China Flashcards
1
Q
Guomindang party
A
- Nationalism & democracy
-led by Chiang Kai-Shek by 1925
-fought the warlords from 1912-28 to take control of China
2
Q
How China became communist
A
- 1911 last emperor was overthrown and warlords divided the country into kingdoms of their own
- In an attempt to reunite the country, the GMD was formed but they had little success so they allied with the CCP in 1921 to defeat the warlords
3
Q
Guomindang (GMD) under Chiang Kai-Shek
A
- He was less willing to work with the CCP : he was alarmed by their growing power and most of the GMD were of the landlord class so they were worried that communism would remove their wealth and power
- He purged the CCP and imprisoned Mao (1927) - (however Mao escaped and began to rebuild the CCP)
- 1931 he started a military campaign against the CCP but they broke through his lines and the red army made their long march
4
Q
The Long March
A
- October 1934 - October 1935
- Mao Zedong marched over 10,000 men over 3000km fighting a guerilla campaign on their way
- They lost over 90% of their men
- Huge propaganda success
- established Mao as leader of the CCP by 1935/6
5
Q
Chines Communist Party (CCP) : aims and actions
A
- founded 1921
- key aim : making China communist
- Helped the GMD fight the warlords 1924-27
- at war with the GMD from 1927
- The army was known as the Red Army
6
Q
Japan in China (actions and responses)
A
- Japan took advantage of the Chinese civil war and captured Shanghai in 1937
- They took food from the peasants and used them as slave labour to produce materials for their war efforts. They often tortured the peasants for little reason.
- Against Chiang’s wishes The communists and nationalists combined efforts to fight the Japanese
7
Q
Efforts against the Japanese (CCP vs GMD)
A
- The Nationalists alienated the Chinese population whilst the CCP used it so spread their message
- The GMD’s ‘scorched earth policy’ did not defeat the Japanese and brought starvation to the population
- The US supplied Chiang with weapons to defeat the Japanese : instead he stockpiled them to use against the communists
- The CCP used effective Guerilla tactics
- Mao insisted that the Red Army treat peasants with respect (the opposite of the GMD)
- This resulted in Mao having the support of over 100million Chinese by the time Japan was driven out
8
Q
The early purges
A
- Mao set about establishing a totalitarian state
- The PLA recieved 800,000 new conscriptions every year : they left after 3 years fully indoctrinated
- Laogai were set up
- Suppression of counter-revolutionaries
- The Antis
9
Q
Suppression of counter - revolutionaries
A
- October 1950: suppression of counter-revolutionaries campaign was launched
- Public executions of counter revolutionaries (bandits, people with links to the GMD, members of religious groups etc.)
10
Q
The Three antis campaign
A
-1951
- targeted party members and state officials
- claimed to combat corruption, waste and delay
11
Q
The five antis
A
1952- thought reform
aimed to end:
bribery, tax evasion, cheating, stealing economic information and theft of state property
12
Q
Mass meetings
A
- started in October 1950
- there were 200-300 thousand suicides by those wishing to avoid public denunciation
- they were organised for people to denounce others or to admit their own crimes
13
Q
Reunification campaigns
A
-In October 1950 the PLA was sent to Tibet to assert Chinese claim to the land
- The Tibetans regarded themselves as a different race/culture/religion so there was strong opposition
- Within 6 months, resistance was oppressed by the strong and well-equipped PLA
14
Q
The Hundred Flowers campaign
A
1956-1957
- Mao suggested that open debate would lead to better forms of government
- at first, non-communist party members could give their criticism –> this was then extended to the intellectuals
- After heavy criticism (including : human rights abuse, corruption, low living standards and even Mao himself), Mao ended the campaign
15
Q
Anti rightist movement
A
- followed the hundred flowers campaign
- The party was purged of members that had been critical
- Between 300-750 thousand people were sent to labour camps for ‘re-education’ and ‘correction’
16
Q
Cleaning up cities (social/health reform)
A
- residents had to form committees to clean up the streets
- in Shanghai there was a campaign against rats: each family had to produce one rats tail a week as evidence of their contribution
17
Q
businesses and banks (social/economic reform)
A
- these came under state control
- loans were to be taken from the state bank
- if the company was selling something the government disapproved of, they would not be granted a loan
18
Q
Religion (social reform)
A
- Mao & Chinese communists regarded religion as superstitious
- Mao declared religion a poison to society
- All forms of worship, including ancestor worship was banned
19
Q
Healthcare (social reform)
A
- Healthcare became free
- Focus was put on prevention e.g. poppy fields were destroyed & drug dealers were shot to avoid opium addiction
- Ancient Herbal remedies were looked down upon by Mao
20
Q
Customs and rituals (social reform)
A
- these were banned, including songs/dances at weddings and festivals
21
Q
Women’s lack of rights before Mao
A
- sometimes female babies were drowned
- girls could be sold as servants or prostitutes
- Marriages were often arranged and men often had multiple wives
- foot-binding was a common practice
22
Q
Mao’s policies towards women
A
- Mao wanted to move their focus from the home to production for the state
- The All-China Women’s federation was set up in 1949
- Marriage reform Law : banned forced marriage
- It was illegal for men to have more than 1 wife
- Women could divorce men and they had property rights
- women could have custody of their children
- However, discrimination towards women did not come to an end : only 13% of the CCP were women
23
Q
Mao’s policies towards young people and education
A
- literacy campaign 1950s
- expanded universities to train science and technology specialists
- many students were sent to the USSR to learn skills
-1949: 200 higher education institutions but 1961: 1289higher education institutions
24
Q
Mao’s Literacy campaign
A
- the public had to pass ‘literacy checkpoints’
- Previously, most Chinese peasants were illiterate but by the 1960s, 90% of China had a basic grasp of reading and writing
- Pinyin was introduced - a standardised form of mandarin
25
The agrarian reform law
- village land was shared out between peasants
- peasants were encouraged to put landlords on trial in 'people's courts' for : mistreating tenants, charging high rent etc.
