Twists and Turns in Chinese Politics –
Historical Milestones
Pranjali Bandhu
From 1949 to the present the Chinese Communist Party has gone through a hectic series of crises, new formulations and development strategies. From Liu Shao-qi’s ‘Theory of Productive Forces’ to ‘Mao Tse-tung Thought’ and the Cultural Revolution, from Deng Xiao-ping’s ‘Theory of the Three Worlds’ and ‘Four Modernisations’ to Jiang Zemin’s theory of ‘well-off society’ and ‘Theory of the Three Represents,’ to Hu Jintao’s theory of ‘The Scientific Outlook on Development’ emphasizing sustainable development and the resultant harmonious socialist society envisaging peaceful coexistence and harmony within China, as well as with her neighbours and the international community. There have been sudden breaks and shifts in the line of the Chinese Communist Party. The two-line struggle within the CCP meant that the Chinese developmental path was more discontinuous than the Soviet path, which was marked by a more linear succession of Five-Year Plans and an ideology emphasizing continuous growth of the forces of production as the way to build socialism.
Here we try to summarise the major milestones in the economic and political development of the Chinese Republic.
New Democracy
When the Chinese Communist Party came to power in most of mainland China in 1949 it wanted to build a New China (Xinhua). At this point of time the Chinese economy was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal one. The peasants were still carrying the burden of feudal inequities and injustices and Chinese industry was still marked by the domination of Western capitalism. Though far fewer businesses were directly controlled by foreign capitalists than in the twenties and thirties, and it was the so-called bureaucrat capitalists who dominated (four families with dominant positions in the Kuomintang nationalist government), the Chinese economy was still profoundly dependent on foreigners. In 1949, the financial groups tied to the ousted state bureaucracy controlled 35% of all mining industries, 65% of all electrical production, 40% of textile manufacture, and nearly all maritime and river transportation. But they also depended on foreigners for the distribution of their raw products and minerals. The economy was thus typically colonial in that it exported raw materials while importing finished, machine-made goods. This unequal exchange enforced through unequal treaties kept the economy backward and stagnant.
The economy was also unevenly developed and imbalanced, another side-effect of capitalism. Heavy industry, especially the industry of the means of production (metallurgy, cement and machines) was far behind light industry. Mining industries operated mainly for export and light industries depended on imported materials, on American cotton, for e.g., in the textile industry. One region would export certain surplus goods, while another region would import these same goods from abroad. There was no Chinese national market. Moreover, industry was concentrated in the coastal towns and cities and in the Northeast – the regions that were most favourable for commerce with foreign countries. The network of modern transportation (railways, roads and steamships) was also similarly imbalanced. Most of the railroads were concentrated in the Northeast and around the major ports of the East; provinces such as Sichuan and Fujian had no railways at all, and hence there was no possibility of the movement of surplus agricultural produce from these regions to those that lacked it.1
In 1949, the Chinese peasants in the rural areas still lived in a state of dependence on the landowners, except for those who had lived in the liberated zones and had benefited from the Agrarian Reform Law of 1947. The tenant farmers had to pay considerable rent either in money or kind, as well as perform a whole series of special duties and obligations. Even those who owned the land in their name had to go into debt to the landowners each time there was a famine, and all peasants were politically dependent on landowners, who controlled the local government, especially with regard to legal and financial matters; to be out of favour with them was fatal. Rich peasants, who produced for the local market and were independent of these bonds, were few in number.
To understand better the tensions that later emerged on the political front and the direction that the economy took we need to take a closer look at the administrative structure of the new democratic government that emerged in 1949.
The 4-class alliance (workers, peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie) reflected in the Advisory Political Conference had proclaimed the new state and laid down the Common Programme. It was maintained as a provisional parliament and as a Constituent Assembly and it helped formulate the Constitution of 1954. It had a majority of non-Communist parties, eight in number, and all of them had consented to the leadership role of the Communist Party in their manifestos. The conference also defined the executive power structure and its branches. The Central people’s government, which was initially headed by Mao Tse-tung, was responsible for internal and external policy. It enacted laws and ratified the budget. But the real management of affairs was handled by a Council of State Affairs, which was headed by Chou En-lai and included the major ministries. The external affairs ministry, the security services and education were all under the direct control of the prime minister. Judicial and military institutions were tied to the Central government. This complex and almost dual power state structure gave important positions to non-communists, though it must be noted that it was the Communist Party that selected and appointed delegates from the non-communist, democratic parties into positions of power at all levels of the government. At the lower levels millions of adherents to the old regime rallied behind the new government. There was conflict between them and the old militants from the guerrilla bases. Many of the new organisations initially functioned in a void and all important decisions were made by the CCP and the military.
Thus, both politically and economically, the new democratic state was not a socialist one. The economic reconstruction that began in the 1950s reflected these contradictions of interests in the democratic bloc—for example, the clash of interests of poor and rich peasants, and of workers with the management and national capitalists.
The new democratic economy was organised into 5 sectors: (1) the state enterprises: these included those confiscated from the four great families of the Kuomintang and from foreigners; those that had already been nationalised before 1949 (like the railroads) and those that had been newly created (for large-scale and international commerce); (2) the private enterprises of the national capitalists; (3) state capitalist enterprises, whose mixed status derived from the fact that they belonged both to the national capitalists who kept their shares and to the state that had taken over the shares of the old bureaucratic capitalists; (4) the cooperatives, which had already become numerous in such areas as agriculture, urban crafts and small businesses and finally (5) the small private individual businesses still common in the cities.
In agriculture, an agrarian reform was carried out throughout the mainland. The Agrarian Reform Law of 1950 divided up the properties of the landlords among the poor and middle peasants without indemnity. Tenant farming—with payments both in cash and kind—was abolished. Also abolished were forced labour and other feudal services traditionally demanded of the peasantry. In the short run there was an increase in agricultural production, but in the long run there was a tendency towards competition and class polarisation, which led to the eviction of the poorest by the richest. This was sought to be mitigated through the formation of mutual aid teams and the cooperative movement.
