TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93CT1649> <link 93HT0686> <link 93HT0328> <link 93HT0015> <link 90TT1426> <link 89TT0434> <title> China--History </title> <history> Compact ALMANAC--CIA Factbook East Asia China </history> <article> <source>CIA World Factbook</source> <hdr> History </hdr> <body> China's Early History China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations, with historical records that date back nearly 3,500 years. Successive dynasties developed a unique system of bureaucratic control that gave the agrarian-based Chinese an advantage over neighboring nomadic and hill cultures. The adoption of Confucianism as the state ideology and a common written language (that bridged the gap between the country's many local languages and dialects) further strengthened China's development. Whenever China was conquered by nomadic tribes, as it was by the Mongols in the 13th century and the Manchus in the 17th, the conquerors eventually adopted the ways of the "higher" Chinese civilization and staffed the bureaucracy with Chinese. In 1644, the Manchus overthrew the native Ming dynasty and established the Qing (Ch'ing) dynasty with Beijing as its capital. At great expense in blood and treasure, the Manchus gained control of many border areas over the next half century, including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Tibet and Taiwan. The impressive success of the early Qing period was based on the combination of Manchu martial prowess and traditional Chinese bureaucratic skills. During the 19th century, China experienced the challenge of Western commercial penetration, massive social strife, economic stagnation, and explosive population growth. The 1850s, and 1860s, the powerful Paiping and Nian (Nien) Rebellions, coupled with Muslim separatist movements in eastern China, drained the country's resources and almost toppled the dynasty. Following the Opium Wars (1840-42), Britain and other Western powers gained special privileges in five designated "treaty ports" heralding an era of growing Western demands for increased economic and political concessions from the Chinese. Although some reform- minded Chinese officials argued for the adoption of Western technology to counter further Western advances, the Qing court refused to countenance significant changes. However, China's humiliating defeat in 1895 by Japan, which had adopted Western technology and other elements of Western culture, convinced many Chinese of the need for major reforms. Efforts in such directions, however, continued to be stymied by conservative factions in the Qing court. These factions even went so far as to support anti-foreign and anti-Christian secret societies, which rampaged throughout north China in 1900, in an attempt to rid the country of the Western presence. This so-called "Boxer Rebellion" was eventually defeated by expeditionary forces of the foreign powers. 20th Century China Frustrated by the Qing court's anti-reform stance and inspired by the ideas of Sun Yat-sen, young military officers and students began after 1905 to advocate the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of a republic. A revolutionary military uprising on October 10, 1911, spread rapidly, leading to the abdication of the last Qing monarch. To remove the dynasty without provoking civil war, the revolutionaries and reformers agreed to let high Qing officials retain prominent positions in the new republic. One of these figures, General Yuan Shikai (Yuan Shih-k ai), became the republic's first president. Before his death in 1916, Yuan unsuccessfully attempted to name himself emperor. In the aftermath, the republican government was all but shattered, ushering in the "warlord era", when shifting coalitions of provincial military leaders ruled and ravaged the country. In the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary base in south China and set out to unite the fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance, he organized a new political party, the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese Nationalist Party"), along Leninist lines, and entered into a close alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925, one of his proteges, Chiang Kaishek, seized control of the DMT and succeeded in bringing most of central China under his rule. In 1927, Chiang destroyed the CCP's party organization and executed many of its leaders. The survivors fled into the mountains of eastern China. Finally, driven out of their mountain bases in 1934, the CCP forces embarked on the "Long March" that took them across China's most desolate terrain to the northwest, where they established headquarters at Yan'an in Shanxi province. The bitter struggle between KMT and CCP forces continued openly or clandestinely through the 14 years of Japanese invasion (1931- 45) era, even though they nominally formed a united front to oppose the Japanese invaders in 1937. Civil war resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country. Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT government and military forces to Taiwan, where he proclaimed Taipei to be China's "provisional capital" and vowed to reconquer the Chinese mainland. The KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the "Republic of China" and assert that they constitute the sole legal government of all China, including Taiwan. The People's Republic of China On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing. The new government assumed control of a people exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict, and an economy devastated by high inflation and the disruption of the transportation and communications systems. Chinese communist leaders quickly installed a new political and economic order modeled on the Soviet example. In the early 1950s, China achieved impressive economic and social rehabilitation. The government gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into almost every phase of Chinese life. Party control was assured by strong, politically loyal security and military forces, a government apparatus responsive to party direction, and ranks of party members in labor, women's, and other mass organizations. The Great Leap Forward and the Sino-Soviet Split In 1958, Beijing abandoned the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production above the impressive gains already attained. Mao believed that latent potential could be tapped by industrial decentralization and a greater degree of collectivization of China's countryside. Giant cooperatives (communes) were formed, and backyard factories dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were disastrous, as normal market mechanisms were disrupted and China's people exhausted themselves producing shoddy, unsalable goods. Within a year, the Chinese leadership retreated, blaming poor planning and the weather, but an ensuing famine in the countryside resulted in millions of deaths. Later, they were also to blame the Soviets for economic sabotage. Already strained, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated sharply in 1959 when Moscow placed restrictions on the flow of scientific and technological information to China and then precipitously withdrew all of its advisers. In 1960, the erstwhile allies began to spar openly in international forums. The Cultural Revolution In the early 1960s, State President Liu Shaoqi and his protege, party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping, took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at variance with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with this new direction, Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu, Deng, and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement, called the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," set China on course of political and social anarchy that lasted the better part of a decade. In the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, Mao and his "closets comrade in arms," People's Liberation Army (PLA) strongman Lin Biao and other radical supporters, charged Liu, Deng, and other top party leaders with dragging China back toward capitalism. Radical youth associations, called Red Guards, attacked party and state organizations at all levels, rooting out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. In reaction to this turmoil, some local PLA commanders and other officials maneuvered to back Mao and his supporters outwardly while actually taking steps to rein in local radical activity. Gradually, the Chinese political situation stabilized along complex factional lines. The leadership conflict came to a head in September 1971, when Party Vice Chairman and Defense Minister Lin Biao reportedly tried to stage a coup against Mao. According to Chinese officials, Lin Biao later died in a plane crash in Mongolia while allegedly fleeing the country. In the aftermath of the Lin Biao incident, many officials criticized and dismissed during 1966-69 were reinstated. Deng Xiaoping, chief among these, reemerged in 1973 and was confirmed in 1975 to the concurrent posts of Politburo Standing Committee member, PLA Chief of Staff,and Vice Premier. Deng and other veteran officials dominated the Fourth National People's Congress in January 1975. As Premier Zhou Enlai's health slipped, Deng acted as Zhou's alter-ego. The conflict between veteran officials and the radicals reemerged with a vengeance in late 1975. Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, and three close Cultural Revolution-era associates (later dubbed the "Gang of Four") launched a media campaign against Deng. When Zhou died in January 1976, it was assumed that Deng would take over the premiership. Instead, Minister of Public Security Hua Guofeng was named Acting Premier in February. On April 6, when the Beijing populace staged a spontaneous demonstration in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in Zhou's memory--with strong political overtones in support of Deng--the authorities forcibly suppressed it. Deng was blamed for the disorder and stripped of all official positions, although he retained his party membership. The Post-Mao Era Mao's death in September 1976 removed a towering figure from Chinese politics and set off a scramble for succession. Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as Party Chairman and Premier. A month after Mao's death, Hua, backed by the PLA, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four." AFter extensive deliberations, the CCP leadership reinstated Deng Xiaoping to all of his previous posts at the 11th Party Congress in August 1977. This symbolized the growing consolidation of control by veteran party officials strongly opposed to the radicalism of the previous two decades. The post-11th Party Congress leadership has emphasized economic development and renounced the mass political movements of prior years. At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum (of the 11th Central Committee), the leadership adopted new agrarian policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, endorsed experiments in enterprise autonomy and away from central planning, and approved direct foreign investment in China. The Third Plenum also decided to push the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979. Beginning in 1979, the Chinese leadership moved toward more pragmatic positions in almost all fields. The party encouraged artists, writers, and journalists to adopt more critical approaches, although it did not permit open attacks on party authority. Former Sichuan Party Chief Zhao Ziyang succeeded Hua Guofeng as Premier in 1980. Zhao had established a record of pragmatic and forceful leadership in Sichuan. The Congress also took other personnel measures to strengthen governmental organization and loosen party control over day-to-day decision- making at all levels. In late 1980, after a succession of attacks on the Cultural Revolution, the party officially proclaimed it to have been a catastrophe. Deng's efforts to institutionalize his policies advanced at the 12th Party Congress in September 1982 as he appeared to benefit from internal party changes. The Congress also highlighted the importance of the economic modernization drive declaring a goal of quadrupling the nations's gross national product (GNP) by the year 2000. Finally, the National People's Congress in December 1982 adopted a new state constitution, the fourth since 1949. This new constitution replaces a much more radically leftist document promulgated in 1978 by the now-disgraced Hua Guofeng; it provides a legal framework for the ongoing reforms in China's social and economic institutions and practices. Efforts to reform the political structure, however, have been less successful. Student demonstrators protested the slow pace of political reform in December 1986. Deng's effort to institutionalize the leadership succession also received a major blow when Hu Yaobang, a protege of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was forced to resign as CCP General Secretary in January 1987. Source: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, October 1987. </body> </article> </text>