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China’s Challenges in the 20th Century under the Communist Party
China had many political, social and economic experiences that were characterized by dynamic political activities that were unusually full of moral irony in the beginning of the 20th century. Many of these challenges were experienced during the rule of the Communist Party. The same challenges found way in the late twentieth century and even in the current time as the country is rising. Golly and Song states that, “China faces a critical task in managing its rise in the way that is palatable to both the domestic and the world communities” (Golly and Song 1). This paper will review the challenges that China faced in the 20th century, with a view of exploring Naijing’s decade that lasted into the 20th century, China’s new state and the civil war, China’s Cultural Revolution as well as the post Mao reforms.
In the period dated between the periods of 1937-1945 was the period when the Chinese Communist Party was involved in political battlefields with another three Combatants of that political party. The three political parties were the Nationalists, the KMT and the Japanese. It was the period also when East Asia was faced with the coming of the Second World War (Golly and Song 20). However, china, just like India, came shattered after the Second World War. Golly and Song state, “Both China and India emerged from the World War II as shattered giants embroiled in civil conflicts (Golly and Song 233).
Before the Second World War, china had experienced a decade of conflicts. The Naijing decade lasted approximately between the years of 1927-1937 and was illustrated with the KMT party that guided the ROC government that was primarily under enemy control of Chiang-Kai-Shek (Chen 120). The warlords were tamed by the Nationalist revolution the second Republican Revolution of KMT. These were lords had formerly undermined the Republican Revolution of the 1911. The Second Republican Revolution had degenerated into a fascist-state that was severely corrupted by the Soong family who were the main supporters of Chiang-Kai-Shek.
Pressure intensified into the Naijing government from the Japanese Military adventures that happened in Manchuria. The Mukden incident of 1931 was the first stage of this conclusion that was solely a staged military scheme. This staged scheme led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria that was on a full scale as it led to Manchukuo which was a development of the Japanese puppet country on China’s border (Golly and Song 23). The Warlords of Manchuria were ultimately expelled from their homeland. The warlord was mainly Zhang Xueliang who lived between the periods of 1898 to 2001 a former ally of KMT.
Although there was so much aggression and the Japanese invasion, Chiang-Kai-Shek still pursued and pushed on the Chinese Communist Party. Jiangxi was aligned against these Japanese and the government was fully devoted to this cause. The KMT’s military campaigns were aimed to be the ultimate antagonists of the Chinese Communists Party. Such aggressions led to the well-known. The long march lasted between 1934-1035 was a communists retreat. In this regard all those leaders of the Chinese Communists Party were very much discredited, especially Moscow’s committee (Golly and Song 26). The party leadership was then changed and Mao Zedongg was hence elevated to the party’s top leadership. The Manchuria made it to the North of China with new leadership after many years of intense suffering. The new leadership composed of army leaders such as Zhou Enlai and Zhu De.
There was an ever-growing invasion of the Japanese invasion in China. Despite of this threat, Chiang-Kai-Shek was concerned with the problems that were a big threat to his household power especially the communist. In this regard, he preferred to move his own military base to the Northwest of China (Brown 50). This move was solely aimed at launching an attack to the new Chinese Communist Party’s base camp. This led to divided China and former warlord who was called Zhang Xueling could not entirely understanding this friction when China was faced with much larger problems of Japanese invasion on China.
However, there was a significant impact of the appointment of Zhang which was largely the famous Sian incident that happened in 1936. This Sian incident had much significance to the dynamics of China’s politics. The Chinese former antagonistic parties such as KMT and the Communist Chinese Party united to form an alliance to launch the Japanese attacks in the period between the years of 1936 to 1941. According to the lecture, “Japanese invasion created a power vacuum,” this led to “Truce between KMT and CCP, Removal of KMT army and bureaucracy” (Lecture 10-14 5).
Erosion of power of traditional gentry elite The first sustained attack on Eastern China was recorded on the Morco Polo Bridge in the Second World War by the Japanese (Golly and Song 30). China grew to be one of the most powerful nations in the world as well the most advanced before the European had first arrived in China. China was one of the countries that was most populated and more importantly, it was politically unified which explains its political stability. One of the most notable characteristic of China was the fact that China had mastered the art of agriculture (Cheng 100). However, it would be better for people to understand that the Chinese population revered its traditional warfare in addition to its traditional culture, at the time when Europeans first arrived in China. The country had absolutely no indications that suggested that it had embraced industrialization during that period.
There was a predominant division of influence in China in the 20th century. The Western Nations were characterized by each nation wanting and striving to have and posses as much control of China as much as possible. The Chinese people were deeply rooted in their traditional cultures and they resented any form of foreigner control in their territory (Cheng 103). They mostly resented this distaste of foreigner control through the famous Boxer Rebellion that happened in the beginning of the 20th century.
However, their domestic and local political power began to fade in these early years as the domestic government failed. The Chinese people were angry at their government inadequacy to fight or resist the European invasion as they resented that particular invasion so much. Thus, they initiated and established a revolution in 1911 that led to the development of the Republic of China that consequently replaced the old imperial system. The new Republic of China was headed and governed by SunYat Sen (Brown 51).
