China take home fatifan
CANSU ECE GOKSIN
TAKE HOME EXAM1
QUESTION 1:
When we look at the Chinese modernization process, we should bear in mind that it
has historical roots for more than a hundred year. In 1911, Chinese dynasty called
Qing Empire collapsed, in which ruling system there was no unification and economic
stability. The people who made revolution and established Republic of China wanted
to bring nationalism and modernism to the country so meaning of modernism was
wealth and power in both international arena and state territory for Chinese people.
When Sun Yatsen was chosen as first temporary president in Chinese Republic, he
intended to unify China less than one reign but he couldn’t success it because there
were regional powers, which had their own army and landlord, through different
backgrounds and ethnics.
From 1920 to 1949 when National Party was holding power, there was ongoing war
and rebellion among the state and also out of the state so that means; people were
hungry, economy was unable to compensating people’s needs. As for, war which
existed in the state, nationalist and communist groups were in conflict until the Sino
Japanese war (1936). They unified against common enemy in order to saving
Manchuria and at the end of the Second World War, thanks to aggression toward
Japan from USA and Russia Manchuria could be rescued. However, from 1946 to
1950 these two groups were fighting against each other in order to get the power.
China Communist Party had won the war due to its close relationship with peasant
and common people.
To sum up things that was mentioned above, China was not able to perform stable
modernization process as it need to deal with many problems such as regional powers,
Japan and civil war.
Modernization was not occurred in a sudden time after an important historical event.
There were many steps that influenced Mao’s reforms contexts. First of all, when they
were beaten by Japan, they understood that they didn’t have enough military and
economic power as much as developed states. In addition to that point, they thought
that they don’t have modern institution and political structure in order to enhance their
economic power. Lastly, with reference to Chinese culture, they thought that they
were so primitive than other Western states. For instance, science was not based on
practical methods rather than that; it was more about to learning from books and
memorizing it. There was patriarchal social structure, which didn’t have any equal
right and conditions for women under the men authority. On the other hand, Western
societies had more individual and equal social structure in order to enhancing
individualism, democracy as well as freedom in state.
As for cultural changes, China didn’t want to adopt itself completely to Westernize
structure, as it didn’t want to lose east spiritual but it also wanted to take parts, which
are proper for it.
For me, Mao combined all things that I discussed above and made them possible for
Chinese context. For some people, he can be seen brutal and old fashioned but he
made the true patterns according to what China needs.
First of all, he unified and destroyed regional landlords by giving land to peasants as
China didn’t have industrial power and related to that there was no working class in
urban area unlikely to Marxist communism and Soviet structure, Therefore, the only
rational thing can be done is unify peasants and people in rural area and encourage
them to produce more in order to competing with other industrialized nations. There
was agrarian economy and most of the population lived in rural area during that time,
Great Leap Forward was the social and economic campaign, which considered
circumstances of the state. As for its economic notions, it tried to created modern
production and industrialized economy by encouraging people to produce steel and
work on farms or in manufacturing. At the same time, it forced to people live in
communes, producing all together without any private farming and private individual
rights such as travelling.
To come up with Cultural Revolution (1966), failure of Great Leap Forward
weakened Mao’s authority in China. He aimed to reassert his authority and revive
revolutionary sprit by organizing students and young population by giving them
financial aid. After Great Leap Forward, economy was getting worse and there was
increasing hunger in society as well as environmental damages so that Mao needed to
improve his authority. China didn’t have stable political order since Mao got the
power and made strong party structure. When he got the power, he built strong state
figure in all segments of political life as well as economy that make plans for
economical agenda and dominates politics by one party. After Great Leap Forward,
anxiety against Mao grew up among society and something should be done, especially
after China provided its political stability after a long time since Mao got the power.
To conclude, people can blame Mao because of his extra ordinary actions, which had
huge impact on China after Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. In my
opinion, what he did is just because of what should have been done according to
China’s own historical context because there is not only one system in the world that
all countries must apply in order to be developed and modern.
