China

Question 1

Politically sensitive/influential jobs such as high-level state, party, and even public industry personnel that are staffed by people approved/ chosen by the CCP

Answer 1

nomenklatura

Question 2

The 100 years that the Chinese faced at the hands of western and Japanese imperialists despite the empire’s 4000 year proud civilization.

Answer 2

Century of Humiliation

Question 3

Completed in 2008, it is the largest dam ever constructed and generates millions of kilowatts of electricity and prevents flooding. It destroyed many historical sites, caused environmental damage, and increased seismic activity

Answer 3

Three gorges dam

Question 4

The main ethnic group in China which makes up over 90 percent of the population

Answer 4

Han

Question 5

Explain the “Parallel Organizational System”

Answer 5

it is a system in which all government legislative, executive, and administrative agencies are “paralleled” in every level of the party

Question 6

A Maoist system in which all urban Chinese citizens have a specific unit of work that they would stick with their whole life. This would decide many aspects of their life and social benefits.

Answer 6

Danwei

Question 7

A system similar to and supporting of Danwei in which all citizens were fixed to a geographic location.

Answer 7

Hukou

Question 8

This is one of the consequences of the relaxation of social control: almost 300 million workers have left their rural hukou designation for employment in the cities because they don’t have a hukou designation in either the city or the countryside, they don’t get public goods that other people get.

Answer 8

“Floating Population”

Question 9

Xi Jinping’s policy vision of “the rejuvenation of the great chinese nation” in which china would become a “moderately well-off society” by 2021 and a fully developed country by 2049.

Answer 9

Chinese Dream

Question 10

A form of outlawed meditation of which an estimated 50,000 practitioners of it and numerous other religious arts have been captered as political prisoners

Answer 10

Falun Gong

Question 11

constitutionally the highest organ of the state as the unicameral legislative branch despite the party still overseeing all governmental action.

Answer 11

National People’s Congress

Question 12

the party’s representative body that is similar to an American party nominating convention. It has over 2,000 delegates and is too unwieldy with not nearly enough meetings to really make any policies. Its sessions have been used to make announcements for changes.

Answer 12

National Party Congress

Question 13

The army, navy and air force which, despite Mao wanting the party to be in control of it, fought against the party on multiple occasions

Answer 13

People’s Liberation Army

Question 14

List the five most important Chinese leaders in order

Answer 14

1. Mao Zedong (1935-76)
2. Deng Xiaoping (1997-92)
3. Jiang Zemin (1992-2002)
4. Hu Jintao (2002-12)
5. Xi Jinping (2012-current)

Question 15

Private entrepreneurs who despite being capitalist get all the benefits of economic reform and social stability and therefore do not challenge the state or the party.

Answer 15

Red capitalists

Question 16

The party-state’s massive control over social media which has been surprisingly successful through hundreds of thousands of human monitors, censorship, and filtering software.

Answer 16

golden shield

Question 17

A system that is not yet fully functional that will keep track of all chinese people’s financial, social, and political actions through monitoring their actual and virtual activities and assign them a credit score.

Answer 17

Social credit score

Question 18

Mao’s promise of lifetime employment, and healthcare as well as retirement security for all Chinese people as part of the communist political-economic model at the time.

Answer 18

iron rice bowl

Question 19

Mao’s policy of setting politically indoctrinated party cadres (reds) over those with actual economic training (experts).

Answer 19

Reds versus Experts

Question 20

A term used to describe China’s economy that means it is capitalist-ish with socialist qualities.

Answer 20

State Capitalism

Question 21

To what degree does the rule of law and constitutional checks and balances prevail in modern China?

Answer 21

China’s top leaders have very little checks or balances in the institutions of either party or state. For example, some of the rules set by Deng to formalize policy making and succession have been drawn back by the current leader, Xi Jinping.

Question 22

Discuss China’s changes in political economy from socialism from Soviet-style communism to “socialist market economy” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

Answer 22

China has gone through many similar but different political economies. Under mao, it was a very soviet-y communist and Mao and the CCP chose equality over freedom. Under Deng there was a shift from focusing on equality to focusing on quick economic growth.He allowed for red capitalists and more entreprenuership. Gradually it shifted to “state capitalism” or “socialism with chinese characteristics” which is basically socialist-y capitalism in which there are free-ish markets and private industries that are regulated.

Question 23

Discuss SEVERAL methods of nondemocratic control used by the modern Chinese party state.