The Soviet Model
After liberation in 1949 the New Democratic government of China led by the CCP entered the worldwide socialist camp and based itself on the Soviet model of development. The government was initially guided by the Common Programme of 1949 and the principles of New Democracy as enunciated by Mao Tse-tung. This meant that they would not yet attempt to build socialism; rather they would seek to realize the aspirations of the four revolutionary classes that had come to power, that is, the industrial proletariat, the poor peasants, the middle classes and the national capitalists. Politically, this alliance was represented by the communists, small centrist liberal parties, Kuomintang dissidents, people without party affiliation, as well as civilian and military organisations. The Common Programme that all these political forces agreed upon followed a policy that was concerned with both private and public interests, that benefited both the bosses and the workers, and which encouraged mutual aid between the cities and the countryside and the exchange of goods between China and foreign countries. It aimed at building a prosperous China based on the rule of law.2
The Korean War that broke out at this juncture placed an unexpected burden in these early stages of building up the Chinese economy. Post Second World War, Korea got divided into two in the same way as Germany was divided up among the occupying Soviet Union and the other allied powers. This division was against the wishes of the large majority of Koreans and the North invaded the South in order to overcome it. The United Nations responded by condemning the North and sent an expeditionary force that was for all intents and purposes U.S. American. U.S. troops were also sent to Taiwan and the Seventh American Fleet anchored off Fujian in order to protect Chiang Kai-shek’s government. The embargo of May 1951 forbade all trade between the U.S. and communist China. The UN continued to exclude representatives of communist China. In autumn 1950 U.S. troops arrived at the Yalu on the Chinese border.
At this point China was forced to get actively involved in the Korean War and sent volunteer divisions to fight in Korea. In 1951, the front stabilized and a murderous war of position began. In order to deal with this conventional war front the Chinese had to create heavy artillery as well as build up road and air transportation services. China had to take Russian aid for this and the heavy toll of material and men in this war held up the work of reconstruction in China. A large number of qualified industrial workers were killed in the war. In 1950, Mao signed a Mutual Aid and Friendship Treaty with Moscow. Through this treaty the Chinese were able to get some credit, Soviet help in developing civil aviation, the port of Dairen Dalian, and the Northeast railroad as well as in prospecting for oil and nonferrous metals in Sinkiang, in an area that had been occupied by the Soviets in the 1930s and 1940s. This mining was to be undertaken together in joint venture companies, the same system that was used to tap the natural resources of Poland, Rumania and North Korea. The yuan was linked with the rouble and Soviet influence was expanded among the population by forming an Association of Chinese-Soviet Friendship. Russian became the first foreign language taught in schools.
When China made its first Five-Year Plan in 1953 it chose the Soviet Union as an economic and political model. The First Five-Year Plan was declared the instrument of transition from new democracy to socialism. The Plan rested on the principle of laying greater emphasis on the development of productive forces rather than on the change of the consciousness of the people, the relations of production. The planning process favoured a bureaucratic structure with the initiative coming largely from above. An elitist section of technocrat managers with a privileged political and material status was in charge of the production process. The workers themselves were hardly involved in the process of planning production targets and programmes and in researching technical innovations. Instead, they were made to compete with one another on an individual basis for increasing output. This was based on the Russian model of Stakhanovism.3
Again, as in the Soviet model, emphasis was laid on giving primacy to the development of heavy industry and this favoured large projects located mainly in the cities. The Plan was also influenced by China’s ties with the Soviet Union. Priority was given to those sectors where cooperation with the Soviet Union was possible. Out of 694 heavy industry projects 211 were to be carried out with Soviet equipment and technicians. The Soviet Union sent spare parts and thousands of experts to build up the heavy industry. Chinese technicians were required to study Russian. In agriculture, too, many large-scale projects were carried out with heavy equipment and experts brought in from Eastern Europe; these included state farms and tractor stations, large dams and networks of canals, and bands of protected forest.4
In the army, too, the emphasis was on modernisation, specialisation and technical development. Decorations, honorary titles and prestige uniforms were copied from the Soviet Union. It was already getting prototypes, parts and technical advice and tried to further strengthen technological ties with the Soviet Union so that it could get equipment for aviation, heavy artillery, logistical infrastructures and eventually nuclear armaments. In imitation of the Soviet model the Army became a professional body carrying out recruitment administratively and ceased to have anything to do with political work and support of production.
The First Five-Year Plan enabled a tremendous growth in the Chinese economy (15 per cent in industry and 23.5 per cent in agriculture). But the downside of its approach to planning was the vertical administrative apparatus put in place; and the growth of an excessive managerial staff that had only weak ties to the base. The plan’s production oriented policy required accelerating the pace, lengthening the workday, extending piecework salary and profit bonuses and tightening discipline. In fact, while industrial productivity increased 42 per cent between 1953 and 1955 the average salary increased only 15 per cent and real salary (buying power) increased merely by 7 per cent.5
The rural areas were not paid much attention and became subordinated to the interests of industry. Investment in agriculture was much lower than in industry. Agricultural prices were fixed centrally and kept much lower than the prices of industrial products. The quotas of obligatory sales to the state (between 16 and 25 per cent of the harvest) were quite high. Mao Tse-tung responded to the above drawbacks of the First Five-year Plan by accelerating the cooperative movement in the countryside, launching the “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” movement, which tried to combat bureaucratic tendencies in the arts and sciences and allow for free and open discussion, and the Great Leap Forward.
The Great Debate
The questioning of the Soviet model, which was already implicit in the above movements and in Mao’s article “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”(1957), came to a head with the death of Stalin in 1956, the subsequent denunciation of Stalinism by Khrushchev and the crisis created within the communist movement worldwide because of the full-scale capitalist restoration process in Russia and the role of an imperialist superpower that it began to play on the international arena in contention and collaboration with the other superpower, the US.
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, in November 1957, there took place an International Conference of Communist Parties in Moscow, which Mao attended. The contradictions in the ‘socialist’ camp were not aired openly and a common declaration was adopted. A nuclear agreement guaranteed Soviet protection to China. But the trend towards a rift between the two countries soon became clear. In mid-1960 the Soviet Union withdrew its technicians from China and ended its assistance for setting up a certain number of industrial installations. There was criticism and counter criticism of each other’s policies cloaked in Marxist jargon. But the main reason behind this breakdown of cooperation was the refusal of the Soviet Union to back China in international affairs. During the Taiwan Straits affair6 and after the Tibetan Uprising in 1959 and the fleeing of the Dalai Lama to India and in the later border conflict with India in 1962 the Soviet Union did not back China. The CCP viewed this approach on the part of the Soviet party as a growing compromise with the US. But a façade of friendship and alliance was still maintained at the International Congress of 81 Communist and Workers’ parties in Moscow in November 1960.
In April and May 1962 there were again border incidents around the Ili river in the north-eastern part of Sinkiang province (the Soviets were deporting Chinese) and again in September 1963 in Naouchki. These were manifestations of a growing conflict and collision of viewpoints which came out in the open between 1963 and 1964. The CCP published during this period ‘Nine Articles’ in the form of a book7 accusing the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of having betrayed the principles of the October Revolution, of “restoring capitalism” and of “being in collusion with American imperialism.” In the ninth article “On Khrushchev’s Phoney Communism and its Historical lessons for the World” an attempt was made to enumerate conditions that would not allow China “to change colour;” these were measures to overcome the gap between intellectual and manual workers, participation of cadres in production, democracy in the army and the take-over of public security duties by the people. These were also indications of the impending Cultural Revolution in China.
