Transcript China Under Deng Xiaoping

China Under Deng
Xiaoping
1976 - 1989
Deng…in his own words:
“It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.”
“Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious.”
“Let some people get rich first.”
“Reform is China's second revolution.”
“When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will
transform itself.”
“The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during
the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something
else when he leaves.”
 After Mao's death on September 9, 1976, Mao's chosen successor,
Hua Guofeng, called Deng back from internal exile to help him
restore order and oust the Gang of Four.
 The Gang of Four was the name given to a leftist political faction
composed of four Chinese Communist Party officials- including Jiang
Qing- last wife of Mao.
 After he outmaneuvered Hua for Party control in 1977, Deng
launched the "Beijing Spring", which allowed open criticism of the
excesses and suffering that had occurred during the period of The
Cultural Revolution. Hua was allowed to retire from political life.
 Due to the valuable contributions Deng had made during
the revolutionary years, his political struggle against the
Gang of Four, as well as the notable success in his
efforts to restore social order, he had earned enormous
prestige in the Party and among the people. With the
strong backing of powerful political veterans and in
accordance with the People's wishes, in July 1977, at
the Third Plenary Session of the Tenth Central
Committee, Deng was reinstated as:
 Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee; VicePremier of the State Council; Vice-Chairman of the
Military Commission and Chief of the General
Staff of the People's Liberation Army.
 In March 1978 he was elected Chairman of the Fifth
National Committee of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference
Economic Reforms:
Overview
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"Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and
capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is
planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too.
Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity.“
-Deng Xiaoping
The Deng reforms decentralized the state economy by replacing central planning
with market forces, breaking down the collective farms and getting rid of state-run
enterprises. One of the most successful reforms—the "within" and "without”
production plans—allowed businesses to pursue their own aims after the met their
state-set quotas. Enterprises and factories were allowed to keep profits, use merit
pay and offer bonuses and other incentives, which greatly boosted productivity.
In the Deng era there was a shift from central planning and reliance on heavy
industry to consumer-oriented industries and reliance on foreign trade and
investment.
Economic Reforms
 In December 1978 Deng Xiaoping announced the
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official launch of the Four Modernizations, formally
marking the beginning of the reform era. The Four
Modernizations were in the fields of:
Agriculture
Industry
National Defense
Science and Technology
Economic Reforms
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Deng wanted desperately to modernize China and dispense with
obsolete Marxist ideology. He declared that the Four
Modernizations would take precedence over class struggle. As part
of the policy new universities were opened and students were sent
abroad for technical training.
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These reforms stressed economic self-reliance- and also increased
foreign trade and investments by opening up China’s markets.
Educated intellectuals were also welcomed back into government
and industrial positions after long being considered enemies of the
Revolution under Mao.
Economic Reforms
In 1979 Deng began dismantling the "rigidly" controlled agriculture
collectives and encouraging farmers to raise crops in individual plots.
According to rules that varied from province to province, farmers were
allowed to hire a certain numbers of laborers, and sell their surplus.
Peasants were not allowed to own land but they were given long term
leases and rights to renew the leases so there was an incentive for
them to take care of the land.
Deng also introduced incentive price bonuses for above-quota grain
production and launched a "responsibility system" which allowed
farmers to sell surplus crops on the open market after the met their
government quotas. In 1984, in an effort to increase production, the
quota was dropped completely for all crops expect cotton and grain.
Wheat production doubled between 1978 and 1985 from 41 million to
87 million tons. By 1987 the output of grains and tubers was three times
that of India and almost equal to that of the U.S. and Soviet Union.
Economic Reforms
The heart of Deng's economic reforms was the establishment of
Special Economic Zones (SEZs), in 1980, along China's southern
coastline. Here Chinese businesses and foreign investors were lured
with chances to make huge profits and incentives such as low taxes,
cheap land, cheap labor and comparative economic freedom.
The Chinese government modernized the infrastructure, attracted
Chinese entrepreneurs with tax exemptions for doing business with
foreign companies, and lured foreign investors with tax holidays and
a large bonded zone for duty-free imports of raw materials. By 1989
nearly 22,000 joint ventures had been launched, 952 with American
firms. Chrysler and Coca-Cola were among the first American firms
to launch joint ventures.
Economic Reforms
Some have called the “reform and opening” policy the greatest
poverty-reducing program in history. It not only launched a period of
economic prosperity in China it lifted around 300 million people out of
poverty and another 100 million have moved into middle class. At the
time the “reform and opening” policy was approved China was still
suffering from famines and the per capital GDP of China was 381
yuan. In 2007 it reached 18,900 yuan ($2,760).
 China has the fastest growing economy in the world for many years
now. It has managed to maintain a 10 percent growth rate through
the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. China’s growth rate has been five and
six times higher than the growth rate in the United States, Japan and
the major countries in Europe. The only countries that have posted
similar growths rates over extended periods of time in recent years
have been Japan in the 1960s, 70 and 80s and South Korea in the
1970s, 80s and 90s.
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Savings increased 14,000 percent and exports went from
$10 billion a year to almost $1 trillion. China rose from an
economic backwater into the world's third largest economy.
The economic boom has mainly benefitted the 300- 400
million or so urban Chinese living in and around the coast.
The 18 central and western provinces have mainly been left
out of the economic boom and the majority of China's 900
million rural residents still live in feudal-like conditions as
subsistence farmers.
Inflation in the 1980s sparked protests and was a
contributing factor to the Tiananmen Square
demonstrations in 1989. Inflation in the 1990s also sparked
protests.
Political Ideology and Reforms
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Deng was loyal to the Communist party and a firm believer in the
"dictatorship of the proletariat." All major political decision had to be
approved by Deng. He insisted that economic reforms could take
palace without democracy, freedom, and political liberalizations and
that power must remain firmly in the hands of the Communist Party.
