. 3. Xinhua. Net, < http://news. xinhuanet. com/newscenter/2008-12/18/content_10524481. htm>, Dec 18th 2008. 4. Calhoun, Craig. 1994.
Neither Gods Nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 5. Davis, Deborah, and Ezra F. Vogel. eds. 1990. Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen: The Impact of Reform. Cambridge, Mass. : Council on East Asian Studies Publications, Harvard University. 6. Liu, Xinyong. 1996. University System and Campus Life: Prerequisites for Student Movements in Contemporary China. Ph. D. diss. , Syracuse University. 7. Weller, Robert. 1994. Resistance, Chaos, and Control in China: Taiping Rebels, Taiwanese Ghosts and Tiananmen.
Seattle: University of Washington Press. 8. Zhao, Dingxin. 1995. Reform and Discontent: The Causes of the 1989 Chinese Student Movement. Ph. D. diss. , McGill University ——————————————– [ 1 ]. , Professor. Wang, Zhanyang, Publish: Dec 2004. [ 2 ]. “China names key industries for absolute state control”. China Daily. 19 December 2006. Retrieved 2 June 2010. [ 3 ]. The policies are summarized from the speech, which made by President Hu on Dec 18th, 2008. The information is from XinHua. < http://news. xinhuanet. com/newscenter/2008-12/18/content_10524481. htm>