CHINA Notes 4: Twentieth Century Struggle for Control of China
 Ching Dynasty fell 1912, Pu’I,
The Last Emperor

Revolution led by Sun Yat Sen

2 groups collided
1. Kuomintang , led by Jiang Kai-shek, Nationalists went to Taiwan
2. Communists , led by Mao Zedong, victorious

From 1912 to 1940 these groups struggled with millions killed
KUOMINTANG

South China movement

Urban, major coastal cities, wealthy, European influenced leaders

NOT a true Chinese movement. Leaders were westernized, many either educated in the West or in westernized Chinese universities; Yale had a campus there.

MISSION -- to make China an industrialized, urbanized country, knitted into the global economic community.

Chinese economic activity directed to European settlements on coasts

New Chinese Culture Hearth along coast, contact zone between Europeans and
Chinese everywhere, but Chinese ill-treated, not respected.

CORE --along coast, north from Manchuria (Nanjing =capital, like DC; Shanghai
= financial center, like NYC).

Kuomintang FAILED to change Chinese society

Failed to avoid a foreign war with Japan

Lacked confidence of the Middle class (who know how to do things!)

Only a small wealthy elite and a large peasant class in a feudal society -- 10% of the people owned 80% of the land. Jiang Kai-shek's ideas did little for the bulk of the people

Jiang Kai-shek ultimately identified with the enemy, the arrogant West, that had humiliated and discriminated against the Chinese.

Ultimately defeated by the Communist Chinese led by Mao

Thousands fled to Taiwan
COMMUNISTS

Originally an URBAN REVOLUTION = MARXIST

But most Chinese were rural farmers, therefore the urban revolution failed.
Kuomintang won initially in the countryside.

Communist's initial early defeat by the Kuomintang led to the "long walk." Led by
Mao, they retreated to caves in the loess country and experimented with social and agricultural systems -- irrigation, collectivization

North China movement, "purer" Chinese

Northern Chinese provided agricultural labor and military strength

OBJECTIVE -- to replicate the Soviet model, centralize all resources, crash program for industrial and military strength, especially railroads and armaments.

Cultural contact with the Soviets aided industrialization and militarization

2

Strategic zone against Kuomintang on coast and along borders with allies who supported Kuomintang

Demographic front. Poorer people of Kuomintang came over to the communists

Several million people settled to the west

Railroads built to the north through Mongolia and to the west to USSR
OBJECTIVES
 philosophical - to replace Confucianism with Marxism
 political - complete state control in government
 social - undermine family, state control of daily life
 economic - complete state control
 military - state to control all of its domain
 lost Taiwan to Nationalists, China Proper still wants it back
 sought political dominance of Asia, but this was illusive except for the private sector, which is dominant in the Pacific Realm
CHINA 1949-1978 = Central Planning

1949 Revolution - more than just a transfer of power, major change in use and distribution of wealth and materials

10s of millions of people killed at "Liberation"
Communist Platform
1.
Freedom from famine (virtually no correlation between drought and FAMINE - major cause is political, floods cause more famine than droughts).
2.
Freedom from FLOODS – especially those on the Huang Ho (Yellow) River
3.
Freedom from DISEASE - massive epidemics throughout Chinese history.
Only 4% of China's total area is arable with over 800 million rural peasants
As usual, graft, corruption, oppression of masses by rural elite was resented by the peasantry
1953 - First 5 Year Plan

Agricultural production increased - "iron rice bowl"

Steel production rose
 transportation improved - in 30 years, 30,000 km of RR built, 800,000 km of roads (mostly by hand), 90% of all communes accessible by roads

Massive POPULATION GROWTH - 1949 400 million, 1985 1 billion, decline in death rate, before revolution life expectancy about 38 years

Agrarian social change - all land divided into COMMUNES of 13,000 people
(based on Loess experiments) (1975 - 50,000 communes);
Communes composed of BRIGADES, composed of PRODUCTION
TEAMS

RURAL STRATEGY -- keep them in the country to avoid unrest when they want the "good life" in the cities and to avoid urban poverty, migration not permitted,

3 money invested in agricultural projects, irrigation, land improvement, people kept busy to produce a FOOD SURPLUS.

28% went to improvement of "Human Capital" - schools, hospitals, housing

0.5% had a college education, 20% finished High School (since 1978 – tens of thousands of Chinese studying in the US, most return to China)

Population skyrocketed leading to a severe population policy
 “Han Chinese” permitted only one child
 insist on later marriage (late 20s)
 incentives contracts, better housing, food, education
 penalties for more than one -- withdraw privileges and assess fines, neighbors inform on non-compliers

Minorities are more difficult to control -- permitted two children

Undermines family support for elderly down the road, no siblings, aunts, uncles, wives.
CULTURAL REVOLUTION 1965 -1977
Members of urban professions "re-educated" and sent to the communes, even Deng
Xiaoping suffered, later he became the prime minister; died in 1997

China has changed. It's not really Communist anymore. Communes are gone.
800,000 rural peasants are now private entrepreneurs. State control over land relinquished. Very little centralized planning any more. Power devolved down to the provinces. Manufacturing occurs in rural areas.

Food production has rocketed by change from concentration on rice to vegetables, hogs. Certain amount of produce taken by state (SOCIALISM), the rest is available for public sale and trade.

Most changes in major cities Beijing, Shanghai, Canton

Chinese periphery - military all around, skirmishes with the Russians
(north), Vietnamese (south) and India (southwest).

Very little of the Chino/Indian border settled, therefore attempts to raise the political and economic status and numbers of people there.

More Han Chinese in Xinjiang Province (west) than local ethnic groups, also in
Mongolia.

Communists moving sympathizers to periphery = SINICIZATION (making it more Chinese). Also an attempt to control, exploit valuable minerals there -- oil, gas, iron, coal.
TIBET (Xizang in Chinese)

Tibetan Buddhist Theocracy on the world's highest plateau

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, in exile in India since 1959

1953 -- Chinese invasion

1959 -- Tibetan evacuation and Tibet under Chinese control

TAIWAN

1949 Defeated Nationalists (Kuomintang) dumped themselves on indigenous
Taiwanese (Malaysian descent). Marshall law until 1970s.

View themselves as independent, and were recognized as such for a time, until
(mainland) China was recognized by the United Nations

China views Taiwan as a breakaway republic of the mainland, which has created great political tension

Great tension between mainland China and Taiwan in late 20 th
early 21 st
centuries

China views Taiwan as a break-away republic and has threatened a violent retake of the island
KOREAS

North and South share same culture -- only divided politically - 2 separate states

North Korea has been a 'hermit' kingdom for much of the 20th century, turned
Communist

South Korea now in developed status, exports cars
MONGOLIA

Buffer state between Russia and China

Wyoming-like landscape, sparsely populated by Buddhists
4