8.02 Modern China Flashcards
What was the Five Year Plan?
In China under the reign of Mao Zedong, Mao thought that the key to industrializing China was through communist socialism. Because of this, he brought all industries and farms under the control of the government, and he sort of meshed them together into farming cooperatives.
What was the Hundred Flowers Campaign?
The intellectuals in China were permitted more freedom of speech, so China can grow philosophically. This freedom of speech resulted in the criticism of the Chinese government, which then resulted in the imprisonment, the firing, and the forced labor of the intellectuals opposed to the government.
What was the Great Leap Forward?
Mao Zedong wanted China to flourish, and he wanted their agriculture and industries to be on par with the Western nations. He became frustrated and impatient about the slower growth of his economy. He saw that Russia grew through harvesting grain surplus, selling it to other nations, and using the income to pay for the growth of their industries. China didn’t have much farmland to do this, so Mao decided to use China’s large work force to speed up industrialization. That was the Great Leap Forward. His plan was’t successful, as it caused a famine that killed 30 million Chinese citizens.
What are some Chinese reforms that were made after Mao’s death?
Deng Xiaoping started the Four Modernizations, which would help China’s agriculture, industry, science and technology.
Also, Xiaoping realized that China’s population was growing so fast, that they might not be able to obtain enough food to feed everyone. To take care of this, the one-child policy was put into place, which made it so people were only allowed to have one child. This was seen as a complete violation of peoples’ human rights, and the policy was removed in 2015.
Xiaoping also lessened the control of the industries by the government, which made agricultural production flourish.
What was the Tiananmen Square incident?
Chinese youth, along with General Secretary Hu Yaobang, eventually found out about the standards of living in other countries, and found that much more desirable than what they had in China. Hu desired democratic reforms to be made, but the government made him resign in 1987. Hu’s death angered many Chinese youth, who ended up holding peaceful demonstrations for reforms at Tiananmen Square. Many people started joining the demonstrations, and the Chinese government eventually sent out tanks and troops to the area to make them stop, killing what most people believe to be thousands.
What are some issues in China today?
China has a pollution problem because they use tons of coal for their energy resource. They emit more greenhouse gases than any other country. This has resulted in around 300,000 people in China dying.
To this day, there is repression of democratic movements, intolerance about select religions, and even forced abortion.