Within the CCP in China there was a sharpening of the two-line struggle. The Eighth Congress of the CCP in 1956 had been dominated by Liu Shao-qi who had denounced the mass line as a “leftist deviation” and declared that the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat had been resolved. The principal contradiction now was that between the “advanced” social system and the “backward” production forces (this refers to the people and technology). Emphasis was laid on developing technical skills and on management of the economy. Salaries were raised for the upper strata of the working class. Impetus was given for the re-establishment of an agricultural free market and an extension of private plots of land. The revised statutes eliminated references to “Mao Tse-tung Thought,” which had been defined in the Seventh Congress of the CCP in 1945 as the Chinese expression of Marxism.8 In the atmosphere of 1956, when the cult of personality in relation to Stalin had been criticized by Khrushchev, this appeared to be nothing more than a preventive measure against such a cult in China.
But the struggle between the Left and the Right within the Chinese Communist Party went on. The crisis had come out into the open in 1959 at Lushan during the Eighth Plenum of the Central Committee. Peng De-huai, Minister of Defence, and an open adversary of the Great Leap Forward because of what he believed were the technical imperatives of the army and economy was replaced by Lin Piao, and his supporters were removed from leadership. Mao self-criticised the mistakes of the Great Leap Forward,9 while reaffirming the general correctness of the Leftist line.
In 1960, however, natural calamities together with the difficulties of the Great Leap Forward, combined with the effects of the Sino-Soviet break, caused a very serious economic crisis. This gave a handle to the Right to go on the offensive and the Left had to beat a temporary retreat. The Rightists in the Party had the support of the rich peasants and of the intellectuals. They were relieved of manual labour and a free market came into existence again. Liu Shao-qi, who had replaced Mao to become President of the PRC, attacked the Great Leap Forward in 1962 within the party and publicly.
During the period from 1962-1965 there was a resurgence of the political and ideological struggle between the two lines. While Mao, in the light of the Soviet experience internationally and because of the internal contradictions, emphasized never forgetting class struggle, Deng Xiao-ping, Secretary General of the CCP declared, “As long as we increase production, we can even revert to individual enterprise; it hardly matters whether a cat is black or white – as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.”10
Bombard the Headquarters!
Various movements that were launched under Mao Tse-tung’s initiative during this period emphasized class struggle against capitalist tendencies and continuing the revolution in the relations of production. The Movement for Socialist Education was started with the motive to remove some of the ills of the existing education system, which was still too heavy in terms of course load, was exam-oriented and apolitical, and not related to practice in any way. An offensive was carried out against revisionism in the field of culture too, against intellectuals and writers, who refused to associate themselves with the masses. The workers and peasants were encouraged to write their own history.
A movement was started to study and apply the ‘Thought of Mao Tse-tung;’ the army, now led by Lin Piao, was the backbone of this movement. The PLA sent propaganda teams for spreading ‘Mao Tse-tung Thought’ with the help of the ‘Little Red Book.’ A spirit of collectivism was fostered in the countryside. All this was preparation at the ‘base’ to try and settle the two-line struggle in the upper echelons of the party and bureaucracy. Between 1962 and 1966 the CC of the CPC did not meet even once and this was an indication of the tensions and contradictions within it.
The target was the “representatives of the bourgeoisie who have infiltrated the Party, the government and the army.” The aim was to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat transferring the movement from the cultural to the political sphere. It emphasized that the class struggle would continue during the period of transition towards socialism and that the new bourgeoisie could be just as deadly as the old bourgeoisie and that the institutions of socialism meant nothing without an ideological revolution in political consciousness. Launching a criticism from the base outside party and state apparatuses the people should ferret out certain leading cadres in the Party who were taking the capitalist road. Among these, Liu Shao-qi was a prime target.
The dazibao (large character posters) were used by the people to express their criticism. In July 1966 Mao put up his own dazibao on the door of the Central Committee in Beijing, which proclaimed: “Bombard the headquarters.” The 16th Plenum of the Central Committee emphasized the creative contribution of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought to Marxism-Leninism and adopted a “16-Point Declaration” as a charter for the Cultural Revolution. It affirmed that the 2-line struggle be continued in the cultural and educational institutions and party bodies by mobilising the masses. Red Guards from among the students were formed to give shape to and guide the struggle. But since the students were too limited and unstable a base for the movement it was necessary to incorporate the workers, especially those working in the large industries in the towns. With the incorporation of the workers into the movement the Cultural Revolution shifted from Beijing to Shanghai, the largest industrial city in China.
In 1967, a congress of Red Guards and conferences of militant workers and peasants were held. Soon everywhere aggressive protest groups sprang up. But they were very often torn apart by factional quarrels and an irresponsible form of anarchy. Sometimes, they even abandoned ideological struggle and engaged in bloody brawls. These occurrences may be due to the immature and unstable social base of these groups—young inexperienced workers, recent immigrants to the cities, and students. In July, these extreme left and anarchist elements took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing and exhorted Chinese living abroad into radical activities in Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. This trend towards extreme leftism and anarchy was reined in by Mao and other leaders at the centre. The army was used to restore “order” and cadres were sent back into production and factories and students into the universities to study.
Liu Shao-qi, the main proponent of the theory of productive forces, and who was the main target of the Cultural Revolution, was removed from office permanently and expelled from the Communist Party. This was done denouncing him as an agent of the Kuomintang, which necessitated a redefinition of the Cultural Revolution. The CR was now defined as a continuation of the old struggles of the CCP against the Kuomintang rather than a new struggle based on new values and contradictions peculiar to a socialist society seeking its fundamental options. Revolutionary Committees of representatives of the people, party cadres and technicians were formed as temporary organs of power in almost all provinces, including in Tibet and Sinkiang. The movement was stopped before these institutions could be radically changed to incorporate Paris Commune type base level democracy, which had directly controlled the state administrative apparatus through elections from below.
The Cultural Revolution period was marked not just by a focus on the internal class struggle. During this period many gestures of solidarity were made towards the Vietnamese Resistance, the struggle of the Portuguese colonies, the American Blacks, the Naxalite guerrillas in India and “May 1968” in France. Chinese citizens abroad were for the first time encouraged to take part in the local politics of the countries they were residing in.
In the aftermath of the high tide of the Cultural Revolution there was a re-emphasis on reconstruction of party organisations, but within the framework of a struggle between the two lines. The Ninth Congress of the CPC that took place in 1968 was dominated by Lin Piao who was mentioned as Mao’s successor in the party statutes. His rise as head of the army has to be seen in the context of international tension (Prague, Vietnam, and border disputes with the Russians over the islands in the Ussuri River)13 and in the internal context, where the rebuilding of party organisations was proceeding at a very slow pace and the army had great influence in the political life of the country. PLA soldiers had acquired a dominant position in the CC and Politburo due to their role in the CR and the Revolutionary Committees and in containing the anarchy. But in the process of reconstruction of the party and the state with the participation of many of those who had been criticised in 1966-69, Lin Piao and the group around him were eliminated. Allegations of a pro-Soviet tilt on his part were also aired, as well as a conspiracy against Mao. The elimination of Lin Piao was part of the process of the gradual removal of the army from leadership bodies and its confinement to a sphere less politically oriented.