Answer 23

The first method is co-optation in which China has allowed for capitalist entrepreneurs to belong to the CCP so that they don’t have any reason to complain. The second is censorship along with propaganda. The government is forced to embrace the modern age in order to not fall behind but they heavily sensor and monitor all social media. Finally the third (and most scary in my opinion) is surveillance. The government has cameras everywhere that can identify anyone by face, voice, and gait to monitor for threats to the party.

Question 24

The official name for the ruling party of China

Answer 24

Chinese communist party (CCP)

Question 25

Who is Xi Jiping and what are some of his achievements?

Answer 25

he has been the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus the leader of China, since 2012. Xi formed the anti-corruption campaign and has decentralized the Chinese economy to its current political-economic system of state-capitalism.

Question 26

Who is Mao Zedong and what are some of his achievements?

Answer 26

During the repression of the CCP the power within the party shifted to the hands of Mao Zedong. His view differed from the Marxist convention (which believed that the proletariat must bring about the communist revolution) in that he believed a communist revolution could be won by a revolutionary army built from the peasant class. As the leader of China from 1935 to 1976, he brought about the great leap forward and the cultural revolution

Question 27

Who is Deng Xiaoping and what are some of his achievements?

Answer 27

He was one of the next leaders after Mao’s death and was himself a victim of the cultural revolution. He gained power in late 1978. He pursued modernization regardless of communist ideology. He cultivated foreign relations and the privatization of industries. He brought about openness and restructuring

Question 28

Explain the One Child Policy and it’s outcomes.

Answer 28

In the late 1970s the Chinese government implemented the one child policy which limited each family to only one child. It caused sex-selective abortions favoring male babies over female and the resulting only children were often brought up spoiled and unsocialized. On top of this there are/are going to be much more elderly people then young people.

Question 29

A philosophy believing that there was a fixed set of hierarchical roles, in meritocracy, and in obedience to authority which China followed for thousands of years and has increased the traditional legitimacy they the Chinese people see in authoritarian systems

Answer 29

Confucianism

Question 30

This war occurred from 1839 to 1842 and was between China and britain. It resulted in a definite Chinese defeat which forced China to cede Hong Kong to Britain and pay restitution. Other western countries saw this and there were subsequent wars with the french and the japanese which weakened china’s sovereignty further

Answer 30

First Opium War

Question 31

It was the early nationalist party that was one of the two main political organizations vying for power in 1911which grew in strength under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen. It was aided by student protests and the rising nationalist sentiment

Answer 31

KMT or Kuomintang

Question 32

This is the name for when Mao led the CLP to the establishment of their own independent communist republic within China but the KMT forced them to flee westward. The CCP traveled more than 6,000 miles and lost 90% of the 100,000 before reaching their final destination. It strengthened Mao’s leadership and his idea that the party should be more oriented toward the peasant class

Answer 32

The Long March

Question 33

The official title of China/the Chinese government

Answer 33

People’s Republic of China

Question 34

This was China’s first major break from the soviet model. Mao reorganized the Chinese people into communes which would serve all the social and economic functions needed. Without clear instructions, it didn’t work very well at all and the economy declined leading to disorder, famine, and the deaths of tens of millions.

Answer 34

Great Leap Forward

Question 35

Student radicals who took to the streets as vanguards and shock troops in the beginning of the formation of Mao’s cult of personality.

Answer 35

Red Guard

Question 36

As the cult of personality around Mao took shape in 1966, authority figures and historic buildings, writings and art were attacked. The result was chaos, violence and near civil war. State capacity and autonomy largely disappeared

Answer 36

Cultural Revolution

Question 37

What happened in Tiananmen Square

Answer 37

In 1989 around 100,000 students and other citizens marched in the streets of Beijing, congregating in Tiananmen square. On june 4, which is referred to as simply 6/4 in China, the party leadership brought in the military and hundreds of protesters were killed that day.

Question 38

Discuss some ways China presents some surprises– and enigmas or paradoxes– for us as Comparative Political Scientists.

Answer 38

The whole of China’s development is surprising. Despite it being around for thousands of years before European states were really solidified, in recent years it has had a bumpy ride resulting in a weak state throughout the nineteenth century. another surprise is that Communism persists despite it not having been able to anywhere else for very long and china not starting its journey to communism the way it should have according to Marx (Skipped capitalism). it has also experienced “Wowzers” (according to Erik) economic growth percentage wise.

Question 39

What are some reasons China’s relations with– and attitudes towards– the West are so fraught?