- these landlords were beaten up / imprisoned / executed
26
Agrarian reform law effect
- Won the support of the peasants for the CCP
- many people died, of landlord families, 1 in 6 died
27
Cooperatives
- From 1953, Mao encouraged the idea of cooperatives
- 30-50 families joined their lands and worked on and owned this as a whole
- peasants that did not want to give up their private land opposed this but the CCP pressured them to
- By 1957 90% of Chinese peasants belonged to a cooperative
28
Mao's industrial policies
- He took over banks
- He ordered wages and prices to be fixed at a low rate : this ended inflation within a year
- He rebuilt railways that were destroyed in the war so that coal could be transported to Chinese industries from northern coalfields
29
The first 5 year plan aims & changes made
1953-1957
- focused on heavy industries: steel, coal, chemicals
- the idea was that these would provide materials for planes/trains/engines etc
- new factories were put in small towns rather than old industrial cities : partly so that they would be near the discovered raw materials but also so that new industries could start from scratch without the influence of 'old ways'
30
The first five year plan successes
- many production targets were surpassed : coal, oil, pig iron, steel etc.
- Railways were set up successfully, allowing the transport of goods and raw materials across the country
- town and city populations increased as peasants moved there for jobs
31
first five year plan failures
- countryside living standards continued to be very poor
- emphasis on quantity meant compromise in quality
- Most of the new workforce could neither read or write : modern machinery was ruined as they couldn't read the instructions
- Industrialisation was paid from by loans from the USSR which had very high interest rates
32
The Great Leap Forward aims and changes made
- second 5 year plan
- 1958-1963
- concentrated on ordinary people getting involved in small scale industry and agriculture
- farmer cooperatives were to be joined into communes : each commune would have industrial and agricultural targets
33
communes
the joining of cooperatives : they abolished private land ownership
- contained 600-1000 people
- people worked in teams at different jobs e.g. field work, mining coal and iron ore, building schools etc.
34
Backyard furnaces
- People would melt down old household items e.g. pots/pans, farming equipment etc.
- steel produced was brittle, impure and in many cases unusable.
- smoke and flames filled the air
35
Great Leap Forward successes/failures
successes:
- steel production doubled in a year, at first making it seem another triumph for Mao
HOWEVER (failures):
- production targets became unattainable and commune leaders that refused to accept targets were imprisoned and labelled 'reactionaries'
- Khrushchev withdrew advisors from China after quarrelling with Mao and the Chinese people did not have the expertise to make the plan work
- new imposed farming methods failed
- Led to a serious famine: over 30 million people estimated died
36
Great Leap Forward farming
- Mao imposed the growth of crops closer together that were planted deeper
- This was tested in some parts of the country but enforced all over meaning it did not work in many areas due to land differences
- three years of disaster 1958-61 (series of droughts)
- commune system meant there was no longer recognition / food/ pay for hard work so people worked less hard
37
The Four Noes
- aimed to get rid of: flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows
- the eradication of sparrows meant that pest populations grew and destroyed entire stocks
38
Post-famine
- 1961: communes were banned and peasants could cultivate their own land
- 1962: Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shao-Qi were appointed to solve the problems of the famine
- Financial incentives were offered to peasants to work harder and by 1965, agricultural production had returned to that of before the famine
39
The Dazhai commune (what was it / what happened?)