During this period there was a continuing criticism of the bourgeois rightist trend within the Party, which was carried out mainly by the ‘Shanghai Group of Four’ that had come to the forefront during the Cultural Revolution. Despite this the capitalist wing within the party remained strong. This could be seen in the return of Deng Xiao-ping to important positions in the Party and state. In the period 1966-68 he had been harshly criticised as the right hand man of Liu Shao-qi, but in 1974-75 he rose to the status of Prime Minister without title working side-by-side with Chou En-lai. In spring 1974, for e.g., he appeared in the UN in New York and gave his famous speech on the ‘Three World Theory’.14 And in 1977, after Mao’s death, he was officially rehabilitated and began to play a highly prominent role in the government.
In the early ‘70s China’s foreign policy was shaped by the ‘Theory of the Three Worlds.’ The main enemies were considered to be the two superpowers (the U.S. and the Soviet Union), and among these the Soviet Union was considered to be the more dangerous one. This led to a sort of rapprochement with the U.S. Nixon visited China in 1972 and soon after China was accepted into the UN in place of Taiwan. Diplomatic and economic links were established with Western capitalist powers. In the bid to isolate the Soviet Union, authoritarian regimes such as the ones in Pakistan, Iran and Ethiopia were supported and there was a corresponding decrease in support and aid to revolutionary movements in many countries.
Events moved very rapidly and in an extremely turbulent fashion in 1976. After Chou En-lai died, Deng Xiao-ping was initially ousted from his positions of unofficial power with a vigorous attack launched on the economic programme prepared by him in 1975. (“Several Problems Relating to the Acceleration of Industrial Development.”) This text insisted on importing advanced techniques, exporting mining products, the individual responsibility of the managers of businesses, the promotion of the most productive workers and raising of their salaries. The leftist forces opposed this capitalist path in favour of a socialist path that was enunciated in the Shanghai Textbook published in 1975.15 At this time China was still undergoing the extraordinary struggle and ferment of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Factories in Shanghai and in many other cities were experimenting with new forms of worker participation in management. Peasants were discussing the ways in which Confucian patriarchal and authoritarian values still influenced their lives. Scientists were conducting research among and sharing knowledge with workers rich in practical experience. The Shanghai Textbook, the key figure behind which was Chang Chun-chiao, was conceived of as a rigorous exposition of socialist political economy.
Instead of Deng Xiao-ping, the moderate Hua Kuo-feng was appointed acting Premier. He represented a compromise between the right and left forces. But the efforts of the ‘Group of Four’ were brought to naught later in the year after Mao’s death. A military coup was staged in China. The ‘Gang of Four,’ as the ‘Shanghai Four’ began to be called (Chang Chun-chiao, Chiang Ching, Yao Wen-huan and Wang Hung-wen), were arrested and Deng Xiao-ping and his ideas were again rehabilitated. Tried before a kangaroo court in 1980, Chang and Chiang Ching stuck to their principles. They received life sentences. The other two recanted. Chiang Ching died by committing suicide in 1991.16 Through systematic purges within the Party in subsequent years loyalists of the Cultural Revolution, the supporters of the Gang of Four, and any opponents of the Party’s decisive turn towards liberalisation and marketisation were expelled from the Party. Those who called for a return to the socialist path like the Zhenzhou Four in 2004 have been imprisoned and put behind bars.17
To Get Rich is Glorious!
The Rightists were now firmly in the saddle in the CCP. They had attained this position by calling the army into Shanghai and Beijing, by purging fully one quarter of the Central Committee, by ousting ministers associated with the ‘Gang of Four’ in the State Council and by ousting Leftist Party leaders from the administrative units, from the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee and the Central Information Media. There was even a wave of executions at the base. A new Party constitution was adopted in August 1977 and it omitted the article calling for active ideological struggle that was a fruit of the Cultural Revolution and had been incorporated into the ninth and tenth constitutions of the CCP. The new state Constitution adopted in early 1978 called for a major reorganisation of the militia, for dismantling the revolutionary committees and the enforcement of a new legal code with the reappearance of prosecutor’s offices.18
The ‘Four Modernisations,’ as enunciated by Deng Xiao-ping—the modernisations of industry, agriculture, science and technology and national defence—were upheld as the principal task facing the revolution. These were later termed as a programme for ‘socialist modernisation’ and the establishment of a ‘socialist market economy.’ Deng Xiao-ping’s initiatives in this regard were enshrined as Deng Xiao-ping Theory for building ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’ A massive programme of reform of the economy was in the offing with a greater opening of the economy to the outside world. In the course of ‘opening up’ to foreign capital China took membership of the IMF and the World Bank. Foreign capital began to be invited in.
By 1987/88 major institutional changes had taken place in both agriculture and industry giving greater space to privatisation and market forces. This process marked a large-scale retreat from state capitalism and socialist initiatives. Beginning in the late 1970s and extending into the 1980s decollectivisation took place in Chinese agriculture and a contract system was introduced. By 1983 almost all collectively owned farmland had been divided up for operation by individual farm households. Soon land contracts also became transferable from one household to another. The household, which ceased to cultivate the land, was permitted legally to obtain grain from the new cultivator or even rent. Agriculturalists were entitled to own individually, and to bequeath to children, both large and small means of agricultural production. A large number of the bigger means of production remained with the cooperatives and were contracted out for use against fees in an auction system.
There was an expansion in rural non-collective enterprises; in collective enterprises the criteria for appointing managers shifted from the political to the technical. Profit-seeking behaviour was encouraged and the manager’s income was determined by the enterprise’s economic performance, the bonus depending on the degree to which the enterprise over-fulfilled contracted targets. For workers there was a shift from time-rates to piece-rates, introduction of a contract labour system and ‘hire and fire’ practices, a sharp increase in work intensity, and the right to strike was abolished in the 1982 Constitution.
By the mid-1980s a number of collective, non-farm enterprises were able to recruit labour from among peasants who had become ‘redundant’ because of the encouragement to leave farming responsibility to ‘farming experts.’ This meant that a concentration in the farming sector at the cost of smaller peasants was taking place. Private hiring of rural labour expanded rapidly. Rich agricultural areas attracted workers from distant parts. There was also a dramatic change with respect to income differentials, which had earlier been kept limited. After 1978, the slogan was “take the lead in getting rich.”19 As a result of these policies of increased privatisation and the unleashing of capitalist market forces inequities increased in the countryside.
