China, 1976-89 Flashcards
Members of The Gange of Four
- Zhang Chungqiao. He was originally a journalist. He was a member of the Cultural Revolution Group and became a leading member of the Politburo in 1973.
- Wang Hangwen. He had an excellent class background as a worker-peasant and a soldier. He had risen to power in Shanghai in 1967, and in 1973 he was chosen as Mao’s successor.
- Yao Wenyuan. He came from a socialist background. He was a literary critic and worked in the Office of Propaganda.
- Jiang Qing. She was Mao’s fourth wife and the leader of the Gang of Four. Her power came from her role as the ‘purifier of culture’ in the Cultural Revolution. She had a strong support base in Shanghai.
The Gang of Four’s position
- Jiang Qing launched the anti-Confucius campaign: campaign against revisionists and to promote communist ideas and practices, However it was actually used as an attack on Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.
- At first, Mao supported Jiang and her campaign because he wanted to preserve the achievements of the Cultural Revolution. He listened to their criticisms that Deng was a ‘capitalist-roader’, and in April 1976, Deng was removed from his posts in the party. Zhou Enlai’s died in January 1976
- Mao promoted Hua Guofeng to premier of the PRC and vice-chairman of the CCP. This meant that the Gang of Four had a rival for the leadership. Hua had the support of key military officials and more members of the Politburo than the Gang of Four did. Jiang Qing was very unpopular with the majority of the Politburo, who had objected to her behaviour during the Cultural Revolution.
The Trial of the Gang of Four
- members were invited to a Politburo meeting but given different times. When each male member turned up individually, he was arrested. Jiang was arrested at her house before she left for the meeting.
- The Gang of Four were put on trial in 1980–81. They were accused of attempting to overthrow the communist state, and for example, accused that… they planned to use the Red Guard to remove Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, of plotting to take control because they feared that Mao would bring Deng back from exile, of telling Mao that Zhou and Deng were planning to take power from Mao and of punished and tortured opponents. In particular, Jiang was accused of torturing artists who did not agree with her ideas on culture.
- At the end of the trial, all four members were found guilty. Jiang and Zhang received death sentences, although these were reduced to life imprisonment.
The Rise of Deng Xiaoping
- Deng had been removed from his posts but not expelled from the party. He had much support in the party and the military.
- He had played an important role in organising the recovery from the Great Famine in the early 1960s, and in the 1970s he had played a key part in planning a major programme of industrial growth. He had also accompanied Zhou Enlai on his many foreign missions, so Deng had played an important role in helping to develop China’s foreign policy.
- Therefore, from 1976 to 1978 Deng played a clever waiting game in which he secured military support and developed his role within the party. His position as paramount leader (an honorary title which did not give Deng any specific powers, but more importantly it did not place any restrictions upon him) of China was confirmed in October 1978.
Birth Control Changes Under Deng
By 1979, China’s population had grown to nearly 974 million. There were fears that its rapid expansion would make it impossible for economic policies to provide resources for the whole population.
Therefore, the CCP introduced the ‘one-child’ policy. This was intended to limit the expansion of the population and ultimately reduce it in size. A new Marriage Law was passed, including the following.
◼◼ The minimum age for marriage was set at 22 years for men and 20 years for women.
◼◼ Married couples were allowed only one child.
◼◼ There were financial penalties for going over this limit.
◼◼ A couple had to get a permit to give birth.
◼◼ The state could order late-term abortions and sterilisations for women who already had one child.
◼◼ At first the policy was applied in the towns; a second child was allowed to peasants as long as there was a gap of 5 years between the first and second child.
There were significant problems with the policy, not least the increase in female infanticide. Peasant families continued to value a male child more than female because girls were less able to do heavy work in the fields and they married outside of the family, whereas a male child would have a responsibility to look after his parents in their old age.
The consequence of female infanticide, and the legal abortion of female foetuses, was a gender imbalance in the younger population. By 1985, there were 114 boys born to every 100 girls.
The one-child policy was enforced by propaganda campaigns, ‘struggle sessions’ against parents of more than one child and the compulsory fitting of contraceptive devices. Couples who limited themselves to one child were rewarded. They received cash bonuses and extra rations. They were also given better treatment in health care and the education system, whereas those who did not follow the policy lost such privileges. The policy slowed down the growth of China’s population.
Agricultural Changes Under Deng
The reform of agriculture under Mao had removed the oppressive landlords of the imperial and nationalist eras, but the programme of collectivisation had failed to increase the amount of food produced to the levels needed to allow a shift of population from the countryside to the city. Without a profit motive, the communes had tended to produce only what they needed to feed their members.
This was all to change under Deng.
