China: Communism and Post-Communism?

QUIZ

(Regime classification at end today. We'll get the China background first, then do our analysis.)

Take-away lessons for today, with China as the case:

• How the non-Western world came under pressure from the West (turned into colonies, semi-colonies)

• How the non-Western world confronted the Western threat.

• How the Communist Party (institution) was able to come to power in China.

• How the Communist Party has ruled China (under Mao with agrarian focus and radical movements, and under reform with market mechanisms and Communist Party control).

In the 1800s, China came under increasing pressure from a Western world that was rising in wealth as well as industrial and military strength.  China, once one of the world's most brilliant civilizations, had fallen behind.  The Western nations were taking China's territory, turning the country into a virtual colony, carving it into "spheres of influence," dominating the economy and politics of various areas. Even lost a war 1895 to Japan, another newly developing country (seen as the ultimate humiliation!!).

Cixi, the Empress Dowager, blamed for much of China's weakness in the late 1800s/early 1900s (Wikipedia)

Chinese Responses to the West:

• Some advocated maintaining China’s course, buying off the foreigners and hoping that it would all go away.
• Some advocated retaining the best of China (the Chinese essence or spirit, ti) and adapting those things from the West that would be useful (yong, the West for practical matters, use). 
• Some advocated wholesale Westernization, revolution, or change in a multiplicity of different directions.
• China had republicans, anarchists, democrats, and COMMUNISTS.  One of Mao Zedong's early essays ("A Study of Physical Education," 1917) diagnoses China's problems as caused by lack of physical and martial strength.  Came to Communism first from a desire to save China.

Mao Zedong from Marxists.org

How were Mao Zedong’s Communists able to come to power in China?

• Invasion by Japan World War II (started with Manchuria invasion 1931, then full-scale war from 1937). Allowed the Communists to play the nationalist card. We are the ones trying to save China!
• Errors by Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalist Party (GMD Guomindang/KMT Kuomintang).  Authoritarian, corrupt regime, isolated from the concerns of the people, press-ganging citizens into military service.
• Revolutionary blueprint developed by Mao (from the rural areas, guerrilla warfare, heroism of the 1934-1935 Long March) and active social agenda (promote the poor, teach them to read, write, reduce rents/not redistribution, some encouragement of women's rights, particularly in economic production)
• United Front (borrowed from Lenin).  Ally with those who oppose your greatest enemy. Deal with allies later. So, Communists at times allied with bourgeois nationalists, even Chiang, to oppose Japanese imperialism.  Legacy in Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) today.  Sidelined former allies after the revolution as moved to socialize economy, shut former allies out of politics.
• Support by the USSR (minor factor, Stalin had little faith in Communism's prospects in China, thought Mao was a "radish Communist," red on the outside and white/non-Communist on the inside).

Chiang photo (rt) from Wikipedia.

Josef Stalin (lt) from Wikipedia

People’s Republic of China founded October 1, 1949.  Mao announced that China had "stood up," reclaimed its place of greatness on the world stage.

Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists (KMT/GMD) retreated to Taiwan, which remains separate to today (see map above for Taiwan location)

What was the essence of Mao’s Communism?

• Developed Marxism and Leninism into Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.
• Combine theory with practice.  Mao was making revolution before he had a chance to study Communist thought in depth!
• Make revolution from the rural areas (“single spark can start a prairie fire”).
• Vanguard party (Chinese Communist Party).
• For Mao, peasants would be the source of support for China’s Communist movement (think about contrast with traditional Marxism's emphasis on the industrial working class).  Have to understand China's reality.  If waiting for the industrial working class, will be waiting a long time!!
• Importance of ideological change, create a new Communist man from the heart (difference with traditional Marxist emphases on your ideas and values coming from your relation to the means of production).
• At the same time you are relying on the peasants for recruits, information, begin to provide services: education, opportunities for advancement. 
• Part of Mao's democracy was the mass line: from the masses, to the masses.  Role of party to systematize masses' ideas, inform with theory.

Nature of the Chinese Communist System under Mao (not just one Mao, changed from one era to another):