The Fifth Modernisation
After Deng Xiao-ping’s rehabilitation and the putting into effect of his theory of ‘Four Modernisations’ in the economic sphere without loosening the hegemonic domination of the Chinese Communist Party there inevitably came up a demand from political liberals for a fifth modernisation, namely, that of greater democracy. The unleashing of the forces of privatisation had also marked an unleashing of the forces of corruption within the CCP as the new bureaucratic capitalist class sought to enrich itself taking advantage of its privileged positions of power. Corruption led to crime—drug trafficking, gambling, smuggling, prostitution—and a proliferation of underworld gangs that controlled and profited from these activities.
The Democracy movement began in 1978 with a large-scale participation of workers, students and liberal intellectuals. The triggering point was the official reversal of the Communist Party’s verdict on the 1976 Tiananmen incident.20 This announcement prompted thousands of Chinese to gather at ‘Democracy Wall,’ a wall in downtown Beijing, west of Tiananmen, to post and read posters criticising Mao Tse-tung, calling for rehabilitation of his rightist opponents and demanding political reform in addition to economic reform. With time, the vague and diffuse calls for political reform were sharpened into attacks on autocracy and the overwhelming authority of the Communist Party. At this stage, Deng Xiao-ping also came under attack as representing the continuing authority and autocracy of a Party that did not leave enough space for human rights and ordinary civil and democratic rights. There were demands for greater popular participation in the selection procedure of candidates for election to provincial people’s congresses.
Initially, Beijing was the centre of this movement, and then other cities in China too were drawn in. There were demonstrations, posters and an unofficial press flourished. Citizens’ backing of student protests grew out of anger at the corruption of Party and government officials and the special privileges they enjoyed. They were incensed at government and Party officials who were concerned with protecting their own interests rather than those of the people. Many of those in power used it for personal gain: for acquiring goods at low state-fixed prices, import and export licenses, loans and foreign currency at special low exchange rates, so that they could reap huge profits. These people in power plundered state property and did business in the name of their companies. The target of the protests were basically the members of the new bureaucratic bourgeoisie being nurtured within the party—the capitalist roaders—those hovering around Deng Xiao-ping, his relatives, disciples, sycophants and buddies.
But the thrust of the movement was not against the Party per se or even against the socialist modernisation policies or for a return to the Maoist Cultural Revolution style of class struggle to establish and strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat. Many of the protesters were the sons and daughters of the middle and upper strata in China, the children of cadres and intellectuals. They had become disenchanted with Deng because of his refusal to allow the ‘fifth modernisation’ of democracy and his crackdown against the democracy movement.
One of the first to be arrested was Wei Jingsheng, who was the founder of Exploration, one of the people’s journals that flourished during the movement and author of several famous ‘Democracy Wall’ writings including “The Fifth Modernisation – Democracy.”21 He criticised both Mao and Deng as being totalitarian dictators and characterised the society under Communist Party domination to be a fascist one. He advocated freedom, democracy and human rights; according to him without an implementation of democratic freedoms the programme of modernisation would be incomplete. None of the democracy advocates attacked the existing state but sought a guarantee of human rights within the Constitution. It was thought that under the new conditions of limited privatisation and accelerating corruption, democratic freedoms of speech and press were necessary for providing effective supervision over the government. The demand was raised to allow private newspapers, journals, radio and TV stations. The domination of the Communist Party was not questioned, but the demand was raised for greater openness, critical debate and replacement of power politics with democratic procedures within the Party.
Initially, Deng was supportive of the pro-democracy movement to the extent that it supported his modernisation programme, but when some within it began to question the Communist Party itself he came out against it and resorted to harsh suppression. The Deng regime was prepared to liberalise and open the economy to private domestic and foreign capitalists but was not prepared to allow a slackening of Communist Party power as a herald of ‘chaos’ and ‘anarchy’ reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution period. “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, it doesn’t even matter whether the cat can catch mice. What matters is that the cat not get caught,” was the new motto.22
The ‘80s were the decade of further ‘market reforms’ in the Chinese economy. The agricultural sector was further decollectivised and many aspects of the social safety net constructed after 1949 were dismantled. Growing rural and urban unemployment, soaring inflation together with unabated corruption and nepotism within the Communist Party, fuelled a number of clashes between peasants and police and army in these years, as well as workers’ protests and strikes. In 1985, anti-Japanese student demonstrations severely criticised China’s growing international dependencies fostered by the open door policy. The immediate cause was the visit of Japan’s premier to a Shinto shrine where he paid his respects to the memory of military men, including some who were regarded as war criminals in China. Some recalled that Japanese aggression against China began with trade and investment. So the first slogans were “Down with flood of Japanese goods”, but soon shifted to domestic issues like: “Oppose inflation”, “Oppose corruption” and led to much sharper phrases like “The government is incompetent” and “Down with the new Li Hongzhang.”23 The protests culminated in a new high tide of the Pro-democracy movement in 1989. Deng’s sacking of the liberal Hu Yaobang in 198724 was held against him, and on the occasion of Hu’s death students again led protests for democracy and freedom of the press and called for an end to corruption.
These pro-democracy protests started in Beijing in April 1989 and spread quickly to other major cities. Millions joined peaceful demonstrations. On the night of 3-4 June the massacre of students and workers in the Tiananmen Square was carried out using military tanks and troops. The Chinese government has still not officially accounted for the numbers killed, injured or arrested during this movement and maintains that the protests were a “counter-revolutionary riot.”25
WTO Accession
Since the economic reform process that began in China in the late 1970s the country has been gradually putting into place ‘open door’ policies that permit inflow of Western capital and expertise. Towards this end China had opened four special economic zones for foreign investors in 1980, the number of which gradually increased over time. By the mid-1980s the process for a full-fledged integration into the international economic order was also underway and China began participating in the GATT negotiations, the precursor to the WTO. The negotiations for accession to the WTO were protracted but China was allowed entry in late 2001.
WTO entry for China has meant opening up the Chinese economy further to international goods and capital by according national treatment to foreign companies in line with WTO rules. Among some of the measures of trade liberalisation taken are: progressive elimination of quotas and export subsidies, cut in import duties, liberalisation of foreign trade rules to open its wholesale, distribution and retail sectors as well as its finance, telecommunications, shipping, construction and professional services sectors to overseas companies. The service sector includes insurance, public health, computer services, business consulting and accounting, advertising, tourism and education services. The PRC, as a whole, has become the second largest user of foreign investment in the world after the United States due to its opening up policies.