The commune was replaced by the xiang, which was the original village or township. The land was rented by the state to farmers for a period of 15 years. Each xiang had a quota of produce that it had to supply to the state, but the individual famers were allowed to sell any extra produce and any goods that they produced by setting up family craft businesses for a profit at the market. The new system was called the ‘household responsibility system’. It was popular with farmers because they were now rewarded for their own work and skills, and they could make themselves much richer than before. This provided the incentive that had been missing, and agricultural production increased to record levels. By 1984, 98 per cent of agricultural households were part of the household responsibility system.
One other important change in agriculture was that farmers were allowed to concentrate on growing the type of crop which grew best in their area, instead of having to grow rice and wheat, as they had been made to do under Mao.
Educational Changes Under Deng
The development of a highly educated workforce was one of the key elements in Deng’s modernisation programme. Industrial progress required technical expertise and a major change in China’s higher education system.
From 1978, the following policy was put into action.
◼◼ University entrance exams were reintroduced.
◼◼ Private universities were allowed.
◼◼ Chinese students were encouraged to travel to the West for university education.
◼◼ Research institutes that had been closed during the Cultural Revolution were reopened, and their technical staff were reinstated.
The purpose of these reforms was to train a million technical students, who would then use their skills to modernise industrial processes in China. Students who had studied abroad would bring back their knowledge of Western technology and methods of manufacture.
Industrial Changes Under Deng
Deng believed that China’s economy would benefit by adopting a number of capitalist practices, such as allowing private profit and co-operating with foreign investors. However, he did not entirely abandon central planning, and he kept the state-owned enterprises or businesses (SOEs).
- managers and experts now had more freedom to make decisions about targets and profits. - Deng adopted an open door policy for trade, and encouraged competition with foreign companies. as a way of helping Chinese businesses to produce goods of a higher quality, and not just cheaper than those produced in the West.
- Deng introduced new Special Economic Zones (SEZs), firstly in coastal areas, where they could easily access the market in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
- Deng was also impressed by the skills of the new, young managerial class that took advantage of the freedoms allowed in Deng’s economic system, allowing them to introduce incentives such as bonuses to workers going above their targets.
At first, foreign investment was encouraged only in the export industries, but it was so successful that from 1984, Deng allowed foreign investment in home industries and especially in the developing high technology industries. The SEZs enjoyed great success. By the 1990s, China’s export trade had grown by 500 per cent. This was helped by giving exporters special tax concessions and freedom from some financial restrictions.
PROBLEMS:
= Some workers in the SOEs were unhappy about changing their working practices…Under Mao’s system, they were guaranteed a wage regardless of their output. This was known as an ‘iron rice bowl’. They knew that they would be able to feed their family.
= Now Deng wanted incomes to be based on performance. He reduced the subsidies to SOEs because they were supposed to make a profit and fund themselves.
= Workers resisted the new demands, and it was not until 1986 that a new working contract based on performance was introduced, and even this only applied to new workers. This meant that progress was sometimes slow, and production remained inefficient in the SOEs.
Westernisation Changes Under Deng
The changes in economic policy meant that China increasingly began to adopt Western ideas and behaviours.
- The SEZs were based on a system that Chinese officials had witnessed in travels to Taiwan, South Korea and even the Republic of Ireland. The SEZs relied on foreign technology and on Western business practices. Unlike the SOEs, the firms in the SEZs were really private businesses that were run to make profits. This type of privatisation also spread inland to businesses producing for the domestic market.
- Small-scale businesses were established in the countryside with few restrictions placed on production and distribution, which meant that they could sell goods for a profit outside their areas. They were known as Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs). By 1990, TVEs employed 100 million people.
- Western influences were brought back to China via returning students and businessmen. Complaints were voiced that the younger generations were getting Western hairstyles and wearing Western clothes.
- Furthermore, they listened to ‘decadent’ Western music and seemed obsessed with making money.
Some party members thought that the closer ties with the West were weakening the fundamental ideas of communism.
Deng’s Opposition to Political Reforms
Deng was prepared to be forward-thinking and introduce changes where the economy was concerned and to adopt capitalist practices if they succeeded in modernising the economy. However, in politics he remained a hard-line Communist, who would not move away from Marxist–Leninist ideas and Mao Zedong Thought. He maintained four principles about the way China would be governed.
◼◼ The CCP would keep a leading role.
◼◼ He rejected a multi-party system.
◼◼ There would be no free elections.
◼◼ There would be no freedom of speech.
In following these principles, he firmly rejected democracy (although he was also determined to remove corruption from the CCP). He was supported in his opposition to change by the older, more conservative members of the CCP.
