...Emperor Mao Zedong's beliefs changed the way that China exists to this day. His ideas revolutionized Chinese culture and lifestyle for decades. His changes resulted in the deaths of millions of people, wasted time and brainwashed the people of China to follow his often misguided lead. A part of Mao's rise to power involved millions of people dying. Regularly land was taken from the landlords and given to the peasants who worked the land. This was a positive change in that it improved the lives of many Chinese people. Unfortunately, Mao also encouraged the public humiliation and murder of these landlords. Thousands of these men were put on stages, harassed and killed. Although the landlords made life miserable for the Chinese farmers and peasants,...
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...Mao Zedong is considered to be one of the most controversial political leaders of the twentieth century. He has been known both as a savior and a tyrant to the Chinese people. From his strategic success of the Long March, to his humiliating failure of the Great Leap Forward, to the Cultural Revolution that shocked the country and took countless lives, Mao has significantly influenced the result of what China is today. From humble origins, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, imperialism, and war. This astute and insightful account by Jonathan D. Spence brings to life this modern-day ruler and the tumultuous era that Mao Zedong did so much to shape. Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 in Shaoshan village in Hunan. He experienced a middle peasant upbringing that was “rooted in long-standing rural Chinese patterns of expectation and behavior” (Mao, 10). Mao went to Shaoshan village school where he learned the customary Chinese curriculum as well as studied the “time-honored texts from the Confucian canon” (Mao, 11). At this time in his childhood, the whole country could foresee the fall of the previous dynasty, the Qing. Mao studied to be a teacher at The First Provincial Normal School, in Changsha, which influenced his future thinking and beliefs. He believed that the Chinese way of thinking needed reform, therefore fixated on younger people and peasants to build his political career. In 1912...
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...notion of a communist revolution. * The Soviets had Cominform and China had her own version of communism based on a rural society. * When Khrushchev came to power he reassessed the Soviet interpretation of communism, taking it back to a purer Leninist view point, this intensified ideological differences further. * Khrushchev’s belief that Capitalism was doomed to fail and so expansionism and aggression were unnecessary (peaceful coexistence) was juxtaposed with Mao’s adherence creating a communist revolution and military involvement to protest communist comrades e.g. Korean War. * Mao also wanted to continue with Stalin’s Five Year Plans and devised his own version The Great Leap Forward campaign launched in 1958 to increase industrial and agricultural progress. The campaign involved building dams, reservoirs, roads and establishing communes and setting up small-scale steel and iron furnaces in country areas.- This policy was a disaster resulting in at least 17 million deaths and prompted, due to frustration, Soviet withdrawal of economic aid in 1960. Individuals * Stalin, being the leader of the first major Communist superpower could rightly claim the title of senior partner in the Treaty of Friendship. Mao admired Stalin, tried to emulate his policies, relied on him for funds, experts and aiding the establishment of China as a Communist state. The Korean War highlighted their ability to cooperate * However, it was clear to Mao that Stalin was...
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...Grace Lee 105 Korea The Political Philosophy of Juche Grace Lee Introduction The political philosophy known as juche became the official autarkic state ideology of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1972.1 Although foreign scholars often describe juche as “self-reliance,” the true meaning of the term is much more nuanced. Kim Il Sung explained: Establishing juche means, in a nutshell, being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one’s own country. This means holding fast to an independent position, rejecting dependence on others, using one’s own brains, believing in one’s own strength, displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving one’s own problems for oneself on one’s own responsibility under all circumstances. The DPRK claims that juche is Kim Il Sung’s creative application of Marxist-Leninist principles to the modern political realities in North Korea.2 Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il have successfully wielded the juche idea as a political shibboleth to evoke a fiercely nationalistic drive for North Korean independence and to justify policies of self-reliance and self-denial in the face of famine and economic stagnation in North Korea. Kim Il Sung envisioned three specific applications of juche philosophy: political and ideological independence, especially from the Soviet Union and China; economic self-reliance and self-sufficiency; and a viable national defense system.3 This paper begins with a discussion of the three...
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...Nixon and the U.S. Rapprochement with the People’s Republic of China When Nixon began his presidency, the relations between the United States and China had been fraught ever since Mao Zedong’s Communist Party achieved power and established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Less than a year later in 1950, the Korean War, in which American troops died at the hands of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, further exacerbated the situation. The next twenty years were characterized by American opposition to UN membership for Mainland China, three crises between the two nations in the Taiwan Straits, threats of nuclear attack, and the fighting of a proxy war in Vietnam. But the two decades of hostility and nonrecognition of the People’s Republic of China was brought to an end during President Richard Nixon’s administration, marked most prominently by Nixon’s historic visit to Mainland China in 1972. In ending this hostile estrangement, Nixon thus executed the first stage of a momentous diplomatic revolution in U.S. policy towards Communist China. This turning point, as Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger suggested, also “changed the world” by transforming a Cold War U.S.-Soviet bilateral international system into a tripolar one, in which powers are balanced and national interests are secured. In the process of the rapprochement, President Nixon, managed to show the world his sound judgment, pragmatic perspective, and negotiation strategy in the field...