All these measures have allowed a large number of foreign companies to enter the Chinese market. Imports from abroad have increased creating competition for the state-owned and other national enterprises putting into question the continued existence of many of them and leading to the worsening of working conditions and wage levels, and to job losses and unemployment among the urban working class. China has become a source of cheap labour for capitalists from the USA, Japan, UK, Germany, The Netherlands and from the Chinese Diaspora (mainly Hong Kong and Taiwan) and so on. There are western companies that shut down manufacturing plants in their home countries and started production in China because of the vast pool of cheap labour now available here. In view of this situation a number of state-owned enterprises expressed their opposition to China’s accession to the WTO.26
Similarly, on the agricultural front, China’s entry into the WTO threatens to open the floodgates to cheap farm imports. Previously, imports of staple grains like wheat were controlled under a quota system and a tariff as high as 180 per cent was in place to ensure basic food autarky and security. With WTO entry overall tariffs on farm goods have been reduced to 17 per cent and even 14.5 per cent for certain priority products. The farming sector is heavily impacted through this opening up, which is creating further unemployment and impoverishment in the countryside. This coupled with steep taxation by greedy local officials is creating a crisis situation in the countryside. Contract agriculture for corporations is also very much on the anvil as in other ‘developing’ economies. Urbanised peasants have begun to sublease their land to agro-conglomerates, who are stitching together plots to form large-scale cash farms employing landless migrants at less than $2 a day. To promote this process further the Chinese government is contemplating a land operation rights transfer system.27 Prices of staple grains have risen as farmland gets paved over due to construction activity or is converted to profitable orchards and vegetable farms.
Who gains from China’s accession to WTO? First and foremost all the imperialist powers, the U.S. above all, but also Japan, European countries like Germany, and Singapore. By joining it is ensured that China is made to abide by the rules of global economy laid down by the more powerful economies. By forcing open the Chinese market further for its goods, capital and services the U.S. hopes to decrease its trade deficit with China. By becoming a WTO member the Chinese elite class, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, also stands to gain a great deal because of the expansion of the market for its capital and goods in many South and East Asian countries. Chinese made goods—like garments, low end electronic goods and household items—are already flooding the markets in South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and even India. They are cheaper because of their high productivity and low wages. Chinese capital and trade expansion obviously affects the manufacturing activity and consequently the growth rates in these countries.28
Current Scenario
The economic scenario of a sell-out of the interests of the workers and peasants to indigenous and global capital was crowned in 2004 by a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to private property, though laws on this already existed.29 The ‘vanguard of the working class’ is also officially accommodating entrepreneurs within its ranks. The ‘Theory of the Three Represents,’ original ideological contribution of former President Jiang Zemin, has officially transformed the party of the advanced vanguard working class into that of “the whole people”—a typically revisionist position upheld by many former Communist parties all over the world. The new doctrine, which now stands in the Constitution alongside Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tse-tung Thought and Deng Xiao-ping’s Theory as “the important thought of the Three Represents” proclaims that the Chinese state represents the advanced productive forces, the advanced cultural forces and the overwhelming population of China including all its nationalities.
The Academy of Social Sciences has officially redefined Chinese society as composed of 10 social strata, rather than of mutually antagonistic classes of workers, peasants and capitalists. The state-controlled media are helping in changing the image of business people and entrepreneurs in China from villains to heroes. They are already being accommodated within the Party though they have not yet gained any of the top posts. Many of them have bought posts such as mayoralties in southern towns, as official posts (just as scarce jobs in state-owned enterprises) are secretly put up for sale.30 In practice, the Chinese Communist Party has already completely given up its socialist ideology and many of its own members are of the opinion that it is high time it changed its name to conform to this new reality.
It should be noted here that this entrepreneur class in China includes the Communist Party bosses, state elites, new entrepreneurs, overseas Chinese businessmen, and in some areas organised crime bosses. The wealth of the industrial, trade, real estate and other companies they control depends on protection from senior officials and access to soft loans from the state banking system. Cronyism is part of the system. Because initially office holders themselves were forbidden from engaging in business activity, the children and relatives of high officials entered en masse into corporate activity and the lucrative export/import business. Family connections matter a lot in China and the new bureaucrat capitalist rulers of China have carved the economy into gigantic family fiefs. Former President Jiang Zemin’s relatives dominate the telecommunications sector and former Premier Li Peng’s relatives are the biggest players in the energy industry. Corrupt officials use public funds for speculation in real estate or stocks including foreign stocks. The role of speculative finance particularly in the real estate sector has been very high. In joint enterprises with foreigners or overseas Chinese, the Chinese partner can arrange for the business to use property and obtain materials and licenses at well below fair prices; in return the foreign partner deposits foreign currency in overseas accounts in the personal name of the Chinese partner. Illegal capital outflow is thus facilitated. After 1992, this kind of outflow equalled the inflow of foreign capital, or at least has been quite substantial.31 The loot of public property has its matching counterpart in late payment, partial payment or non-payment of wages among state workers of all kinds including lower level officials and teachers.
China is projected as heading towards becoming one of the largest economies of the world in terms of its purchasing power parity. But it must be kept in mind that its spectacular economic growth since the late 1970s is due to its having become a low-cost manufacturing hub for the world. Multinationals have invested and set up joint ventures for manufacturing goods for consumption in the western as well as Asian markets. This is facilitated through a combination of high technology, low-cost vast labour supply and a developed infrastructure. Chinese-made goods are thus extremely competitive in the world market. Among the great variety of goods China now produces and exports, few are invented or designed by the Chinese. As a result, the foreign patent holders, investors and retailers capture the lion’s share of the profit. Growth has come from the country having become an export and import economy. Thus, although China is a giant economy, in terms of GNP per capita, its vast population earning low wages puts it among the twenty-four poorest countries in the world.
Of crucial importance in the sphere of trade has been the commitment of large quantities of Chinese resources as exports in order to balance up the import account. Coal mines, often as joint ventures with foreign companies, have a major chunk of their production earmarked for export. The same is the case for oil. Many indigenous companies are undercut by the production of foreign companies in China or by imports and are seeking to remain afloat in this competitive environment by finding export markets abroad, particularly also in other Asian countries. Because of the extremely low wages that they pay out they are able to keep the prices of their products low. China has become a major market for the most up-to-date equipment for coal mining, steel making, transportation, electronic appliance manufacture and computers.
Culturally, the winds of westernisation have been blowing strong with imitative consumerism coming to the fore. China has been forced to open itself more and more for films from Hollywood. Social evils like prostitution and gambling that had been banned and more or less eradicated in the earlier years of the People’s Republic flourish once more, and these are hailed as achievements of ‘New and Resurgent’ China by the bourgeois media.
The disparity between rich and poor has been increasing by leaps and bounds too in the new reform oriented China. Apart from the many strikes and demonstrations and public protests there also circulate a number of popular sayings about the current state of affairs in China.32 One of them, adopting the viewpoint of an elderly state worker, says:
I worked my whole life for the
Party
And had nothing at the time I
retired;
Now they tell me to live off my
kids.
But my kids one by one have been
fired.
Another popular saying, entitled “A Short History of Comradely Sentiment” runs:
In the 50s we helped people.