- Dazhai had been a very poor area
- Mutual aid teams began to be set up and they were very successful so increased in popularity in Dazhai
- 1952: a cooperative was set up and by 1956 all households worked together
- The whole community worked together in a season when usually no work took place to build dams that allowed the land to be reclaimed and terraced in order to make farming easier on the difficult landscape
- annual yield rose from 67kg per mu to 375kg by 1962
- They claimed they were not affected by the great famine
- 1963, flood destroyed most of their work and the people joined together to rebuild Dazhai - asking for no help
40
Dazhai propaganda
Dazhai was used as a model village to show that Mao's methods worked.
Their success drew huge attention to them and Mao used them to encourage other places to do the same.
However, they often exaggerated figures for the sake of propaganda.
41
When did Mao become Chairman of the People's republic of China?
1949
42
The famine (post-great leap forward) causes and effect
causes:
- 3 years of drought
- Mao's agricultural policies
- continued export from rural areas to industrial areas even with insufficient food - leaving countryside areas in a famine
43
when did Mao resign as president of China
1959
44
Liu Shaoqi vs Mao Zedong
- Liu was Mao's successor but Mao remained chairman of the CCP
- Liu wanted to focus on the workers but Mao wanted to focus on the peasants
- a power struggle emerged between them and so Mao decided to take a more active role - resulting in the cultural revolution
45
The cultural revolution overview
- Mao called for young people to rid China of anti-communism
- He wanted to attack the 'four olds': old culture, ideas, habits and customs
46
Why did Mao launch the cultural revolution
- By the mid-60s, Mao was worried that China was heading in the wrong direction: people were becoming more wealthy at the expense of peasants
47
The Red Guard (who and beliefs)
- formed from the Chinese youth
- Children were taught to view the CCP as their parents
- Children denounced their own parents for anti-communist beliefs or behaviour
48
The Red Guard (what did they do?)
- They smashed or burnt anything that was considered anti-revolutionary e.g. old books/works of art, suspect techonology.
- they broke into homes and even CCP offices
- one resident was persecuted for having a sofa and matching chairs as this was considered an anti-revolutionary crime
- they fought street battles against each other
- they fought peasants, gangs etc.
- By 1967/8 things were wildly out of control
49
People's Liberation Army (PLA)
1968: stepped in to disarm the Red Guards and restore order
50
Red Guard : after being disarmed by the PLA
1967-72:
over 12million young people were sent to the countryside to be re-educated and to learn the way of the peasants
- many of the Red Guard were shocked at the living and working standards
51
Beijing : cultural revolution
- university students, teachers and local students committed 6618 acts of vandalism
- 929 painting destroyed
- 1000 statues and monuments smashed
52
Cultural revolution: enforcing Maoism
- china became a cultural desert
- writers, intellectuals, teachers etc. were imprisoned
- traditional and foreign books were banned: only books, art and films that supported Maoism were allowed
- Libraries/museums were closed and their collections destroyed
- Jiang Qing commissioned a series of operas to be performed throughout China
- Children were taught to view Mao and the CCP as their true parents (loyal to them before family)
53
cultural revolution: healthcare
- there was a shortage of doctors due to the closure of universities
- So Mao launched a scheme where young people were given 6 months of intensive practical healthcare training
- They were then sent out amongst the peasantry and they travelled through the countryside, often giving free healthcare to the peasants
- However they could not completely fulfill the need for well-trained doctors
- They were known as 'barefoot doctors'
54
Tibet and communism
- Mao's troops invaded in 1950 but by May 1951, he agreed not to interfere with traditional government/religion/society
- 1959: tibet was in chaos and the Chinese did not stick to this
- Tibetans had heard that the chinese were planning on kidnapping the Dalai Lama : resistance to chinese influence was widespread in tibet
- The Dalai Lama fled to India and the revolt was put down
- This left Mao wanting to remove the influence of Buddhism and the cultural identity of Tibet
55
Tibet: the great leap forward
- launched by Mao 1958
- forced to grow wheat rather than barley/oats which were more suited to the climate
- harvests were poor yet the Chinese were requisitioning large amounts for themselves
- forced to melt their traditional jewellery into useless steel
- same disastrous effects as in China
56
Tibet: the cultural revolution
- Mao's attack on the 4 olds aimed to eradicate Tibetan culture entirely
- Launched 1966 when the Jokhang temple (their holiest shrine) was attacked
- a full attack on Buddhism: only 7 out of 6000 monasteries were left by the end of the cultural revolution. there were over 600,000 monks but most were killed or imprisoned
- Almost all Tibetan schools and universities were shut down
- Grammatical reforms introduced to make Tibetan
57
Cult of personality
- students became personally loyal to him rather than the party/ideology
-Mao's propaganda centred upon the idea that the Chinese people believed his word above all else
58
forms of propaganda from Mao
- posters (most common)
- loudspeakers
- censored newspapers
- propaganda films
59
Dazhai part 2
1966-76
- became a pilgrimage-like destination
- a group of red guard are meant to have walked for 14 days to see the calluses on on the hands of a model worker
- during the cultural revolution, the red guard killed 141 people in and around Dazhai
- By the 1970s, Dazhai was very close to Mao's idea of a model village
- emergence of the 'iron ladies'
60
Mao's little red book
printed and distributed for free
61
When did Mao Zedong die?
