China's Internationalization in the Early People's Republic: Dreams of a Socialist World Economy

2006 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 870-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
East European ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The World ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Formative Years

The People's Republic of China, like the Chinese Communist Party that ruled it, was from its conception internationalist in premise and in promise. The PRC in its formative years would be Moscow's most faithful and self-sacrificing ally, a distinction earned in blood in Korea and by the fact that, unlike the East European “people's democracies,” the PRC's allegiance was not bought at gunpoint. This article researches one of the most ambitious international undertakings of that era: the effort to plan the development of half the world and to create a socialist world economy stretching from Berlin to Canton. What was China's role in this undertaking, and how did it shape the early PRC? How did this socialist world economy work (or not work)? How successfully internationalist was a project negotiated by sovereign (and Stalinist) states? Why did Mao Zedong ultimately destroy it, and with it, the dream of communist internationalism?

Mao, Tibet, and the Korean War

2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M. Sheng
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

In October 1950 the Chinese leader Mao Zedong embarked on a two-front war. He sent troops to Korea and invaded Tibet at a time when the People's Republic of China was burdened with many domestic problems. The logic behind Mao's risky policy has baffled historians ever since. By drawing on newly available Chinese and Western documents and memoirs, this article explains what happened in October 1950 and why Mao acted as he did. The release of key documents such as telegrams between Mao and his subordinates enables scholars to understand Chinese policymaking vis-à-vis Tibet much more fully than in the past. The article shows that Mao skillfully used the conflicts for his own purposes and consolidated his hold over the Chinese Communist Party.

The Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the CCP: Look Back in Anger?

1981 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 518-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. G. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Mao Zedong ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Look Back ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The Sixth Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) met in Beijing from 27 to 29 June 1981. On its agenda were two items: changes in the highest-level leadership of the CCP, and the “ Resolution on certain questions in the history of our party since the founding of the People's Republic of China.” ‘ Though the Plenum's decisions to a large extent confirmed and made official trends and policies that had become apparent during most of the previous year, they were nonetheless remarkable. The western press has, not unsurprisingly, focused on the replacement of Hua Guofeng by Hu Yaobang as Chairman of the CCP's Central Committee. However, the Plenum's reassessment of the Party's history since 1949; of the roles of Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng and other CCP leaders; and of the nature of Mao Zedong Thought, are undoubtedly of greater significance in terms of the development of the People's Republic of China (PRC): as indeed is the fact of Hua Guofeng's demotion rather than his outright dismissal or “ purge.”

The Abortive Liberation of Taiwan

1987 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 256-275
Author(s):  
Jon W. Huebner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

On 1 October 1949 the People's Republic of China was formally established in Beijing. On 7 December Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), who had earlier moved to Taiwan to secure a final base of resistance in the civil war, ordered the Kuomintang (KMT) regime to withdraw to the island from Chengdu, Sichuan, its last seat on the mainland. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its commitment to the goal of unifying the nation under the People's Republic, and thus called for the “liberation” of Taiwan. Although Taiwan represented the final phase of the still unfinished civil war, it was the strategic significance of the island that became of paramount concern to the CCP, the KMT and the United States.

Reconstructing China: Japanese technicians and industrialization in the early years of the People's Republic of China

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMY KING
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Early Years ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Foreign Ministry

AbstractThe Chinese Communist Party was confronted with the pressing challenge of ‘reconstructing’ China's industrial economy when it came to power in 1949. Drawing on recently declassified Chinese Foreign Ministry archives, this article argues that the Party met this challenge by drawing on the expertise of Japanese technicians left behind in Northeast China at the end of the Second World War. Between 1949 and 1953, when they were eventually repatriated, thousands of Japanese technicians were used by the Chinese Communist Party to develop new technology and industrial techniques, train less skilled Chinese workers, and rebuild factories, mines, railways, and other industrial sites in the Northeast. These first four years of the People's Republic of China represent an important moment of both continuity and change in China's history. Like the Chinese Nationalist government before them, the Chinese Communist Party continued to draw on the technological and industrial legacy of the Japanese empire in Asia to rebuild China's war-torn economy. But this four-year period was also a moment of profound change. As the Cold War erupted in Asia, the Chinese Communist Party began a long-term reconceptualization of how national power was intimately connected to technology and industrial capability, and viewed Japanese technicians as a vital element in the transformation of China into a modern and powerful nation.