• Reliance upon the Soviet Union and that included Soviet money as well as Soviet methods.  Importance of heavy industry. Bureaucratization of the economy at the center stifled local initiative.
• By the late 1950s, Mao was pushing more radical movements to change the economy (communes, socialist transformation completed by late 1950s, away from Soviet model). 
• Overcome handicaps in China’s supply of capital by substituting the type of capital China had in abundance: human capital. 
• The Great Leap Forward (launched in 1958) was a dreadful failure. Trying to use revolutionary fervor to triumph over China's objective economic conditions, "politics in command." Use human capital to invest, make dramatic economic strides, pass Britain in steel production.  Organize all of society in communes (political and economic units, decentralization). Trying to show USSR, China ahead, while Russia became gray and bureaucratized.  Equalize pay or get rid of pay (work points), demanded voluntary service on massive projects (such as irrigation), give up private plots, private production, report fantastical gains in production (after earlier movement against opponents, afraid to speak out). Millions starve. Death toll: 30 million.
• Mao sidelined after Great Leap failure but came bounding back into control with Cultural Revolution (1966)
•     Purposes of the Cultural Revolution: Attack on the Four Olds (ideas, culture, customs, and habits), building a new Communist utopia, get rid of all that has come before (attacks on temples, destruction of books and art)
•     Political: Part of an attempt by Mao to use masses of Red Guards to assert himself at the center (you may control the bureaucracy, but I control the people). 
•     Political: Shake up the entire party, make the party subject to the criticism of the masses, use youth to denounce “capitalist roaders” within the party, send people down to the countryside to learn from the peasants.     
•     Political: Involve everyone in the revolution.  Recapture the idealism and can-do spirit of the Revolution twenty years before.
•     Economic: Economy made some strides but generally too chaotic.
•     Period evolved into chaos around the country: people tortured to death, commit suicide, executed for being traitors to the revolution, fighting between different revolutionary bands over who was more true and loyal to Mao (the red sun) than the other.
•     Want to learn more about the Cultural Revolution: Two particularly good books in English include: Nien Cheng’s Life and Death in Shanghai and Liang Heng and Judith Shapiro’s Son of the Revolution.
• Take a look at Chinese propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution on the web http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/crc.html. See sections on Quotations from Chairman Mao, Up the Mountains and Down to the Villages, Monsters and Demons).  See audio slideshow from BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8279176.stm.

How have things changed since the post-Mao reform began in 1978?

• “Market socialism” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 
• Primary stage of socialism (graph stages).
• But, in formal theory asserted by the regime, not going capitalist.  China will remain a socialist system to retain gains that have been made since the revolution.
• Keep the vanguard party in control to watch out for the people’s interests. 
• Worry among some in the leadership that the US/West trying to carry out "peaceful evolution" or a "color revolution" to once more enslave China!

Reforms introduced since 1978

IMPORTANT: Reforms gradual and piece-meal, not a single coherent package at the beginning!  Two steps forward, one step back, experimentation.  Deng’s saying was “crossing a river by feeling the stones.”

Problems Diagnosed in the Economy at Mao's Death in 1976:

• Politics in command. Everything decided by politics, people tired of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
• Over-attention to heavy industry in line with Soviet economic development model (too many heavy industry plants and too few consumer goods). 
• Every enterprise eats from the big pot of the state, everyone eats from the big pot of the enterprise, shortfalls in enterprises’ books made up for by the state—essentially state was a bottomless wallet.  Enterprises lost money. State lost money.  No one had any incentive to be productive.
• Iron rice bowl.  Cradle to grave basic care by the state (nursery, school, health, housing).
• Agriculture being squeezed to benefit heavy industry—vast majority of China’s people peasants, agriculture not productive.   State control of land and products of land meant people had no incentive to produce.
• Backward transport and communication facilities, not invested in adequately.
• Inadequate energy supplies.
• No sustainable internal way of getting capital for investment to address problems, improve productivity.
• Production technologies decades behind the times (cars look like 1950s and there aren't many of them, bicycles).
• Unrealistic targets in the planning system.  Inability to manage entire economy centrally in a productive and efficient way.   Bottlenecks in transport, planning.
• Sidelining of intellectuals/scientists by Mao’s radical movements (politics in command, red v. expert). 
• Is the socialist system superior?  Deng Xiaoping: Have to make it superior to prove its superiority, have to do this by showing its ability to create wealth, make China a great country. 

Economic Reforms

Basic thrust of the reforms is to give people the incentive to produce more, in both agriculture and industry.  This involved accountability, prices, and markets.

1980—Deng’s “The Present Situation and Our Tasks”

goal to quadruple China’s GNP in twenty years.  Achieved for GNP and per capita GNP by mid to late 1990s (GNP 1995/per capita 1997). 

Agriculture

• Responsibility system (gradually put in place Anhui 1978-nationally formally 1983). Let out responsibility for production to families. Produce beyond a state contract amount, can sell on the free market.
• Sideline activities allowed. 
• More investment in the early years made available to agriculture. 
• Township and Village Enterprises (TVE’s).  Deng remarks that these have “appeared out of nowhere like an ambushing army” (Since 1992, more than 50% of China's industrial output, employed 120 million workers).
• Gradual reforms allowing greater tenure over the land, greater freedom in what is produced.  2008: Land reform that allows people to sell right to till the land. Expected to lead to consolidation of landholding in the rural areas. Land still notionally collectively owned.

