History of contemporary China

A brief excursus from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the present day

Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen, first President of the Republic of China

The Xinhai Revolution, which led to the foundation of the Republic of China, began with the Wuchang revolt (1911), where the majority of the southern provinces of China joined the new state entity. The proclamation of the Republic took place on 1st January 1912: Sun Yat-sen was appointed provisional President by the Council of Provinces.

A few months later, in order to avoid further conflict, he relinquished the presidency in favour of Yuan Shikai, general of the northern army, who declared the fall of the last Qing emperor, Xuantong (Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi) and inaugurated the era of the Beiyang government.

With the dissolution of the Qing dynasty, Tibet became de facto independent. Even for Mongolia, with the extinction of the monarchy, the ties with China loosened.

On 12th August 1912, the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) was founded, of which Sun Yat-sen himself was acclaimed president. In November 1913, Yuan Shikai dissolved the Parliament, starting a process of centralizing power on himself, aimed at establishing himself as Emperor.

However, on 6th June 1916, after the enthronement rites had already begun, Yuan Shikai died, leaving China at the mercy of the “warlords” – local leaders and landowners with personal armies – who plunged the country into anarchy. In the following years, the Republic was at the mercy of the military juntas, branded with the derogatory term “cliques”.

In the meantime, in 1915 Japan presented the weak Chinese government with the Twenty-One Demands, which required the recognition of Japanese interests in China and the participation of Japanese advisors in public administration.

This episode inspired the May Fourth Movement of 1919, whose main inspirator was Chen Duxiu (1879–1942). The movement promoted a cultural rebirth based on science and democracy, rejecting both traditional culture and foreign imperialism.

In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai, with Chen Duxiu himself as its first secretary. During the same period, the Kuomintang was reorganized as a modern mass party by Soviet advisors, with the intent to establish a united front with the Communists that lasted from 1923 to 1927.

On 12th March 1925 Sun Yat-sen died. With the rise of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the communist elements were first eliminated from the army (1926), then banished from the united front and forced into hiding (1927). With the transfer of the capital further south, began the so-called Nanking decade (1927–1937), which ended with the Japanese occupation of the city and the ensuing massacre, resulting in hundreds of thousands of victims.

The growing Japanese aggressiveness continued with the invasion of Manchuria (1931) and Shanghai (1932). The Manchurian region, including the current provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and part of Inner Mongolia, was transformed by the Japanese into a puppet state headed by the former emperor Pu Yi, who had not resigned himself to the loss of his prerogatives (years later, on the eve of the capitulation, the latter was arrested by the Soviets and handed over to the Chinese communists). The Kwantung Army, the unit of the Japanese army that controlled the area, attained such power that it often acted independently from Tokyo.

Between the 1930s and 1940s, much of the central-northern coast fell under Japanese control: these territories went on to form the so-called Republic of Nanking, another puppet state governed by collaborators who had broken away from the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek, however, wanted to commit his forces to the civil war, ignoring the advance of the Japanese.

Mao Zedong’s communists, who in the meantime had established a Chinese Soviet Republic in the south of the country, were forced to undertake the long march (1934–1935) to escape the encirclement of Chiang’s troops. In 1936, Chiang was arrested in Xi’an by his own generals, who forced him to negotiate with the communists to form a Second United Front, this time with a decidedly anti-Japanese purpose.

With the defeat of the Axis countries (including Japan) in World War II, China found itself among the victorious powers, and obtained a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Chiang Kai-shek
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek

In 1946, the civil war resumed. The communist forces settled in the north of the country, and the nationalist forces in the south. The weakness of the nationalist army was demonstrated in the almost unopposed advance of the adversaries, finally forcing Chiang Kai-shek to take refuge with his last troops on the island of Taiwan (July 1949). Almost all Western nations recognized the government of Taipei as the legitimate representative of China.

The People’s Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao Zedong on 1st October 1949.

In 1950, a series of reforms were introduced, including the agrarian reform (division of land) and the marriage reform (divorce and women’s freedom). The Three-anti (San fan) and Five-anti (Wu fan) campaigns were aimed at attacking the “corruption” of Chinese industrialists and capitalists, when numerous enterprises were nationalised.

Between 1950 and 1951, Chinese intervention was decisive in the second phase of the Korean War, when the troops of the People’s Liberation Army (officially “volunteers”) joined forces with North Korean soldiers, pushing back US and South Korean forces to below the 38th parallel. The conflict stabilised and led to an armistice two years later, restoring the status quo ante bellum, which was considered acceptable by China and the United States, but not by the two Koreas themselves.

By 1951, China had brought the territories of Tibet and Xinjiang back under its sovereignty, manu militari. Outer Mongolia, then a People’s Republic, was not touched because it was protected by the Soviet Union.