Public Nomination and Direct Election in China

Asian Survey ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Hsuan Tsai ◽  
Peng-Hsiang Kao
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
State System ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Direct Election ◽  
Election System ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party State

Abstract This research takes the case of Public Nomination and Direct Election, currently being rolled out in the People's Republic of China, to explain the function of elections in China. We believe that the goal of implementing this election system is to increase the governing ability of the Chinese Communist Party, thus sustaining the survival of the party-state system.

Three Years of Communist Rule in China

1953 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Ling Nai-jui
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Mainland ◽  
Major Portion ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Chinese Mainland ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Moment

On October 1, 1949, the Chinese Communist Party, having conquered the major portion of the Chinese mainland by the force of its “People's Army of Liberation,” established, in the old imperial city of Peiping, a new regime called the “Central People's Government” of the “People's Republic of China.” For more than three years, ninety-eight per cent of the Chinese people have lived under this Communist dictatorship represented as a “People's Democracy.” Nor at the moment are there any visible signs that their condition may soon be altered. On the contrary, the Chinese Communists have proved themselves the adept disciples of their Russian mentors, capable of consolidating their rule with Soviet determination, thoroughness, and severity.

The New Normal

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-58
Author(s):  
Jeremy Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
New Normal ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party ◽  
The Government ◽  
Party State

Since 2012, politics in the People’s Republic of China has been remade. Both institutional and rhetorical changes characterize this neopolitical “new normal,” which coincides with Xi Jinping’s rise to the top of the party-state hierarchy. But these changes extend well beyond Xi himself. Political authority has been centralized and folded back into the Chinese Communist Party, while complaints, self-criticisms, and confessions have begun to air publicly. Repression and humiliation have been used against critics as wide-ranging as Hong Kong booksellers, feminist activists, and rights lawyers, among others. Most ominously, the government has embarked on a massive detention and reeducation scheme in Xinjiang, with the number of those interned estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands or even surpassing a million. This chapter investigates China’s neopolitical turn—its limits, sources, and implications.

Chinese Communist Attitudes Towards Buddhism in Chinese History

1965 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Kenneth Chen
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Red Flag ◽  
Communist Attitude ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

In the journal Hsien-tai Fo-hsueh (Modern Buddhism), September 1959, there appeared a long article entitled “Lun Tsung-chiao Hsin-yang Tzu-yu” (“A Discussion Concerning Freedom of Religious Belief”), by Ya Han-chang, which was originally published in the official Communist ideological journal Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), 1959, No. 14. Appearing as it did in Red Flag it is justifiable to conclude that the views expressed in it represented the accepted Communist attitude toward religion. In this article, Ya wrote that the basic policy of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China is to “recognise that everyone has the freedom to believe in a religion, and also that everyone has the freedom not to believe in a religion.”

The Mystery of the Battle of la-tzu-k'ou in the Long March

1972 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 593-598
Author(s):  
J. Chester Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
National Defense ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Chinese Communist Party

The historical experience of the Chinese Communist Party before 1949 has often assumed the dimension of a myth. As in any myth, what actually happens is not as important as the significant lesson to be learned. A case in point is the battle of “the last and the most strategic pass” of La-tzu-k'ou in the Long March. The Chinese annals contain at least five differing versions of this encounter on September 17–18, 1935. This may be attributed, inter alia, to the desire of the authors to glorify their own part in the Long March as much as that the battle of La-tzu-k'ou is of greater political than military significance. By publishing these accounts, the Chinese authorities hope to prove the correctness of Mao Tse-tung's policy of the northward march in mid-1935. Indeed Lin Piao's role was largely a magniloquent account of relevant events at La-tzu-k'ou, following his appointment as Minister of National Defense to succeed the disgraced P'eng Te-huao in 1959—notwithstanding the fact that Mao Tse-tung had in 1935 composed a well-known poem praising only P'eng's valor during the battle. True, history is historiography and historiography is politics in the People's Republic of China.

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