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...Setting The Ancient Dynasties r r r Dawn of History Zhou Period Hundred Schools of Thought q The Imperial Era r r r r r r First Imperial Period Era of Disunity Restoration of Empire Mongolian Interlude Chinese Regain Power Rise of the Manchus q Emergence Of Modern China r r r r r r Western Powers Arrive First Modern Period Opium War, 1839-42 Era of Disunity Taiping Rebellion, 1851-64 Self-Strengthening Movement Hundred Days' Reform and Aftermath Republican Revolution of 1911 q Republican China r r r Nationalism and Communism s Opposing the Warlords s Consolidation under the Guomindang s Rise of the Communists Anti-Japanese War Return to Civil War q People's Republic Of China r r Transition to Socialism, 1953-57 Great Leap Forward, 1958-60 r r r r r Readjustment and Recovery, 1961-65 Cultural Revolution Decade, 1966-76 s Militant Phase, 1966-68 s Ninth National Party Congress to the Demise of Lin Biao, 1969-71 s End of the Era of Mao Zedong, 1972-76 Post-Mao Period, 1976-78 China and the Four Modernizations, 1979-82 Reforms, 1980-88 q References for History of China [ History of China ] [ Timeline ] Historical Setting The History Of China, as documented in ancient writings, dates back some 3,300 years. Modern archaeological studies provide evidence of still more ancient origins in a culture that flourished between 2500 and 2000 B.C. in what is now central China and the lower Huang He ( orYellow River) Valley of north...
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...Square. The Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 was a series of protests that started out with students in China mourning the loss of communist leader Hu Yaobang in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Students began to congregate in and outside of Tiananmen Square in mid April on the day of Hu Yaobang’s death. Over a period of nearly two months the people protested for political reform, conducted hunger strikes and made monuments in spirit of overthrowing the government but they were defeated on June 4th when The People’s Liberation Army stepped in to take control of the square. They were told by China’s leaders to clear out the square which escalated into a ruthless massacre of China's citizens. The Tiananmen Square Protest of 1989 was a cultural backlash that sought to better the state of China but instead led to a slaughter of its citizens in which the voice of its people was ignored. The death of one man, who had many great ideals and hopes for his country, created one of the largest acts of military brutality against civilians seen in the last two decades. That man was Hu Yaobang. Hu Yaobang was General Secretary of the State for the communist party under Deng Xiaoping from 1980 until he was ousted in 1987 for being too lenient towards political protests that participated in activism against the government. Before becoming General Secretary he was considered a revolutionary component in shaping China’s economic and social status, calling for a more socialistic China rather...
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...is because I firmly believe that to be able to understand nowadays legal debates and legislation is necessary to have an idea about the broad historical and ideological Chinese framework. Along the more than 5.000 years of history, China has reinvented itself several times, learning from the hits and misses, unsurprisingly legal principles and legislation has followed the same stream. This papers starts with the genesis of the Li and Fa concepts, relating it with the Confucianism and legalism philosophies. Then, the each section illustrates an important period in Chinese history, emphasizing the situation of the law. Those sections comprehends, the late Qing dynasty, the republican era, the changes during the communist era, the application of the cultural revolution and the effects of Deng Xiaoping open policy. The origins of the Li and the Fa If we are talking about the development of Chinese Law, we cannot overlook the two principle waves that have signed the thinking of Chinese scholars, the Legalism and the Confucianism Legalism started around the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C) and according to it, the only way...
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...your teaching purposes. We hope you find them useful. Practical support to help you deliver this specification Schemes of work These schemes of work have been produced to help you implement this Edexcel specification. They are offered as examples of possible models that you should feel free to adapt to meet your needs and are not intended to be in any way prescriptive. It is in editable word format to make adaptation as easy as possible. These schemes of work give guidance for: * Content to be covered * Approximate time to spend on different key themes * Ideas for incorporating and developing the assessment skills related to each unit. Suggested teaching time This is based on a two year teaching course of five and a half terms with one and a half hours of history teaching each week. This would be a seventy week course with total teaching time of approximately 100 hours. The schemes suggest the following timescale for the different sections: * Paper 1: 20 hours for each of the two topics: Total 40 hours. * Paper 2 Section A: 20 hours for the topic: Total 20 hours. * Paper 2 Section B: 25 hours for the topic since it covers a longer period in time. Total 25 hours. * Revision: 15 hours. Possible options for those with less teaching time * 20 hours for Section Paper 2 Section B * 10 hours for revision. Other course planning support You will find other support for planning the course in the Teacher’s Guide. This is a free downloadable...
