Lonely Planet China
Page 199
Cultural Revolution
Mao had become increasingly concerned that post-Leap China was slipping into ‘economism’ – a complacent satisfaction with rising standards of living that would blunt people’s revolutionary fervour. Mao was particularly concerned that the young generation might grow up with a dimmed spirit of revolution. For these reasons, Mao decided upon a massive campaign of ideological renewal, in which he would attack his own party.
Still the dominant figure in the CCP, Mao used his prestige to undermine his own colleagues. In summer of 1966 prominent posters in large, handwritten characters appeared at prominent sites, including Peking University, demanding that figures such as Liu Shaoqi (president of the PRC) and Deng Xiaoping (senior Politburo member) must be condemned as ‘takers of the capitalist road’. Top leaders suddenly disappeared from sight, only to be replaced by unknowns, such as Mao’s wife Jiang Qing and her associates, later dubbed the ‘Gang of Four’. Meanwhile, an all-pervasive cult of Mao’s personality took over. One million youths at a time, known as Red Guards, would flock to hear Mao in Tiān’ānmén Sq. Posters and pictures of Mao were everywhere. The Red Guards were not ashamed to admit that their tactics were violent. Immense violence permeated throughout society: teachers, intellectuals and landlords were killed in their thousands.
While Mao initiated and supported the Cultural Revolution, it was also genuinely popular among many young people (who had less to lose and more to gain). However, police authority effectively disappeared, creative activity came to a virtual standstill and academic research was grounded.
The Cultural Revolution could not last. Worried by the increasing violence, the army forced the Red Guards off the streets in 1969. The early 1970s saw a remarkable rapprochement between the US and China: the former was desperate to extricate itself from the quagmire of the Vietnam War; the latter terrified of an attack from the now-hostile USSR. Secretive diplomatic manoeuvres led, eventually, to the official visit of US President Richard Nixon to China in 1972, which began the reopening of China to the West. Slowly, the Cultural Revolution began to cool down, but its brutal legacy survives today. Many of those guilty of murder and violence re-entered society with little or no judgement while today’s CCP discourages open analysis and debate of the ‘decade of chaos’.
Toilet paper was first used in China as early as the 6th century AD, when it was employed by the wealthy and privileged for sanitary purposes.
Traditionally the dragon (lóng) was associated with the emperor and the male principle while the phoenix (fènghuáng) was a symbol of the empress and the female principle.
Reform
Mao died in 1976, to be succeeded by the little-known Hua Guofeng (1921–2008). Within two years, Hua had been outmanoeuvred by the greatest survivor of 20th-century Chinese politics, Deng Xiaoping. Deng had been purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, but after Mao’s death he was able to reach supreme leadership in the CCP with a radical program. In particular, Deng recognised that the Cultural Revolution had been highly damaging economically to China. Deng enlisted a policy slogan originally invented by Mao’s pragmatic prime minister, Zhou Enlai – the ‘Four Modernisations’. The party’s task would be to set China on the right path in four areas: agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology.
To make this policy work, many of the assumptions of the Mao era were abandoned. The first highly symbolic move of the ‘reform era’ (as the post-1978 period is known) was the breaking down of the collective farms. Farmers were able to sell a proportion of their crops on the free market, and urban and rural areas were also encouraged to establish small local enterprises. ‘To get rich is glorious,’ Deng declared, adding, ‘it doesn’t matter if some areas get rich first'. As part of this encouragement of entrepreneurship, Deng designated four areas on China’s coast as Special Economic Zones (SEZs), which would be particularly attractive to foreign investors.
Politics was kept on a much shorter rein than the economy, however. Deng was relaxed about a certain amount of ideological impurity, but some other members of the leadership were concerned by the materialism in reform-era China. They supported campaigns of ‘antispiritual pollution’, in which influences from the capitalist world were condemned. Yet inevitably the overall movement seemed to be towards a freer, market-oriented society.
The new freedoms that the urban middle classes enjoyed created the appetite for more. After student protests demanding further opening up of the party in 1985–86, the prime minister (and relative liberal) Hu Yaobang was forced to resign in 1987 and take responsibility for allowing social forces to get out of control. He was replaced as general secretary by Zhao Ziyang, who was more conservative politically, although an economic reformer. In April 1989 Hu Yaobang died, and students around China used the occasion of his death to organise protests against the continuing role of the CCP in public life. At Peking University, the breeding ground of the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919, students declared the need for ‘science and democracy’, the modernising watchwords of 80 years earlier, to be revived.
