China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 3 of 9)

July 2, 2010

In May 1978, Deng invited President Carter’s National Security Advisor to Beijing. Deng needed a deal with the US but he wanted something in return. The US had to end its friendship with the breakaway republic of Taiwan—an island China considered theirs. America agreed and closed its embassy in Taiwan to open full diplomatic relations in China. A few weeks later, Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US.

Deng Xiaoping meets President Carter in the White House and signs the new alliance.  Deng says, “Mr. President, we share the sense of being on a historic mission.  Sino-US relations have reached a new beginning.”

Later in the White House, Carter mentions human rights and says that people in China should have the right to leave if they wanted to. Deng says, “Sure, how many Chinese would you want—forty or fifty million?”  Deng tours the US.

After US diplomats arrive in China, a new cultural revolution starts.  With the Chinese and Americans now the best of friends, Deng opened China to American companies, who would get cheap labor while China would get money to grow an economy.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution Part 2 or go to Part 4

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 Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 2 of 9)

July 1, 2010

In 1978, Deng was elected leader of the Communist Party beating the Maoists.  His goal was to have China’s economy catch up with the West within 20 years. “In this new age we will focus our efforts on modernizing industry, agriculture, technology and national defense to transform the country by the end of the century in a Chinese way.”

The first challenge was to grow food for China’s starving peasants. During Mao’s failed programs, millions had died. At the end of 1979, peasants in Anhui had started a private farming system. In one year, food production had increased three fold.

Deng was happy to support whatever worked, but local party bosses resisted change after 30 years of Maoism. There was a saying, “We’d rather have the weeds of socialism than the fruits of capitalism.”

Deng surprised the Maoists by giving his blessing to the farmers of Anhui, and by 1981, Anhui was feeding itself. They said, “We’ve been liberated. It’s not like in the past when peasants were rounded up like an army.”

The next step was to modernize China’s industry and that meant China had to work with the United States. Deng also wanted and ally because of threats from the Soviet Union.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution Part 1 or go to Part 3

_________________________

 Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 1 of 9)

June 30, 2010

When Chairman Mao died in 1976, he left China in chaos due to the Cultural Revolution. Under Mao, who led the revolution and built the People’s Republic, millions had starved and died (due to poor decisions, droughts, floods, crop losses and a complete embargo by the United States). Deng Xiaoping, who overturned Maoism and taught the Chinese to love capitalism, succeeded him but not without a struggle.

Today, China has transformed the lives of many of its citizens and is challenging the world.  This BBC series is the story of how Communist China learned to love capitalism.  It is also the story of Deng Xiaoping—a survivor often punished by Mao, who refused to quit.

Unfortunately, for all the success Deng had in transforming China into a modern nation, his reputation was stained by what happened during the Tiananmen Square incident. During the demonstrations, Deng, who had been a military man most of his life, was faced with a choice between his modernizing instincts and his commitment to national stability to the party he had served for seventy years since 16.

By bringing wealth and stability to China, Deng defied those who said capitalism could not succeed without Western style politics.  He often said, “Our system has its advantages. We can make decisions quickly.”

If you enjoyed this, see The Roots of Madness or go to Part 2 of China’s Capitalist Revolution.

_________________________

 Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Stuck on a Name

June 30, 2010

Dave left this comment for a post on the China Law Blog: “The country (China) is ruled by an organization called “The Communist Party” claiming fealty to the teachings of the German Karl Marx and organizationally based on the teachings of the Russian Lenin.” Source of comment: China Law Blog

Think again, Dave. After Mao died and Deng Xiaoping declared, “Getting rich was glorious”, Marxism and Lenin went in the trash with Maoism. In fact, China is a mixture of capitalism and socialism and the socialism is shrinking.

Check out medical care in China. Soon after Mao died, the cradle to grave socialist system of medicine went into the rubbish. It’s cash, baby, or have a nice death. Along with the state-run hospitals, a growing and very expense private medical system caters to rich expatriates and wealthy Chinese.

In fact, in 2004, there were almost 2 million privately owned enterprises in China. The number of individually owned businesses stood at more than 39 million primarily concentrated in such areas as wholesale and retail, manufacturing and industrial, transport, personal services, and lodging and restaurants. Source: Research Institute of Economy, Trade & Industry, IAA

Soon after 1976, China’s government revised the Chinese Constitution imposing term limits (2 five-year terms) for public office and an age limit (67), something we don’t have in the US. Granted, China still has a one party system but regional governments don’t always listen to Beijing. China is a “Communist” nation in word only.

See Dictatorship Defined

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Lloyd Lofthouse,
Award winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Chinese Pavilion, Shanghai World Expo

June 28, 2010

Dan Redford writes in The Huffington Post that at the Shanghai World Expo, the Chinese Pavilion is a 220 million dollar advertisement for the Chinese people and the world to see.

Redford’s post is worth reading, but he misses a few points when he says, “China’s economic growth is happening exclusively in cities.”  That’s old news.

Evidently, he hasn’t heard that last year China’s ruling body launched a five-year plan to extend the electric grid into rural China and subsidize modern electric appliances for peasants, explore ways to modernize rural villages, build about 40,000 additional kilometers of railroads while crisscrossing the country with a grid of high-speed rail.

China was the most powerful nation on the planet between 206 BC and 1800 AD. The Han Dynasty was more powerful and more technologically advanced than the Roman Empire at its height.  Prior to British opium flooding China from India early in the 19th century, China had the largest economy in the world.

Starting with the first Opium War, that power was robbed by the West.  It wasn’t until Deng Xiaoping said, “Getting rich (and powerful) is glorious”, that the Chinese started to get back on their feet. He also said, “Some areas must get rich before others.”

China was a global power for more than two millennia.  America has only been one since the end of World War II in 1945. Although Redford doesn’t say so, it was obvious that the Chinese are sending a strong message—”We are back”.

To discover more about Shanghai visit:
Shanghai
Shanghai’s History & Culture
Eating Gourmet in Shanghai
Shanghai Huangpu River Tour
Shanghai Huxinting Teahouse

_________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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