QUESTION 2:
As for Yu’s thoughts about contemporary China, he usually interprets the China by
looking at his own personal experiences about Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen
Incident. For him, China was driven by market economy since 1978 but revolutionary
ideas had never disappeared yet they existed in different way. That means status of
high official people from Cultural Revolution to today have never changed although
society had altered in many ways. From this point, Yu underlined the importance of
corruption, bankruptcy and social unequal structures by giving example of huge
disparity between city and country and related to that income differences between
rural and urban areas. Secondly, he claimed that although China is the second largest
economy according to annual growth rate, per capita income is still at very low level,
which means “ as the popular saying has it, in a society where the state is rich but the
people are poor. “ (HUA, 161) To illustrate this point, 250 million people in China
were able to buy international brands while there are still people, who cannot buy
banana for their children. (HUA, 159)
From this point, when we consider Hua’s thoughts about social inequalities, it is more
similar with Wu’s view of corruption after economic boom in China. For Wu, while
party was offering more freedom on economic activities, there was less freedom in
political life that means economy was adapted to Western values but political life
greatly lacked of that. Therefore, for him economic model should allow to different
political approaches and should mediate competing demands. They both stated that
corruption is one of the biggest problem in China and it caused to gap between rich
and poor in terms of their economic abilities. For Wu, economic boom was seen as “
the ‘miracle’ of systemic corruption, the ‘miracle’ of an unjust society, the ‘miracle’
of moral decline, and the ‘miracle’ of a squandered future. (OSNOS, 158) Likely to
Wu, Hua interpreted China as a country in where there was a economic steady growth
and rising standard of living after economic boom due to Deng open door policy
approach. At the same, the people who were getting benefit from this are children of
high officials so since 1990 corruption have been increased at the same speed with
economic growth.
On the other hand, Hua thoughts were completely different than Lin thoughts on
consequences in the economic development in China. First of all, for Hua
government’s heavy control among certain economic sectors was obvious while in
some areas unchecked capitalism maintained caused to many problems such as
environmental pollution, deficiency of health insurance and retirement funds, public
discontent. It can shortly be said that economic growth was more important than any
other aspect of social and political life.
Unlikely to him, Lin thinks that China’s rise should be understood as fusion of market
and strong government figure in political life. He mainly underlines the importance of
poverty and hunger not repression and freedom so government should support certain
sectors by soft industrial policy, which advocates free market and tax break, building
infrastructure for growing industry. Lin was against the Washington Consensus and
its shock therapy policies by saying; “ Can other developing countries achieve a
performance similar to that achieved by China over the past three decades? “
(OSNOS, 154)
WORKS CITIED:
Yu, Hua, and Allan Hepburn. Barr. China in Ten Words. New York: Pantheon, 2011.
Print.
Osnos, Evan. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
TAKE HOME EXAM1
QUESTION 1:
When we look at the Chinese modernization process, we should bear in mind that it
has historical roots for more than a hundred year. In 1911, Chinese dynasty called
Qing Empire collapsed, in which ruling system there was no unification and economic
stability. The people who made revolution and established Republic of China wanted
to bring nationalism and modernism to the country so meaning of modernism was
wealth and power in both international arena and state territory for Chinese people.
When Sun Yatsen was chosen as first temporary president in Chinese Republic, he
intended to unify China less than one reign but he couldn’t success it because there
were regional powers, which had their own army and landlord, through different
backgrounds and ethnics.
From 1920 to 1949 when National Party was holding power, there was ongoing war
and rebellion among the state and also out of the state so that means; people were
hungry, economy was unable to compensating people’s needs. As for, war which
existed in the state, nationalist and communist groups were in conflict until the Sino
Japanese war (1936). They unified against common enemy in order to saving
Manchuria and at the end of the Second World War, thanks to aggression toward
Japan from USA and Russia Manchuria could be rescued. However, from 1946 to
1950 these two groups were fighting against each other in order to get the power.
China Communist Party had won the war due to its close relationship with peasant
and common people.
To sum up things that was mentioned above, China was not able to perform stable
modernization process as it need to deal with many problems such as regional powers,
Japan and civil war.
Modernization was not occurred in a sudden time after an important historical event.
There were many steps that influenced Mao’s reforms contexts. First of all, when they
were beaten by Japan, they understood that they didn’t have enough military and
economic power as much as developed states. In addition to that point, they thought
that they don’t have modern institution and political structure in order to enhance their
economic power. Lastly, with reference to Chinese culture, they thought that they
were so primitive than other Western states. For instance, science was not based on
practical methods rather than that; it was more about to learning from books and
memorizing it. There was patriarchal social structure, which didn’t have any equal
right and conditions for women under the men authority. On the other hand, Western
societies had more individual and equal social structure in order to enhancing
individualism, democracy as well as freedom in state.
As for cultural changes, China didn’t want to adopt itself completely to Westernize
structure, as it didn’t want to lose east spiritual but it also wanted to take parts, which
are proper for it.