However SunYat Sen was forced to relinquish his powers to a former leader who was called Yuang-Kai who became the next known leader of China. This new leader tried his best to re-establish a former imperial system of governance as China’s governor. This particular re-establishment led the formation of China’s political parties such as KMT and Kuomentang. However Sun strived hard to re-establish democracy in China, but he mostly failed until 1020’s. China engaged itself fully by participating in the World War 1 fully aligned on the side of the allies in 1917 (Golly and Song 55). However, there was characterized with absolutely no military action. There were laborers who were formed in terms of resources that provided the required resources. These laborers worked in the factories and in the mines. It is important to note that the existing treaty of Versailles was not an advantage to China as it did much as did not aid in ending China’s foreign control as well as ending the impending concession (Chen 19).
This treaty brought a lot of resistance in China and it forced students to take part in demonstrations of the May Forth Movement in 1919. This movement bore some fruits in China like the introduction and adoption of science and a new form of writing. More importantly, that movement and the demonstration had political impact through the formation of China’s political party that was known as the Communist Party of China. In the later years the people’s republic of China had to change their traditional cultures as well as their geographical locations (Cheng 31). There was a five year plan that was adopted in those years that aided in the revolutionizing economic, social, cultural and land reforms of the whole of China. Since China was getting a lot of hostility of the neighboring Japan, they put into practice a thirty year plan with Russia to unite against the Japanese. However, this plan did not fully get implemented because of the tensions that ensued after the death of Russia’s leader Joseph Stalin that occurred in 1955. These tensions led to a strained relationship between China and Russia that lasted until 1985 (Cheng 105).
President Richard Nixon from the Western countries tried to restore diplomatic relations with the then Communist Party of China. This process of diplomacy was successful and led to China being integrated into the world community. The people’s republic of China was awarded in 1971 by the United Nations with the position of Taiwan in the Security Council (Cheng 105). However, at this period when China was involved with reconciliation processes with other countries, the founding leaders of the Communist Party of China were dying. Therefore, with the absence of strong leadership from Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai Communist Party of China was characterized by power struggles. These power struggles were mainly between the supporters of Deng Ziaping and the supporters of Mao that was mainly led by Jiang Qing (Brown 39).
After the power struggles China remained silent in terms of politics after the ultimate death of Mao. However, this silence was broken in 1989 by a famous incident in Tiananmen Square that caught the world’s eye. There were rampant demonstrations by many Chinese students who held their demonstrations in the town of Beijing (Golley and Song 60). However, instead of responding to these demonstrations in a democratic manner, the Chinese soldiers mercilessly attacked and even killed many of the demonstrating students. China’s position in regard to human rights as well as the freedom of its people was questioned around the global communities.
The experiences in the 20th century were the most unstable periods in the political powers of China. The Boxer rebellion exposed the weak point of the then self-indulgent Manchu dynasty. China had assumed to be a leading and most powerful country than any other countries. In this regard the European power had made money in personage to China that began with Opium wars. Equitable treaties, as well as treaty ports that were carved out were enforced by the European.
China’s progressive individuals responded by the longing to effectively modernize China through forcing China to adopt modern institutions and technologies. However, there was a section of China that predominantly wanted to force out any form of foreign influence. This was done in the pursuit of infinite traditional cultural preservation in the country. The society of Harmonious fist was an important faction that later came to be identified as the Boxers by the western countries.
There has been a lot of economic progress that has been made in the modern China. This has largely been caused by the existing market forces. In this regard China is viewed as having the fastest growing economy. It is important to know that the former Communist party of China had since relinquished many aspects that controlled the lives of ordinary people of Chinese. According to Cheng, “The Chinese Communist Party, following the sixteenth party congress has made up its mind to stay on the path of peaceful rise” (Cheng 80). As a result, there have been so many unimaginable accomplishments in the modern China in terms of cultural revolutions. In this regard the accomplishments are largely in developing and improving individual freedoms and more decent living conditions.
The manner of implementations of economic success that were aimed to improving the economy of China helped China to attain success. Market characteristics coupled with large scale programs of government planning have helped minimize poverty. However, there has been an increase in income and its inequality in the society (Golley and Song 70). Golley and Song state that, “China’s dramatic economic rise during the past decades has been accompanies by-indeed, to some extent caused by the most rapid demographic transition…”(Golley and Song 7). There have been a lot of attempts to transform the socialism in the China’s East Bloc. Moreover, there are more attempts to help in bringing about growth and more development of its economies
In conclusion the Communists Party of China has failed to deliver many reforms that the Chinese people were once promised. The most important reform that the people of China had been denied to date is an honest, transparent government and the rule of law. This is a key attribute owned by the Britain government to its success. The historical barbarity of the Soviet Russia as well as the NAZI of Germany has been accredited to the lacking rule of law. Today China struggles to have a justified rule of law where there are both many women and men.
Works Cited
Brown, Daniel. Challenges for China’s Development. New York. Routledge. 2005. Print.
Cao Huhua, Poy Vivienne. The China’s Challenges. Ottawa. University of Ottawa Press. 2011. Print.
Chen, Jian. China’s Challenges in the 21st Century. New York. United States Institute of Peace. 2005. Print
Cheng Bijian. China’s Peaceful Rise. Washington DC. Brookings Institutional Press. 2005. Print.
Golly Jane, Song Ligang. Rising China: Global Challenges and Opportunities. Australia. Australian University Press. 2011. Print.
Lecture 10-14, The Communist Consolidation, HIST 374 CHINA IN THE 20TH CENTURY, October 14, 2015