Answer 39

In the 1400s China had slowed its modernization and banned long distance sea travel. Culturally they liked their traditional ways and wanted to keep them that way without western interference. Then more recently throughout Mao’s rule china was a communist or communist aligned party and western/european countries were, for the most part, not. Mostly the century of humiliation contributed to the tension

Question 40

What are some reasons historical China– which led most European countries in so many innovations pre-Renaissance and Industrial Revolution– began to “fall behind”? Be sure to discuss cultural, economic, and geographic issues.

Answer 40

Cultural
Corfucian thought was what helped establish political continuity and a meritocratic system in China and over the centuries the general ideology became very rigid and resistant to change.

Economic
Throughout the history of china the main path to wealth was entrepreneurialism but the rise of the bureaucratic elite made service the more powerful means. This made the bureaucracy gain more enrichment and they did not want to make any changes that might disrupt this.

Geographic
The geography that had aided early unification and continuity also protected China from competition. This lack of competition caused a lack of desire for innovation.

Question 41

Discuss some current (and upcoming) challenges China will face and be sure to discuss how each may be expected to challenge issues of legitimacy.

Answer 41

Despite the lessening of communist ideology, china has had little economic reform. Although there had been much improvement in other areas, the voices of the people are still completely silenced. Along with this, there is a sort of unwritten contract between the chinese leaders and the people that says listen and follow and you well get relative economic stability. As the economic growth has slowed the legitimacy of this agreement has gone down. Plus the Hukou system is causing issues for thousands of people which will descrease legitimacy

Question 42

Explain the “unwritten social contract” operating in modern China. Consider how this “contract” may be challenged soon by recent developments.

Answer 42

In exchange for accepting the CCP’s monopoly over political power, the Chinese public has been given more economic freedom and opportunities to pursue prosperity than ever before. Most Chinese accepted this tradeoff, and the result has been two additional decades after 1989 of fiery growth and relative political stability. As this growth has slowed the challenges with this strategy have increased and many question whether this regime will continue to succeed.

Question 43

Discuss some ways some Chinese traditional legitimacy helped legitimize later authoritarianism.

Answer 43

Throughout Chinese history under the philosophy of confucianism, the people have been ruled by a singular person or small group without much democratic participation. This has led to a high degree of traditional legitimacy in systems such as this. Because of this high level of traditional legitimacy, people are much less likely to question authoritarian regimes.

Question 44

What does Mao Zedong Thought add to Marxism-Leninism?

Answer 44

The concept of peasants as the revolutionary force

Question 45

Who did the PLA overthrow in the Chinese Revolution of 1949?

Answer 45

The Kuomintang (KMT)

Question 46

Which of the following demographics about China is correct?
(A)China’s population of 1.4 billion is the largest in the world.
(B)China’s GDP per capita of $8,123 is the second largest in the world.
(C)China’s population is 75 percent Han Chinese.
(D)China’s population has a median age of 18.

Answer 46

(A)China’s population of 1.4 billion is the largest in the world.

Question 47

Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up policy included which of the following?
(A)Creation of special economic zones (SEZs)
(B)Decreasing the amount of foreign direct investment
(C)Increasing the nationalization of private industries
(D)Dismantling of Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs)

Answer 47

(A)Creation of special economic zones (SEZs)

Question 48

The Chinese policy “One country, two systems” refers to…

Answer 48

allowing Hong Kong and Macau to retain independent legal systems and police forces under the KMT that are separate from the PRC

Question 49

Which institution has the most formal authority in the Chinese system?
(A)Central Committee of the CCP
(B)National People’s Congress of the PRC
(C)Standing Committee of the NPC
(D)President of PRC

Answer 49

(B)National People’s Congress of the PRC

Question 50

Is China a presidential system of government?

Answer 50

No, a presidential system of government requires separate elections for president and the legislature. In China the legislature formally selects the head of state and the head of government.

Question 51

Which of the following mass campaigns was led by the Red Guards bombarding the command post?
(A)Great Leap Forward
(B)Hundred Flowers Campaign
(C)Cultural Revolution
(D)Reform and Opening Up

Answer 51

(C)Cultural Revolution

Question 52

Which of the following Chinese political institutions is the most powerful?
(A)State Council of the PRC
(B)Standing Committee of the NPC
(C)Standing Committee of the Politburo
(D)Central Committee of the CCP

Answer 52

(C)Standing Committee of the Politburo