1976
62
Mao's potential successors
- Hua Guofeng (nominated by Mao)
- Gang of Four (led by Jiang Qing)
- Deng Xiaoping
63
The Gang of four
- they believed they were Mao's natural successors
- However they were arrested later in 1976 for planning a coup
- It appeared that Hua's position was confirmed when they were imprisoned
64
Deng Xiaoping coming to power
- Deng used his links with the PLA and leading party members to become reinstated to the politburo (he was expelled during the cultural revolution)
- His popularity grew in the party so by 1977 he was CCP general secretary again
- Hua continued as premier until 1978 but in a much more weakened position
- Deng was confirmed as leader of China in the first major meeting after Mao's death in 1997
- Deng ruled China until his death in 1997
65
The four modernisations
Deng Xiaoping wanted to modernise:
1. agriculture
2. industry
3. defence
4. science & technology
66
Economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping
- 1976-81
- Deng wanted to move away from a centrally planned economy
- he wanted to 'let some people get rich first' so that money could trickle down and enhance the whole population's lives
67
Agricultural policies under Deng Xiaoping
- communes and collectivisation was abandoned
- 'household responsibility system' : land was still owned collectively but if peasants paid their taxes and contributed to local targets they could sell the excess for a profit
- The growing of rice was less important, crops that were better suited to the climate were prioritised
68
Agricultural policies under Deng Xiaoping : effects
- farm output rose by 8-10 % a year
- Grain yields increased hugely
69
Industrial policy under Deng Xiaoping
- State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remained, but had much greater freedom
- SOEs were issued with a contract to supply a certain quota of goods / pass on a certain profit but the excess could be sold for profit
- Open door policy led to special economic zones
- workers were often paid on performance, rather than a flat rate
70
Open door policy
- led to special economic zones:
theses areas were given the freedom to hire/fire workers and they had tax exemptions
- They had potentially excellent trade links and hoped to attract foreign investment
- This policy was ideologically liberating after Mao's ideologies
71
economic and industry issues under Deng
- end of state control meant end of state subsidies so jobs were no longer guaranteed
- some people had to get second jobs
- modernisation was sometimes slow due to people not wanting to give up their privileges
- threat of inflation due to the ability of SOEs to fix their own prices
72
Political change under Deng
- Deng still strongly resisted democracy
- Four cardinal principles
- the use of the democracy wall came back however when things became to critical, the government removed them and arrested those that put up highly critical things
-
73
The Gang of Four's trial
- 1980
- accused of: framing or persecuting 727,420 people, of whom 34,274 had died during the cultural revolution
- being linked with the alleged Lin Biao plot to overthrow Mao
- they were subject to public ridicule and many mocking cartoons were created
- 1981: all found guilty
74
Hua Guofeng : downfall
at the same time as the gang of four trial (198-81) Hua suffered his demise
- the Politburo attacked him and eventually he was asked to resign all his posts
75
Political improvements
- ministry of justice was re-established
- criminal law and criminal procedures were codified
- state courts re-opened
- law schools promoted
76
Education under Deng
- access to higher education became available based on academic ability rather than money/family connections
- Deng massively expanded the number of universities
- Deng had plans that sent many students abroad for education as part of the open door policy : the aim was for them to learn Western ways and bring them back to China
77
One Child Policy : rules and how it was enforced
- the government were worried about China's growing population
- couples who accepted a one child family certificate received generous benefits (e.g. bigger apartments, bonuses, best school placements etc.)
- People who refused to agree, faced fines
- regulation was more relaxed in rural areas where couples were allowed to try for a boy after 5 years if their first child was a girl
- compulsory fitting of IUDs for women with 1 child and sterilisation for those that had two
- provinces were given sterilisation quotas to fulfill
78
One Child Policy: effects
- girls were not wanted in farming communities as they often married and looked after their in-laws rather than their parents
- There were many cases of infanticide against baby girls : there was a large population imbalance with 108.5 men for every 100 women