In spring 1989 Tiān’ānmén Sq was the scene of an unprecedented demonstration. At its height, nearly a million Chinese workers and students, in a rare cross-class alliance, filled the space in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, with the CCP profoundly embarrassed to have the world’s media record such events. By June 1989 the numbers in the square had dwindled to only thousands, but those who remained showed no signs of moving. Martial law was imposed and on the night of 3 June and early hours of 4 June, tanks and armoured personnel carriers were sent in. The death toll in Běijīng has never been officially confirmed, but it seems likely to have been in the high hundreds or even more. Hundreds of people associated with the movement were arrested, imprisoned or forced to flee to the West.
For some three years, China’s politics were almost frozen, but in 1992 Deng, the man who had sent in the tanks, made his last grand public gesture. That year, he undertook what Chinese political insiders called his ‘southern tour’, or nánxún. By visiting Shēnzhèn, Deng indicated that the economic policies of reform were not going to be abandoned. The massive growth rates that the Chinese economy has posted ever since have justified his decision. Deng also made another significant choice: grooming Jiang Zemin – the mayor of Shànghǎi, who had peacefully dissolved demonstrations in Shànghǎi in a way that the authorities in Běijīng had not – as his successor by appointing him as general secretary of the party in 1989.
Deng died in 1997, the same year that Hong Kong returned to China under a 'one country, two systems' agreement with the UK, which would maintain the ex-British colony's independence in all aspects except defence and foreign affairs for the next 50 years. Macau followed suit two years later. Faced with a multitude of social problems brought on by inequalities spawned by the Deng years, President Jiang Zemin, with Zhu Rongji as premier, sought to bring economic stability to China while strengthening the centralised power of the state and putting off much-needed political reforms. Faced with a protest of up to 10,000 Falun Gong adherents outside Běijīng's Zhōngnánhǎi in April 1999, Jiang branded the movement a cult and sought its eradication in China through imprisonment and detention, backed up by a draconian propaganda campaign.
Two of China's oldest wooden buildings can be found in two temples in the environs of Wǔtái Shān: the main hall (8th century) of Nánchán Sì and one of the halls (9th century) of Fóguāng Sì.
HISTORY MUSEUMS
Hong Kong Museum of History One of the former British territory’s best museums: a colourful narrative supported by imaginative displays.
Shànghǎi History Museum Excellent chronicle of Shànghǎi’s colourful journey from ‘Little Sūzhōu’ to ‘Whore of the Orient’ and beyond.
Macau Museum The ex-Portuguese territory’s fascinating history brought vividly to life.
Shaanxi History Museum Eye-opening and informative chronicle of ancient Cháng’ān.
21st Century China
The question of political reform found itself shelved, partly because economic growth was bringing prosperity to so many, albeit unevenly. Property prices – especially in the richer eastern coastal provinces – were rocketing and the export and investment-driven economy was thriving. For many, the first decade of the 21st century was marked by spectacular riches for some – the number of dollar billionaires doubled in just two years – and property prices began moving dramatically beyond the reach of the less fortunate, while bringing wealth to the more fortunate. This period coincided with the greatest migration of workers to the cities the world has ever seen.
China responded to the credit crunch of 2007 and the downturn in Western economies with a stimulus package of US$586 billion between 2008 and 2009. Property and infrastructure construction enjoyed spectacular growth, buffering China from the worst effects of the global recession, but the export sector contracted as demand dried up overseas. A barrage of restrictions on buying second properties attempted to flush speculators from the market and tame price rises. These policies partially worked but millions of flats across China lay empty – bought by investors happy to see prices rise – and entire ghost towns (such as Ordos in Inner Mongolia, built on the back of the coal rush) had already risen from the ground.
Vice president from 2008, Xi Jinping replaced Hu Jintao as president in 2013. Pledging to root out corruption, Xi also sought to instigate reforms, including the abolition of both the one-child policy and the láojiào (re-education through labour) system. These reforms, however, were matched by a growing zeal for internet and social media controls and a domestic security budget that sucked in more capital than national defence.
Xi Jinping inherited a China that was a tremendous success story, but one that remained beset with problems. Despite resilient and ambitious planning (massive expansion of the high-speed rail network, a space program setting itself bold targets, some of the world’s tallest buildings), the Chinese economy remained fundamentally imbalanced, with an excess reliance on the export market. Political reform found itself even more on the back burner as economic considerations took centre stage and storm clouds gathered above the competing claims over the reefs, shoals and islands of the South China Sea.
One of the most astonishing re-creations in living memory is the epic reconstruction of the entire city wall in the north Shānxī town of Dàtóng, complete with scores of watchtowers.
