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90 Years of Communist China
By EconMatters
The CPC (Communist Party of China) was founded on July 1, 1921 in Shanghai with a large working class support base. After the death of Dr. Sun Yat-sen--China's Founding Father (recognized by both Beijing and Taipei)--in 1925, a lengthy civil war soon ensued between the CPC and the ruling political party at the time--the Kuomintang (KMT).
In between the Second Sino Japanese War and WWII, the CPC eventually seized control of the entire mainland China in 1949. The KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, who was a close ally of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, retreated to Taiwan and formed The Republic of China. The hostility, although greatly diminished with the passage of time, still remains between the two sides to this day.
From 1966 through 1976, Mao Zedong, then Chairman of CPC, went on with his peasant revolution vision and practically brought the entire Mainland China into a "dark age" with the Cultural Revolution. (One of the reasons the term "Made in Taiwan" came a lot earlier than "Made in China.")
At the end of 1978, the CPC, under Deng Xiaoping, made a pivotal decision to shift the focus of Party and government to economic reform and open up its policy.
Since then, China and CPC has never looked back. The nation roared into the second largest economy in the world surpassing Japan in 2010 boasting a GDP of $5.879 trillion.
Throughout the past 60 years or so, China has never deviate much from socialism. The CPC is said to be the world's largest political party with over 80 million members, or about 6.0% of the total population of mainland China.
With rapid growth, cracks are starting to surface. Chief among them are rising price inflation, increasing civil unrest demanding higher wages, growing inequality of social and economic development between the rural and urban areas, overcapacity, and high debt leverage in local governments.
China has now entered into a new 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) with targets such as achieving an average GDP growth of 7% per year, and creating more than 45 million jobs in urban areas.
China is also set to undergo a major leadership turnover at the 18th CCP National Congress in fall 2012, which means the leadership transition will be the main focus of Beijing for the next two years.
So it is understandable that the recent messages from CPC party leaders have been centered on maintaining stability, and improving the economies of rural areas. If history is any indication, in China, stability means citizens need to have a satisfactory living standard through steady growth to fuel sufficient job creations.
It is too early to tell if CPC and Beijing would eventually rise or fall with this monumental challenge as it could take decades; nevertheless, it will no doubt have a profound impact on the rest of the world.
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This phrase: "growing inequality of social and economic development between the rural and urban areas" is misleading. The peasants in the country are happy with their progress in the past 10-20 years. The middle class is also happy with their progress. The middle class is growing faster, but this does not mean there is any significant discontent.
The Chinese people are overwhelmingly pleased with their leaders and feel they are making the right decisions. Don't believe what you see on American TV. It's propaganda. Most of the so-called demonstrations are US-funded and orchestrated.
Who pays your salary, flack? Explain to me how the mini riots, common in China lately, reflect general happiness with the with the oligarchy? Poison infant formula, poison food, bad water, poor air,....the average Chinese knows that they are getting worked over. Being fatalistic doesn't mean being pleased.
"Overwhelmingly pleased",...??? Who wrote your script schmuck?
There are so many slaves in China that I can only hope the cracks become collapse.
What a sad perspective to see that so many Amerikans have become slaves in a once free land; slaves to the corporations and banks that buy our politicians and take away our rights.
China will be a survivor in this geo-political arena. Always thought it was short-sighted to apply US free-market principles to China. The United States has a population of 307 million (2009 census) and China has 1.33 billion (world bank 2009). the US has a middle class that is shrinking, i'd argue, in direct proportion (per capita) to China's rising middle class.
The fact that China has opened the door to a heavily regulated Chinese-style "free" market, has undoubtedly been good for China, but it is the U.S. and global transnational that complains the loudest about Chinese regulations. I suspect it is because as labor costs increase in China, transnational manufacturers seek cheaper venues like Vietnam and Malaysia to set up shop.
U.S. trade lobbyists are foolish to think that China would benefit from US-style free-market capitalism. China spent a generation planning on how to properly manage their market economy to match the needs of their population, it's success was no accident and was not built on a house of cards.
It used to be that the US/Australia would send commodity resources to China for manufacturing, but now that the China/Russia trade agreement is in full-force, China is less reliant on US/Australian minerals. Also China has found other markets besides the US where they are able to find advantageous trade deals, further isolating the US.
Perhaps one day, the US is not going to be able to profit from Vietnamese labor prices, but by then US will have crashed and we'll be taking those wages...
When the marginal price of energy exceeds the cost of transportation, the global economic model collapses and we return to regionalism and the nation state with occasional but short wars over controlling oil producing locations. Reason is conducting modern warfare, despite drones, requires huge oil and other resource consumption. In a sense this shift is underway with ME supplying Europe more and more, and the US by Latin America and Canada. No surprise NATO has taken lead in Libya. Russia will probably keep supplying Europe with natural gas but more crude going to China since they have ability to pay and supply ever better quality consumer products in exchange. Perhaps if Brazil develops deep oil drilling successfully in future there may be competetive rivalry between China and US leading to skirmishes. Same for Iran and Kazahkistan --located between China and Europe. Japan would be extremely vulnerable. Nevertheless, although the US is committed to capitalism , there would be ever more "strategic economic planning" with multinatinal corporations having to decide on national allegencies or splitting into regional autonomous entities . Energy depletion will force a different economic model than the one we have currently. Maybe a good thing compared to what is transpiring now.
sounds plausible ...
China and Japan have destroyed their physical boundaries with pollution. If you can't provide for your own food, you fail. Dead man walking.
China's prosperity lasts as long as cheap oil does. Their economy is export dependent for the forseeable future. When transportation costs become high enough, that ends. What happens then is anybody's guess. Revolution(s). Breakup similar to the Soviet Union (and by that time, the USA). Hard to say, but it won't be pretty.
Wow. Thanks for plain vanilla.
China will survive (1) if the communist leadership can roll out their version of "consumerism" internally AND (2) if the United States/U.K./Israel does not wage WWIII as their final bubble (new "Axis of Evil" will be China and Russia and their surrogates like Iran and North Korean).