For me, Mao combined all things that I discussed above and made them possible for
Chinese context. For some people, he can be seen brutal and old fashioned but he
made the true patterns according to what China needs.
First of all, he unified and destroyed regional landlords by giving land to peasants as
China didn’t have industrial power and related to that there was no working class in
urban area unlikely to Marxist communism and Soviet structure, Therefore, the only
rational thing can be done is unify peasants and people in rural area and encourage
them to produce more in order to competing with other industrialized nations. There
was agrarian economy and most of the population lived in rural area during that time,
Great Leap Forward was the social and economic campaign, which considered
circumstances of the state. As for its economic notions, it tried to created modern
production and industrialized economy by encouraging people to produce steel and
work on farms or in manufacturing. At the same time, it forced to people live in
communes, producing all together without any private farming and private individual
rights such as travelling.
To come up with Cultural Revolution (1966), failure of Great Leap Forward
weakened Mao’s authority in China. He aimed to reassert his authority and revive
revolutionary sprit by organizing students and young population by giving them
financial aid. After Great Leap Forward, economy was getting worse and there was
increasing hunger in society as well as environmental damages so that Mao needed to
improve his authority. China didn’t have stable political order since Mao got the
power and made strong party structure. When he got the power, he built strong state
figure in all segments of political life as well as economy that make plans for
economical agenda and dominates politics by one party. After Great Leap Forward,
anxiety against Mao grew up among society and something should be done, especially
after China provided its political stability after a long time since Mao got the power.
To conclude, people can blame Mao because of his extra ordinary actions, which had
huge impact on China after Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. In my
opinion, what he did is just because of what should have been done according to
China’s own historical context because there is not only one system in the world that
all countries must apply in order to be developed and modern.
QUESTION 2:
As for Yu’s thoughts about contemporary China, he usually interprets the China by
looking at his own personal experiences about Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen
Incident. For him, China was driven by market economy since 1978 but revolutionary
ideas had never disappeared yet they existed in different way. That means status of
high official people from Cultural Revolution to today have never changed although
society had altered in many ways. From this point, Yu underlined the importance of
corruption, bankruptcy and social unequal structures by giving example of huge
disparity between city and country and related to that income differences between
rural and urban areas. Secondly, he claimed that although China is the second largest
economy according to annual growth rate, per capita income is still at very low level,
which means “ as the popular saying has it, in a society where the state is rich but the
people are poor. “ (HUA, 161) To illustrate this point, 250 million people in China
were able to buy international brands while there are still people, who cannot buy
banana for their children. (HUA, 159)
From this point, when we consider Hua’s thoughts about social inequalities, it is more
similar with Wu’s view of corruption after economic boom in China. For Wu, while
party was offering more freedom on economic activities, there was less freedom in
political life that means economy was adapted to Western values but political life
greatly lacked of that. Therefore, for him economic model should allow to different
political approaches and should mediate competing demands. They both stated that
corruption is one of the biggest problem in China and it caused to gap between rich
and poor in terms of their economic abilities. For Wu, economic boom was seen as “
the ‘miracle’ of systemic corruption, the ‘miracle’ of an unjust society, the ‘miracle’
of moral decline, and the ‘miracle’ of a squandered future. (OSNOS, 158) Likely to
Wu, Hua interpreted China as a country in where there was a economic steady growth
and rising standard of living after economic boom due to Deng open door policy
approach. At the same, the people who were getting benefit from this are children of
high officials so since 1990 corruption have been increased at the same speed with
economic growth.
On the other hand, Hua thoughts were completely different than Lin thoughts on
consequences in the economic development in China. First of all, for Hua
government’s heavy control among certain economic sectors was obvious while in
some areas unchecked capitalism maintained caused to many problems such as
environmental pollution, deficiency of health insurance and retirement funds, public
discontent. It can shortly be said that economic growth was more important than any
other aspect of social and political life.
Unlikely to him, Lin thinks that China’s rise should be understood as fusion of market
and strong government figure in political life. He mainly underlines the importance of
poverty and hunger not repression and freedom so government should support certain
sectors by soft industrial policy, which advocates free market and tax break, building
infrastructure for growing industry. Lin was against the Washington Consensus and
its shock therapy policies by saying; “ Can other developing countries achieve a
performance similar to that achieved by China over the past three decades? “
(OSNOS, 154)
WORKS CITIED:
Yu, Hua, and Allan Hepburn. Barr. China in Ten Words. New York: Pantheon, 2011.
Print.
Osnos, Evan. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.