In the 60s we criticised people.
In the 70s we deceived people.
In the 80s everybody hired
everybody else.
In the 90s we “slaughter” whoever
we see.
Dissident activity is an ever present reality in China now, but is met with harsh repression by the state. Though China has signed the two United Nations Covenants on Human Rights, and human rights have been incorporated into its Constitution, there are no guarantees for the Chinese people that they will not be detained or arrested for seeking to implement the freedoms of association and expression enshrined in the UN Declaration and in China’s own Constitution. People throughout China have been detained, harassed and imprisoned solely for exercising these rights. In 1997, the government removed the term “counter-revolutionary crimes” from the Criminal Law and replaced it by “crimes against national security.” Those who exercise their fundamental rights of expression and association continue to be detained under this law. The Chinese government has also signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1998, yet dissidents continue to be detained or be given heavy prison sentences. Torture is widespread during detention and is particularly applied to political dissidents and human rights activists.
There is total resistance to a multi-party system by the ruling CPC. Though there are eight parties and groupings in China in addition to the dominant Chinese Communist Party, the emergence of any new political party on a platform of democracy is viewed with suspicion and it is not permitted to register. So far the Chinese government has not allowed the registration of a new political party, the China Democratic Party, and has arrested its founder and other members, though the Party does not question the role of the Communist Party as the ruling party. In addition to the detention and arrests of political activists many others working for actual freedom of association, the right to hold strikes and form independent or autonomous trade unions, people who have been supporters of democracy activists and those exercising their right to participate in elections, those who are simply circulating information, or engaged in organising public discussion about a wide range of social problems, or are even just exercising their right to use the Internet freely, have all been harassed, detained or imprisoned. Groups like “China Labour Monitor” or “Corrupt Behaviour Observers” have not been allowed to function.33
The Chinese authorities do not permit free Internet use. Thousands of Internet cafes have had to be closed and access has been denied to more than half a million websites. At least 30,000 state security personnel are believed to be engaged in surveillance of websites, chat rooms and private e-mail messages. Dozens of people have been detained and some sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for expressing their views or putting ‘subversive’ information on the Internet. Those Internet cafes that are allowed to operate are obliged to install software which filters out more than 500,000 banned sites with pornographic or ‘subversive’ elements. Many websites considered politically sensitive are inaccessible from China including international news sites, the websites of human rights and democracy organisations, and of banned groups. Taiwan and Tibet related sites are regularly blocked.34
In 2006, the Chinese government put up censorial and other supervisory demands to the Internet giants of the US as preconditions for them being allowed to operate in that country, which they all accepted. In fact, it is with the technological cooperation of these firms that China has had an effective filtering process in place. They have even provided private data of their clients to the Chinese government, which has led to the political prosecution of pro-democracy individuals and journalists.35
Not only are overtly pro-democratic political groupings or parties not allowed to function, even unorthodox religious sects like that of the Falun Gong (Buddhist Law) sect are treated with the baton because they are perceived as disturbing a monolithic party ideology. Centred on traditional teachings and physical exercise it has about 70 million adherents in China (more than the Communist Party itself). Based on a blend of Buddhism, Taoism and spirituality it appeals to those affected most by the modernisation process and has a large number of poor farmers among its adherents. But it also includes Communist Party officials and other professionals. The group has been banned from practice in public and dissemination of its material is also not permitted. Thousands of adherents have been arrested and Communist Party adherents, if discovered, are expelled from the Party. Any kind of divergence from officially laid down party doctrine does not find much tolerance from the power holders. Only the Party can change its own line in order to adapt to changing reality.
Workers and Peasants against the State
Growing inequality and socio-economic displacement in China have fuelled a growing number of marches, sit-ins and petitions and violent and non-violent protests, riots, and strikes. This unrest is prevalent in all sectors of the workforce: peasants in the interior, employees of the state enterprises, young workers in the coastal ‘export zones.’ They all have organised themselves together in major confrontations with their exploiters.36
In Shaanxi province, in 2004, 6,800 workers at a newly privatised textile factory, mostly women, beat back an assault on their livelihoods and working conditions in a seven-week long strike. The new owners sought layoffs, lower wages and elimination of workers’ seniority benefits and pensions—measures that are typical of the ‘restructuring’ that goes along with the sell-off of state-owned factories.
Sweatshop workers in the booming southern coastal province of Guangdong, who produce goods for export such as shoes, toys and electronic items for very low wages in factories owned by western companies, have been striking for wage hikes and better working conditions. Many of the industrial complexes resemble penal labour camps with crowded barrack like dormitories and barbed wire fences and high walls. Many of these foreign factories break their own codes of conduct and China’s labour laws in these export enclaves. But they are protected by state security guards, paramilitary policemen and units of the People’s Armed Police, who are a constant vigilant presence in such industrial townships.
More and more workers in these enclaves and in other Chinese-owned or joint venture manufacturing units have to endure 12-hour or even longer working days and six-day weeks, the continual threat of mass lay-offs, and some of the most dangerous working conditions in the world. Accidental poisonings, most often in shoe and garment factories, kill several hundred workers every year. The situation in the mining sector is particularly bad and the death rate is very high. Migrant workers from the countryside are denied access to medical care, proper housing and education for their children. They have no trade unions or written contracts—although Chinese law guarantees these rights. Their employers also frequently delay paying their wages. Workers have been forming new organisations outside those controlled by the Communist Party. In 1999, workers in the city of Tianjin announced the formation of an underground workers union and named it “Chinese Association to protect Workers’ Rights.” They declared that they had formed this association because the government-controlled “All-China Federation of Trade Unions” was perceived as not sufficiently serving the interests of the workers.37
Violent protests are common in rural China where around 70 million landless peasants presently live. Farmers have demonstrated against local abuses of power including illegal taxes and levies, confiscation of property and the issuing of IOUs instead of cash for crops bought by the state. The local authorities collect all sorts of levies to cover their own often extravagant spending. They act like new warlords in their own little fiefdoms, spending public money freely on their own homes, cars and general conspicuous consumption.
Notes
1. J. Chesneaux et. al., 1979: 18-19.
2. Ibid.: 9.
3. Stakhanovism was a movement triggered in the Soviet Union in the mid-1930s and emphasised speed and higher productivity of the workers through a system of material incentives. Because of the intensification of work that was involved it implied an increase in illnesses and injuries and was often resisted by labour unions in other countries where it was attempted to be introduced. For a more detailed account of the movement and its implications for the workers see Bettelheim, 1994, pp. 138-140.