Deng feared that democracy might lead to the chaos and instability
he endured during the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, he said,
"Democracy has to be institutionalized and written into law, so as to
make sure that institutions and laws don't change whenever the
leadership changes, or whenever the leaders change their views or
shift their focus."
Political Ideology and Reforms
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Chinese foreign policy under Deng
was shaped by the Deng dictum
“hide your ambitions and disguise
your claws” which was taken to
mean that China should devote its
energy to developing economically
and not concern itself so much
with international affairs.
The U.S. established relations
with the People's Republic of
China in 1979 when China was
under the leadership of Deng. In
1979, Deng became the first
Chinese leader to visit the United
States.
Political Reforms
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In 1983, Deng launched a "spiritual pollution" campaign in
which petty criminals were taken off the streets and
executed. During the "Democracy Wall" movement in
Beijing, Deng ordered the posters and handbills torn down
after critiques of the party were displayed. He also made it
clear that allusions to a departure from the "socialist road"
and use of the word "democracy" would be dealt with
harshly.
Deng also improved relations with Russia, Japan and
South Korea and England.
 In 1984 Deng successfully
negotiated an agreement
with Margaret Thatcher
and the British government
to return Hong Kong to
Chinese control in 1997,
the year Britain's 99-year
lease on much of the
territory was to expire. The
Chinese government
pledged to respect the
economic system and civil
liberties of the then British
colony for fifty years after
the return.
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
The pro-democracy demonstrations began in earnest as a display of
public morning for Hu Yabong--a reformist Communist leader who
was once chosen as Deng's successor but later was purged for
advocating political reform--who died of cancer on April 15, 1989.
Thousands left wreaths at Tiananmen Square to honor him. Although
Hu was not a leader in a reformist movement he was a sympathizer
to reformist causes and his death prompted students, teachers,
intellectuals, workers, reformists and ordinary Chinese to gather at
Tiananmen Square.
A week after Hu's death 150,000 students had assembled in
Tiananmen Square. By the end of May there were nearly a million.
Students from all over China, some of whom had been assisted by
railway workers who let them ride free on the trains, came to Beijing
for the protests. They were supported by millions of ordinary Chinese
citizens, and at one point there was even some discussion that
soldiers might defect to the side of demonstrators.
Tiananmen Square
On May 19, martial law was
declared. Thousands of military
vehicles, including tanks and
armored personnel carriers,
began moving into Beijing.
On May 29th, five days before
the massacre, students from
the Beijing Art Institute raised a
30-foot-high statue called the
Goddess of Democracy, which
was model after the Statue of
Liberty, near the Monument of
People's Heroes at the center
of the square. By that time
some 3,000 demonstrators
staged a pro-democracy
hunger strike. On June 2nd
there was a rock concert and
soldiers began moving in.
Tiananmen Square
At 2:00am on June 4th 1989, People's Liberation Army tanks and
300,000 soldiers moved into Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush a
large pro-democracy demonstration that had been going on for seven
weeks. The tanks rolled over people that got in their way and soldiers
opened fire on groups of protesters.
The Chinese government death figure is 300. Other estimates range
from 2,700 to much higher. Never before had the People's Liberation
Army turned its weapons on the Chinese people with the intention of
murdering so many of them. Demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in
1976 and 1987 had been broken up with batons and tear gas not
guns and tanks.
Survivors…In their own words:
The student activist Lu Jinghua later recalled, "The night the army came, I finally
left the square at 2:30am and made my way out. It was terrible. They were
shooting people, there was blood everywhere. I was mad, sad, scared—
everything together. I just didn't want to die. I didn't know whether to walk or
run.“
[Source: The Independent]
Victims were shot, run over with tanks, clubbed to death, caught in crossfire. Fang
Zheng, a student at Tiananmen Square who is now China's disabled discus
champion, had his legs crushed and later amputated after a Chinese army tank ran
him down and dragged him for 30 feet.
Wu Pei, a school teacher, told Newsweek, "Around 4:00am, soldiers encircled
our group. Several hundred in our group lined up and filed off peacefully. But
when we got to Beijing Music Hall [west of Tiananmen Square], some
students started screaming, 'Don't panic, nobody panic!' Everyone started to
run. Suddenly gun shots crackled around me and the air filled with gas. Just
then a tank rolled through the bike lane, crushing people behind me who
couldn't get out of the way. I still can't endure that [memory]. I'll never forgive
them for that."
Time correspondent Jaime FlorCruz recalled,
"In front of my apartment, about 2
k east of the square, a convoy of
army trucks stood bumper-tobumper. Students had blocked
their advance, chanting Xia lai! Xia
lai! (Come down!). Amid the
commotion, an armored personnel
carrier plowed through the crowd,
made a U-turn, then sped off,
knocking over a truck loaded with
students. In an instant one man lay
on the ground, his head a mush of
red and pink, on the gray concrete.
'They're killing us,' shrieked a
woman. Civilians pushed towards
the army vehicles, beseeching the
military to go home."
"For the first time in my life I saw a man die," one student told
National Geographic. "The left side of his face was blown away by
a bullet." The same student found the soldier who shot the man and
hit him over the head with a metal bar similar to "the sort a cook
uses to stir or mix a large pot.“
[Source: Ross Terrill, National Geographic, July 1991]
There was a report of one tank crushing 11 civilians. Qi Zhiyong, a
33-year-old construction worker who lost his left leg from the knee
down after he was shot by Chinese troops, told AP, “I saw people
being run over. Blood sprayed everywhere. The tanks kept
moving as if the people weren’t there. My hair stood on end. I
was chilled to the bone.”