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...economy. It is important to point out these differences, as definition as a bloc might lead to wrongful assumptions about the four countries’ individual current and future roles in the global economy. In order to be accurate about each country’s actual weight in the world, we should perhaps change the acronym to CIRB (but without the glamour of the name). Let us begin with China, which is the most continuous civilization in history – not strictly in terms of political linearity but rather in terms of cultural continuity. The country has a tragic contemporary history, marked by economic decadence, political instability, military humiliation and social regression caused by a deep degradation of the social fabric after Mao Zedong’s economic follies created a human hecatomb and a demographic “gap” of tens of millions of people. India is the world’s second oldest “continuous” civilization – the inverted commas are to highlight the country’s cultural and ethnic diversity. India has no cultural unity as such, and its political history only seems to make sense when we look at it as a...
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...Introduction BRIC is used in economics to refer to the combination of Brazil, Russia, India, and China which make up over 42% of the world's population. These nations are going to play a major role in the future of global economy. BRIC or BRICs are terms used in economics to refer to the combination of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. General consensus is that the term was first prominently used in a thesis of the Goldman Sachs investment bank. The main point of this 2003 paper was to argue that the economies of the BRICs are rapidly developing and by the year 2050 will eclipse most of the current richest countries of the world. Goldman Sachs argues that the economic potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China is such that they may become among the four most dominant economies by the year 2050. The thesis was proposed by Jim O'Neill, global economist at Goldman Sachs. These countries are forecast to encompass over thirty-nine percent of the world's population. Goldman Sachs predicts China and India, respectively, to be the dominant global suppliers of manufactured goods and services while Brazil and Russia would become similarly dominant as suppliers of raw materials. Cooperation is thus hypothesized to be a logical next step among the BRICs because Brazil and Russia together form the logical commodity suppliers to India and China. Thus, the BRICs have the potential to form a powerful economic bloc to the exclusion of the modern-day G8 status. Brazil is dominant in...
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...1 China’s remarkable economic boom, now in its fourth decade, has spawned numerous discussions of “China’s Rise.”2 Beijing’s self-congratulatory slogan “China’s peaceful rise” has advanced this theme. From a historical perspective, however, this terminology seems misplaced. Both the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) empires occupied key positions in Asian trade and diplomacy. Crude figures compiled by Angus Maddison, author of several sweeping studies of global economic history, show China contributing nearly one-third of global output as late as 1820. The great boom of the late twentieth century has enabled China to regain some of the global economic weight and leverage that the Middle Kingdom enjoyed during the Ming and much of the Qing eras. The industrial revolution pushed European and North American productivity far ahead of China and India, former giants whose combined share of global output plunged...
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...The Maritime Strategy of China in the Asia-Pacific Region Origins, Development and Impact HUANG, AN-HAO Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 School of Social and Political Sciences Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne Produced on archival quality paper ABSTRACT This thesis aims to examine how and why a continental-oriented China has shifted its maritime strategic orientation and naval force structure from its coast toward the far seas in an era of interdependent international system. Generally, China is an ancient continental land power with an incomplete oceanic awareness. With the transformation after the Cold War of China’s grand strategy from landward security to seaward security, maritime security interests have gradually become the most essential part of China’s strategic rationale. Undoubtedly, the quest for sea power and sea rights has become Beijing’s main maritime strategic issue. Given China’s escalating maritime politico-economic-military leverage in the Asia-Pacific region, its desire to become a leading sea power embodying global strategic thinking means that it must expand its maritime strategy by developing its navy and preparing for armed confrontation in terms of international relations realism. Conversely, Beijing’s maritime policy leads at the same time towards globalization, which involves multilateralism and strategic coexistence of a more pragmatic kind. This research...
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...How China rises What lessons can be drawn from China's spectacular and sustained economic growth? As Hu Jintau remarked at the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the period since the previous Congress five years ago has been extraordinary. China's economic achievements have been arousing not only astonishment and admiration but also some anxiety. In the past twelve months alone, The People's Republic of China (PRC) has overtaken Canada as the biggest source of imports to the USA, and overtaken the USA as the biggest source of imports to the European Union. Concern about the low level of investment in Africa has been displaced by concern about the effects of the high level of Chinese investment in Africa; there is now even anxiety about the effects of investment by Chinese state-owned firms into the Western economies. The Chinese Communist Party is also expressing concerns. The themes of its 2007 Congress included protection of the environment and the achievement of social harmony. According to some estimates, China has displaced the USA as the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases. Inequality is rising as fast as pollution: China now has over 800 individuals with a personal wealth of more than a hundred million US dollars each, up from 500 in 2006; while the average income in rural areas of China is 480 dollars per year. Made in China. Hu Jintau's remark on the extraordinary nature of the most recent years can be faulted in only one sense: China has...
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...China Fragile Superpower This page intentionally left blank Fragile Superpower Susan L. Shirk China 2007 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2007 by Susan L. Shirk Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shirk, Susan L. China: fragile superpower / by Susan L. Shirk. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-530609-5 1. Nationalism—China. 2. China—Politics and government—2002– I. Title. JC311.S525 2007 320.951—dc22 2006027998 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Sam, Lucy, and David Popkin This page intentionally left...
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