4. J. Chesneaux et. al., op. cit., pp. 58-59.
5. Ibid., p. 66.
6. The Taiwan Straits affair refers to the escalation in tension between the US and China from 1954 onwards, which climaxed in 1958. US policy favoured strong support for the Nationalist government in Taiwan in the wake of the Sino-Soviet alliance of February 1950 and the Korean War. Taiwan was granted civil and military aid, trade preferences and market access by the US. A Mutual Defence Treaty was also concluded with it. The Chinese communist government refused to accept this, declared its intention to liberate Taiwan by force and followed this by military action in the Taiwan Straits.
7. The book was titled, “The Polemic on the General Line of the International Communist Movement,” Beijing: Foreign languages Press, 1965. Reprint London: Red Star Press, 1976. It became well-known as “The Great Debate.”
8. Mao Tse-tung Thought has variously been described as follows by the Chinese communists: as “Chinese Communism” in opposition to “Russian Bolshevism,” that is, as a national variant of Marxism-Leninism crystallised on the basis of the experiences of the Chinese revolution, but also as having universal significance for people’s struggles all over the world. It has been propagated as “a completely new stage” of Marxism-Leninism, as the Marxism-Leninism of “a completely new era”, as compared to Leninism as “the Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian Revolution” (Stalin’s definition). The formulation Marxism-Leninism Mao Tse-tung Thought also exists, which does not try to replace Marxism-Leninism by Mao Tse-tung Thought, but only considers it to be a further development of Marxism-Leninism.
9. See J. Chesneaux et. al., 1979: 102-3 and Schram, 1974: 142-5.
10. J. Chexneaux et. al., 1979: 117 and 115.
11. By 1969 the Soviet Union had massed an enormous military force on its border with China and was openly talking about a nuclear option. Seemingly, Lin Piao had argued for a policy of accommodation with the Soviet Union. It was alleged that he attempted an unsuccessful coup against Mao in 1971 because he was thwarted in this strategy.
12. Deng Xiao-ping’s speech of 10 April 1974 at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly was printed in Beijing Review, No. 15, 12 April 1974 in the Supplement.
13. See R. Lotta, 1994, p. vi. Work on the Shanghai textbook was started in 1971 and it went through many drafts. It based itself on Mao’s dictum of the continuous revolutionisation of the productive forces to make the transition to a classless society.
16. See Introduction to “And Mao Makes 5”, edited and introduced by R. Lotta. Chicago: Banner Press, 1978. Also see, Lotta, 1994, p. xli.
17. Frontier, Issues Feb. 15-21, 2004, pp. 6-7; and Feb. 27-March 5, 2005, pp. 6-10.
18. See Lotta, “And Mao Makes 5,” op. cit., p. 49.
19. Peter Nolan, “Petty Commodity Production in a Socialist Economy: Chinese Rural Development post-Mao, pp. 7-42 in: Nolan and Fureng (eds.).
20. On 5 April, 1976 thousands of people had gathered here to mourn Chou En-lai’s death. This event was used by Mao Tse-tung to get Deng Xiao-ping dismissed from all his posts. But with Deng’s rehabilitation and victory over the ‘Gang of Four’ this incident was interpreted by the Party as having indicated a support for Deng and his policy of ‘socialist modernisation.’
21. Other writings included: “Do we want Democracy or do we want Dictatorship?” and an expose of China’s prisons for top political prisoners entitled “A Twentieth Century Bastille – Qincheng No. 1 Prison."
22. See Peter Harris: “The Democracy Movement,” Review of 4 books in: Index on Censorship, April,
1981 (Vol. 10, No. 2), London: Writers and Scholars International Ltd. Also see Hinton, p. 9.
23. Li Hongzhang was the Qing dynasty viceroy who helped crush the Taiping Rebellion, brought in foreigners to build modern plants China, built a ‘modern’ army and navy, but still lost in the war with Japan in 1895 and then gave in to humiliating Japanese demands at Shimoneskeki. To call Deng the new Li Hongzhang is to criticise, first and foremost, his handling of Japan and trade with Japan. (Hinton: 97).
24. Hua Kuo Feng, selected by Mao Tse-tung as premier and Party vice chairman in early 1976, became Party Chairman after Mao’s death. He was replaced by Hu Yaobang as Party Chairman in 1981 by Deng because he was not considered loyal enough. But Hu himself was later forced to resign in 1987 from his post as Party General Secretary because he failed to control student demonstrations in 1986. His death in April 1989 became the occasion for the famous protest demonstrations in the Tiananmen Square in that year.
25. See Amnesty International, “People’s Republic of China: Tiananmen – 10 Years on – Forgotten Prisoners.” April, 1999.
26. Alka Acharya: “The ‘New Deal’: China on the Threshold of WTO.” Economic and Political Weekly, Dec. 18, 1999, p. 3567.
27. News from China, March 14, 2001, p. 6.
28. D.H. Pai Panandikar: “Who Gains from India-China Trade? The Hindustan Times, 16/01/2002. Reprinted in: News from China, Jan. 15-28, 2002, p. 21.
29. All land in China is nominally owned by the state but land use rights can be purchased by private individuals or organisations for up to 70 years for the construction of residential property, up to 50 years for industrial and 40 years for commercial use. At the end of the contract, one can enter into new contracts. The land rights can also be transferred to others. The government is also mandating public auctions for the transfer of most types of commercial land. It has introduced other reforms that make it easier for outsiders/foreigners to get into real estate business and speculation in China.
30. Jasper Becker: “Obsolete Marx out of the Party” South China Morning Post, Jan. 26, 2002.
31. “A Great leap Backward?” by Lin Binyan and Perry Link: Review of He Qinglian’s book, “China’s Pitfall”, (Hongkong). New York Review of Books, Oct. 8, 1998, p. 20.
32. Ibid., p. 22.
33. See Amnesty International: “CHINA: No Improvement in Human Rights: The Imprisonment of Dissidents in 1998” (ASA 17/014/1999). Also see, Asia Pacific Forum, No. 4, August 1999, p. 15.
34. “China clamps down on users of the Internet.” the wire, Amnesty International, December 2002, Vol. 32, No. 10, p. 1. See also the study of filtering of websites in China at
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/china/. Website last updated on March 20, 2003; accessed by author on 15.05.2006.
35. See Tibetan Review, March 2006, Editorial and report on pp. 8&9.
36. See, David Whitehouse: “China a Theatre of Struggles,” Tibetan Review, January 2005, p. 30. Also see: “China: Workers Festive Cheer threatened,” The Sunday Times, Bangalore ed., Dec. 15, 2004; Leslie Fong: “Great Discontent Under Heaven,” The Strait Times, Singapore, January 5, 2003; Manas Chakravarty, Business Standard, (India) Nov. 22, 2004 and Fei-Ling Wang: “But the Chinese Dragon is still poor and weak.” Deccan Chronicle, 24 July, 2005.
37. Frontier, Feb. 22-28, 2004, p. 8.
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[This article was first published as an Appendix in The Tibetan Saga for National Liberation, Odyssey, 2007]