The first five-year plan (1953–1957, implemented from 1955) showed a strong Soviet inspiration, privileging the development of heavy industry to the detriment of agriculture, a traditional Chinese economic resource.

In the early 1950s, Chinese Communist Party leaders Gao Gang and Rao Shushi attempted to oust their rivals, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai. However, believing they had Mao’s support, they were instead isolated from the rest of the Party. Gao Gang took his own life in 1954, while Rao Shushi was pardoned, now incapable of understanding and willing, after ten years of imprisonment.

In 1956, with the speech On the Ten Major Relationships, Mao Zedong set out his vision of economic and social relations, simultaneously inaugurating the Hundred Flowers campaign, a movement open to intellectuals, who were encouraged to participate in the debate on the evolution of the socialist state. However, they soon began to harshly criticize the government. Considered reactionary and unpatriotic, they in turn became the target of a persecution called the Anti-Rightist Campaign.

Although a second five-year plan had been prepared, it lost relevance in the face of the new political-economic direction of the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), where a significant detachment from the Soviet Union’s line was felt. The collectivization of the land was started and every effort was encouraged to create infrastructure and to produce industrial materials such as steel and processed metals, even in a home-made way with backyard furnaces. Experimental techniques of dubious effectiveness were adopted in agriculture, which caused crop yields to plummet. The Great Leap Forward failed, causing a famine that killed tens of millions of people throughout China.

In 1959, the struggle between the “two lines” of the Chinese Communist Party (the “right” and the “left”) became even more intense: Marshal Peng Dehuai criticized Mao, calling the Great Leap Forward “an expression of petty bourgeois fanaticism” words that led to his dismissal. The right wing of the Party, hostile to Mao, reacted by spreading the theatrical drama The Dismissal of Hai Rui. This performance, by the mayor of Beijing Peng Zhen and his deputy, the writer Wu Han, recalled the historical episode of the unjust dismissal of the upright imperial official Hai Rui, which contained clear references to the story of Marshal Peng Dehuai.

In the same year, following the repression of Lhasa uprising, the Dalai Lama managed to escape to India, where he established the Tibetan Government-in-exile.

Mao Zedong, whose credibility was now undermined by recent defeats, left the Presidency of the Republic to Liu Shaoqi, while retaining the position of Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. During this period, amnesty was granted to many political prisoners, including the former emperor Pu Yi himself, who was released from prison for good behavior.

In 1962, there was the brief Sino-Indian war. Relations between the two powers, initially in harmony with a Third World perspective since the Bandung Conference (1955), progressively deteriorated as the buffer territory of Tibet disappearing, bringing their borders in direct contact. The war ended with the de facto acquisition by China of the territory of Aksai Chin and the obtaining of minor border adjustments, while India retained the territories south of the McMahon Line (Arunachal Pradesh). In 1965, the People’s Republic of China established the Tibet Autonomous Region, which also included some territories claimed by India.

In the following years, there was a radicalization of the struggle between the right and the left of the Chinese Communist Party, the latter under the leadership of Mao Zedong and Lin Biao, who proposed a greater politicization of society. The Socialist Education Movement was created for this purpose, but it found little consensus, since the right attempted to limit it to a purely intellectual and cultural sphere (thesis of February 1966).

The left of the party then established a "Group for the Cultural Revolution", chaired by Chen Boda and led by the so-called Gang of Four, thus starting the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1969 in its first phase, and until 1976 in its most extensive sense. With the slogan of “bombard the headquarters”, secondary school students were invited to leave their studies to organize everywhere sessions of political indoctrination and destruction of the four olds (old ideas, old culture, old habits and old customs), advocated by the five black categories (landowners, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and right-wing people). These categories were open to broad interpretation by the Red Guards, who were mostly students and often indulged in arbitrary violence and personal revenge.
The Cultural Revolution, going beyond the intentions of its creators, culminated in episodes of fanaticism such as the Shanghai Commune and had the effect of seriously undermining the foundations of state organization. To weaken it, military force had to be used.

Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, the Great Helmsman

Growing tensions with the Soviet Union led to the outbreak of armed conflict in 1969 over old border claims in the northeast, between the Ussuri and Amur rivers, and in the northwest (Xinjiang). In the following decade, despite peace talks, relations between China and the Soviet Union remained cold, which created the conditions for a gradual improvement in Sino-American relations.

Engaged in serious internal turmoil, China did not directly participate in the Vietnam War, although it provided logistical support to the Ho Chi Minh regime, the Viet Cong guerrillas, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Subsequently, relations between China and Vietnam worsened due to Vietnam’s rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the military action undertaken by the People’s Army of Vietnam against Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime. This triggered the brief but violent Sino-Vietnamese conflict (February–March 1979), which resulted in neither winners nor losers.