The ‘Democracy Wall’ Movement
There was a long brick wall in the Avenue of Eternal Peace near Tiananmen Square where people pinned letters and big character posters with their comments on what was happening in China. This wall became known as the Democracy Wall. At first, Deng was a supporter of the Democracy Wall. His supporters had pinned notes that supported Deng and criticised his opponents during the struggle to take power.
However, Deng’s desire to maintain strict Communism was challenged when the wall was used by the people to express anti-government feelings. Students in particular used it to criticise the party and the lack of democracy. They were disappointed because they had thought that Deng would introduce democracy as a fifth modernisation when he became China’s leader. In 1979, Wei Jingsheng, a former Red Guard, pinned to the wall his criticisms of the government’s failure to allow democratic freedoms and accused the party of acting like the Qing dynasty. He was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Wei Jingsheng was one of those individuals whose brave stand inspired other activists to call for democracy in China. From 1979, intellectuals and students became involved in a Democracy Movement, which called for political reforms to match the modernisation in the economy. Many had experienced Western ideas of liberal politics when they had travelled abroad to study, and they wanted not just to end corruption in the CCP, but for the party to honour its claims that it represented the will of the people.
It was from this Democracy Movement that more widespread demonstrations by Chinese students emerged in the mid-1980s and threatened to challenge the very existence of the Chinese Communist Party.
Student Protests (1985)
In 1985, student demonstrations broke out in Beijing. These demonstrations spread, and by 1986 they were happening in universities across China.
THE AIMS AND FEATURES OF THE STUDENTS’ PROTESTS
In Beijing, the initial protest was caused by the poor conditions in which the students lived and the high rents and prices that had been caused by the government’s economic reforms. These problems were reflected in wider unrest and discontent expressed by workers by strikes. However, in the universities, criticisms of economic conditions were accompanied by political challenges to the government. The students blamed poor job prospects on the party, saying that it gave better treatment in employment to family members and friends instead of hiring on merit. Students were also angry about the way the government placed controls on what they were allowed to study and which books they could read.
The students came to believe that there was something essentially corrupt about the CCP and, using big character posters, they called for the introduction of democracy in China and for free speech. Some called for a multi-party system and free elections. In other words, they wanted an end to the ‘dictatorship’ of the Chinese Communist Party.
The traditionalist members in the CCP were angered by the students’ criticisms. When the general secretary of the party, Hu Yaobang, seemed to show sympathy for the students by criticising the slow pace of reform, he was sacked. In sacking him, Deng showed that he sided with the hardline conservatives who would not accept any move away from Maoist Communism.
Censorship was tightened further, and Deng ordered the arrest of the leaders whom he blamed for the unrest. He announced that China did not need democracy, because the people had an enlightened government to rule for them. While this repression and tough approach ended the 1986 protests, it did not address the concerns of the peasants and workers. It only created resentment, which led to protests once again in 1989.
Tiananmen Square 1989
The protests in 1989 were started by the death of Hu Yaobang from a heart attack in April. Students, remembering how he had been sacked for appearing to support the 1986 protests, gathered in large numbers in Tiananmen Square to express sadness about Hu Yaobang’s death. The numbers grew further still when the Premier Li Peng refused to accept a petition asking for greater freedoms.
- The seriousness of the demonstration was shown by the fact that transport workers allowed students to travel to Beijing for free on public transport. This was a clear sign that the students had support among other groups in the country.
- The students organised sit-ins and by May 1989, 300 of them had begun a hunger strike.
- There were frequent fights with the police and calls from the national newspaper, the People’s Daily, for the government to end the protest.
Gorbachev returned to the Soviet Union on 19 May. Deng then declared martial law in China. However, the situation became even more serious when the non-student population of Beijing began to join the student protest. They shouted, ‘We want democracy! We want Deng to go!’ These protestors blocked the roads and prevented the troops stationed around Beijing from getting to Tiananmen Square. This delayed the attempts of the government to ‘restore order’, but could not prevent the government from ending the protest.
By 2 June, 350,000 PLA troops surrounded Tiananmen Square, and on 3 June, the government announced that the Square would be cleared by the following morning.
The protestors resisted attempts to clear them from the Square. In a night of violence, soldiers in tanks and armoured vehicles opened fire on them. The numbers killed will never be known, but it was certainly in the thousands. In the weeks afterwards, suspects were arrested and sentenced to prison. Any member of the Chinese Communist Party who had shown sympathy for the peasants was dismissed from office.
The events in Tiananmen Square demonstrated Deng’s determination to destroy the opposition and end once and for all the calls for political reform. In taking this action against the students, Deng had acted just as previous rulers had done when they faced with opposition. He had been prepared to reform Mao’s economic policy, but as far as the government was concerned, China in 1989 was to be governed according to Mao’s beliefs. Whatever the protestors in Tiananmen Square might have hoped for, this rule did not include democracy and political freedom.
