China Case Study Vocab Flashcards
anticorruption campaign
Xi Jingping’s sweeping campaign against graft and other forms of corruption, launched in 2012 and used both to tackle government malfeasance and eliminate political rivals
Beijing Consensus
Neomercantilist model of state-led capitalist development adopted by China and proposed as an alternative to the Western neoliberal model known as the Washington Consensus
Belt and Road Initiative
China’s huge infrastructure development and investment project launched in 2013, designed to link China to the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and beyond
century of humiliation
China’s self-described long century (1839-1949) of intervention and exploitation at the hands of Western and Japanese imperialists
Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Authoritarian party that has ruled China from 1949 to the present
Chinese Dream
Paramount leader Xi Jingping’s policy vision calling for China’s national rejuvenation, modernization, and prosperity
Confucianism
Philosophy attributed to Chinese sage Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.), emphasizing social harmony
Cultural Revolution
Mao’s radical movement launched in 1966 to regain political control from rivals, resulting in a decade of social and political chaos
danwei (work unit) system
Maoist program providing all Chinese citizens lifetime affiliation with a work unit governing all aspects of their lives
Deng, Xiaoping
Paramount leader (1978-97) who launched China’s policy of economic reform and opening
Falun Gong
Meditative martial arts movement founded in 1992 and banned by the Chinese government in 1999 as an “evil cult”
floating population
China’s roughly 300 million itenerant peasants who have been leaving the countryside to seek urban employment since the 1990s
Great Leap Forward
Mao’s disastrous 1958-1960 effort to modernize China through localized industrial production and agricultural communes
harmonious society
CCP propaganda term for the continuation of economic reform but with more concern for the growing wealth and welfare gap between urban and rural China
household responsibility system
Deng’s highly successful 1980s rural reform program that lowered production quotas and allowed the sale of surplus agricultural produce on the free market
Hu, Jintao
China’s paramount leader from 2002 to 2012
hukou (household registration) system
Maoist program that tied all Chinese to a particular geographic location
Hundred Flowers Campaign
Program (1956-57) in which Mao encouraged intellectuals to offer criticism of national policy, followed by a crackdown on critics
iron rice bowl
Term for Mao’s promise of cradle-to-grave health care, work, and retirement security, which has largely disappeared under reform and opening
Jiang, Zemin
Deng’s succesor in the 1990s as China’s paramount leader
Kuomintang (KMT)
China’s Nationalist Party founded by Sun Yat-sen and led by Chiang Kai-shek, who was overthrown by Mao’s communists in 1949 and forced to flee to Taiwan
Li, Keqiang
China’s premier and head of government (2013-present)
Long March
The CCP’s 6,000-mile heroic retreat (1934-35) to northwestern China during the country’s civil war with the Chinese Nationalist Party, the KMT
Mao, Zedong
Leader of the Chinese communist revolution, who dominated Chinese politics from the founding of the PRC until his death in 1976
May Fourth Movement
Student-led anti-imperialist cultural and political movement growing out of student demonstrations in Beijing on may 4, 1919
National Party Congress
Chinese Communist Party cumbersome representative body; more akin to a national political party convention
National People’s Congress
China’s national legislature
one country, two systems
Term for China’s guarantee to Hong Kong of 50 years of domestic autonomy as a “special administrative region” after the British colony was returned to China in 1997
People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
China’s military
red capitalists
Private entrepeneurs who are also members of the CCP and whose interests generally align with those of the party-state
Red Guards
Radicalized youth who served as Mao’s shock troops during the Cultural Revolution
Reds vs. experts
Term describing Mao’s policy favoring politically indoctrinated party cadres (Reds) over those people who had economic training (experts)
reform and opening
Deng’s economic liberalization policy, starting in the late 1970s
Social Credit System (SCS)
State-implemented behavioral modification system that tracks the economic and social actions of Chinese citizens and businesses (not implemented as a scoring system)
special economic zones
Enclaves established since 1979 by the Chinese government that have offered tax breaks and other incentives to lure foreign investment
Sun, Yat-sen
Founder of China’s Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and considered the father of modern China
Three Represents
Jiang Zemin’s 2001 policy co-opting private entrepeneurs into the CCP
Tiananmen Square
Historic plaza in Beijing where the Chinese party-state crushed the 1989 pro-reform demonstration
Uighurs
Ethnic Muslim, Turkic minority residing in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, subject in recent yeats to intensive efforts of forced assimilation
Xi, Jinping
China’s paramount leader, serving simultaneously as head of the party (CCP general secretary), head of the state (PRC president), and head of the military (CMC chairman)