In 1971, Lin Biao died in a plane crash under circumstances that have never been clarified. In the same year, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly visited China, which a few months later was admitted to the United Nations, taking Taiwan’s place. In 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited the country.

A new conflict between the left and right of the party began in 1973, under the banner of the Anti-Confucius campaign. The real target, however, was not only the classical Chinese philosopher, but also the capable and popular head of government, Zhou Enlai. In the same period, Deng Xiaoping appeared on the public scene.

On 5th April 1975 Chiang Kai-shek died in Taipei, leaving open the question of the status of the island of Taiwan, considered by Beijing as an integral part of its territory. The Kuomintang, for its part, continued to consider the Nationalist Republic of China as the true and only legitimate Chinese government, as well as the representative of the whole of China in the international context, claiming Nanjing as its historical capital (although, in fact, Taipei performed the function). Although few nations still formally recognised Taiwanese sovereignty over the mainland, Japan and the United States continued to provide the island with economic and military support.

During 1975, Zhou Enlai, already elderly and ill, advanced the plan of the four modernizations (industry, agriculture, defence, science), but he could not see its fruits as he died on 8th January of the following year. In April 1976, Hua Guofeng was designated as prime minister, an official who sided with the radical wing of the party, ousting the moderate Deng Xiaoping. There are conflicting opinions on the period of Hua Guofeng: generally considered of little importance, it is, however, viewed favourably by some minorities due to the loosening of the control exercised over them by the central power, especially in contrast with the excesses of the previous period.

On 9th September 1976, Mao Zedong disappeared, and in October of the same year the “Gang of Four” was arrested through a police action. Among them was Mao’s widow, Jiang Qing; the other members were Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen, high officials of the Chinese Communist Party. With these events, the Cultural Revolution, in its broadest sense, could be said to have ended.

In the early 1980s, with the return of Deng Xiaoping, economic reforms were launched that led to the restoration of limited agricultural ownership, the liberalization of some sectors of the market and the establishment of special economic zones, removed from national economic legislation and open to foreign investment. In 1984, the people’s communes were abolished.

The economic openings led to the creation of a reformist current represented by Party Secretary Hu Yaobang and Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang, who proposed a greater separation between the functions of the Party and those of the State. The initiative found a large following, arousing various student demonstrations of support. Hu Yaobang died on 15th April 1989, and during commemorations, students called for democracy, practicing a hunger strike. Mikhail Gorbachev, at that time on an official visit to China, was applauded as the main promoter of reforms in the Soviet Union.

While official press reported the action of “a few groups of counterrevolutionaries”, the protests culminated on 16th and 17th May 1989 in Tian’anmen Square in Beijing, when the army dispersed the demonstrators by shooting at the crowd, as the leadership feared, among other things, that the democratic movement could undermine the social balance and economic reforms.

Since the 1990s, the Chinese economy, with the new formula of socialist market economy (1992), has begun an uninterrupted period of significant and at times excessive growth, so much so as to require the implementation of economic and monetary control policies.

Deng Xiaoping retired from active political life in 1992 and died on 19th February 1997. In July 1997, Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty, followed by Macau in 1999. In November 2002, Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang Zemin as general secretary of the Communist Party of China, assuming the presidency of the Republic the following year. The latter completed his term in 2013, leaving the position to Xi Jinping.

Icona
The dragon, traditional symbol of Chinese sovereignty
Icon: Wikimedia Commons

Today’s China, a global player of undisputed relevance, has become a landmark of the multipolar world. However, it retains considerable internal contradictions: from the difficult integration of minorities (Tibetans, Mongolians, Uighurs and others), to the shortage of various raw materials, the urban-rural divide, the demographic imbalance, and the heavy pollution of some areas. The separation between the industrialised east, the vast agricultural hinterland, and the distant mountainous, desert, and depopulated west still seems unsurpassed.

Finally, the international questions are not insignificant, including the difficult relations with Taiwan, South Korea and India, as well as the rivalry with Japan for prerogatives as a regional power in the Far East and Pacific. In the background are the ambiguous political-economic relations with Russia and the United States and the exploitation of the resources of Africa and Latin America for the supply of raw materials.

See also:

Author's notes
In 2006, I wrote the initial version of the previous chronicle of contemporary China for the “Storia della Cina” entry in the Italian version of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. That entry later took a totally autonomous route, and is no longer edited or followed by me.

To ensure smoother reading, the most widely used version of names for things, places, and people in international popular literature has been used here. For example, in the text, “Beijing” is used instead of Běijīng, among others. In general, the pinyin system is used for Chinese names without indications of tones, while the Wade-Giles system is employed in other cases when this version is better known (e.g. Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Kuomintang).

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