Industry

• Switch emphasis from heavy to light industry.  Less emphasis on machine tools, more on clothing and shoes.
• Back away from direct planning to what is closer to indicative planning (guidance).  Use macroeconomic policy, fiscal policy, credit provision to secure desired behaviors from economic actors.
• Parallel to what happened in agriculture—called Industrial Responsibility System.  Devolve decision-making to enterprises themselves to make them autonomous profit-loss centers.  Have to make a profit, pay taxes instead of eating from the big pot of the state.  Can keep profit for bonuses, investment.
• Real tension over how much control to retain over these enterprises—how much of a role the state sector should continue to play in the economy; verdict is still out.
• Opening of stock exchanges at Shanghai and Shenzhen 1990. Debate over whether publicly held stock company equivalent to public ownership a la socialism.
• Open door to foreign investment (special economic zones, later expanded nationwide).  
• Joint ventures between Chinese and foreign firms to get foreign technology transfer.  Specifically encourage investment from overseas Chinese.
• Produce for the export market. 
• Pay workers based on productivity.  Able to give bonuses to best workers (incentives to spur production).
• Prevent labor unrest to keep China an attractive place for foreign investment.
• Allow development of private sector and cooperative enterprises.  Should no longer be considered capitalism, but rather a support/adjunct to make the socialist economy more productive. 

Service

• Allow development of private sector individual enterprises. 

Other

• Lots of other policies: enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), reform the Central Bank, Social Security, foreign development assistance from the World Bank, changes in number, nature, and responsibilities of central government organs engaged with the economy, etc.
• One-child per family policy.  
• Send students/scholars abroad.
• Education more broadly—increase technical aspects, downplay political/ideological indoctrination.
• Establish cooperative relationships with trading partners and regional neighbors so that a peaceful environment will allow China to concentrate on economic construction, sell exports freely.

Political Reform

• Common saying that China has been successful in its reform, where Gorbachev failed because the Chinese did economic reform and held off on the political reform, whereas Gorbachev tried to do political reform and then economic reform.  There is some truth to this statement. The Chinese have focused on making sure that reform delivers the economic goods.

• But, in order to reform, Deng had to change the Chinese political system. It has changed so much that it would in many ways be unrecognizable to Mao. He removed reds/politics from command. He created a stable, predictable political environment. He allowed the creation of outlets for people's grievances (like hotlines and radio call-in shows). He decentralized political decision-making to allow experimentation and policies appropriate to local conditions.

• Under Deng's successors, the Communist Party continues to adapt:

• Under Jiang Zemin, bringing capitalists into the Communist Party!

• Leaders are unofficially limited to two terms and transitions happening peacefully.

• Speech is much more free except for on hot-button issues such as Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen.

• Under Hu Jintao, focusing on poorer regions/harmony as opposed to growth at all costs.

• Village elections are now nearly universal. Some higher units are also conducting elections on an experimental basis, particularly in the reform vanguard of Guangdong and Fujian.

Let's do our classification of the Chinese regime (we had to get some of that history out of the way first!).

• Nature of the regime: democratic, authoritarian, totalitarian. China under Mao, China today?

• Political culture: community-held beliefs and values?

• Political development: China 1966, China today?

• Economic development: China 1949, China today?

• Economic system: China in 1958, China today? 

Classification of the Chinese regime (the answers)

• Nature of the regime.  Today, authoritarian but, unlike Maoist times, no longer totalitarian.

• Political culture. Collectivist. Deferential to leaders/elders/authority figures. Acceptance of hierarchy/some nostalgia for simpler Maoist days and egalitarianism.

• Political development. Evolving from charismatic (Mao 1966) to more modern organizational forms (collective leadership today, increasing importance of state, law).

• Economic development. Developing nation (high share labor in agriculture 43%, lower per capita incomes GDP per capita PPP$6,000, urbanization 43%).  Violates some expectations (life expectancy 73 years, TFR 1.79, literacy 91%). 

• Economic system. 1958 socialist, today mixed socialist-capitalist. 

•     From the Economist magazine: "Non-state-owned enterprises are now producing two-thirds of China's manufacturing output, but [state-owned enterprises] SOEs dominate key sectors such as banking, telecoms, energy, and the media. Between 2001 and 2006 the number of SOEs fell from 370,000 to 120,000, but this still left assets worth $1.3 trillion in state control."  ("The Second Long March," December 13, 2008)  More economic activity outside of state control than France!

•     Party Princeling Chen Yuan: "We are the Communist Party and we will decide what communism means."

Last updated: January 6, 2011.

Author: tanp@uncw.edu

Back to Dr. Tan's homepage: http://people.uncw.edu/tanp