Timeline
c 4000 BC
The first known settlements appear along the Yellow River (Huáng Hé). The river remains a central cultural reference point for the Chinese throughout history.
c 1700 BC
Craftsmen of the Shang dynasty master the production of bronzeware (in the form of ritual vessels) in one of the first examples of multiple production in history.
c 600 BC
Laotzu (Laozi), founder of Taoism, is supposedly born. The folk religion of Taoism goes on to coexist with later arrivals such as Buddhism, a reflection of Chinese religion’s syncretic, rather than exclusive, nature.
551 BC
The birth of Confucius. Collected in The Analects, his ideas of an ethical, ordered society that operated through hierarchy and self-development would dominate Chinese culture until the early 20th century.
214 BC
Emperor Qin indentures thousands of labourers to link existing city walls into one Great Wall, made of tamped earth. The brick cladding of the bastion dates from the much later Ming dynasty.
c 100 BC
The Silk Road between China and the Middle East takes Chinese goods to places as far flung as Rome.
c 100 BC
Buddhism first arrives in China from India. This religious system ends up thoroughly assimilated into Chinese culture and is now more powerful in China than in its country of origin.
AD 755–763
An Lushan rebels against the Tang court. Although his rebellion is subdued, the court cedes immense military and fiscal power to provincial leaders, a recurring problem through Chinese history.
874
The Huang Chao rebellion breaks out, which helps reduce the Tang empire to chaos and leads to the fall of the capital in 907.
c 1000
The major premodern inventions – paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass – are commonly used in China. The economy begins to commercialise and create a countrywide market system.
1215
Genghis Khan conquers Běijīng as part of his creation of a massive Eurasian empire under Mongol rule. The Mongols overstretch themselves, however, and neglect good governance.
1286
The Grand Canal is extended to Běijīng. Over time, the canal becomes a major artery for the transport of grain, salt and other important commodities between north and south China.
1298–99
Marco Polo pens his famous account of his travels to China. Inconsistencies in his story have led some scholars to doubt whether he ever went to China at all.
1368
Zhu Yuanzhang founds the Ming dynasty and tries to impose a rigid Confucian social order on the entire population. However, China is now too commercialised for the policy to work.
1406
Ming Emperor Yongle begins construction of the 800 buildings of the Forbidden City. This complex, along with much of the Great Wall, shows the style and size of late-imperial architecture.
1557
The Portuguese establish a permanent trade base in Macau, the first of the European outposts that will eventually lead to imperialist dominance of China until the mid-19th century.
c 1600
The period of China’s dominance as the world’s greatest economy begins to end. By 1800 European economies are industrialising and clearly dominant.
1644
Běijīng falls to peasant rebel Li Zicheng and the last Ming emperor Chongzhen hangs himself in Jǐngshān Park; the Qing dynasty is established.
1689
The Treaty of Nerchinsk is signed, delineating the border between China and Russia: this is the first modern border agreement in Chinese history, as well as the longest lasting.
1793
British diplomat Lord Macartney visits Běijīng with British industrial products, but is told by the Qianlong emperor that China has no need of his merchandise.
1823
The British are swapping roughly 7000 chests of opium annually – with about 140lb of opium per chest, enough to supply one million addicts – compared with 1000 chests in 1773.
1839
The Qing official Lin Zexu demands that British traders at Guǎngzhōu hand over 20,000 chests of opium, leading the British to provoke the First Opium War in retaliation.
1842
The Treaty of Nánjīng concludes the First Opium War. China is forced to hand over Hong Kong Island to the British and open up five Chinese ports to foreign trade.
1856
Hong Xiuquan claims to be Jesus’ younger brother and starts the Taiping uprising. With the Nian and Muslim uprisings, the Taiping greatly undermines the authority of the Qing dynasty.
1882
Shànghǎi is electrified by the British-founded Shanghai Electric Company. Shànghǎi’s first electricity-producing plant generates 654kw and the Bund is illuminated by electric light the following year.
1898
Emperor Guangxu permits major reforms, including new rights for women, but is thwarted by the Dowager Empress Cixi, who has many reformers arrested and executed.
1898
The New
Territories adjoining Kowloon in Hong Kong are leased to the British for 99 years, eventually returning, along with the rest of Hong Kong, in 1997.
1900
The Hanlin Academy in Běijīng – centre of Chinese learning and literature – is accidentally torched by Chinese troops during the Boxer Rebellion, destroying its priceless collection of books.
1904–05
The Russo-Japanese War is fought entirely on Chinese territory. The victory of Japan is the first triumph by an Asian power over a European one.
1905
Major reforms in the late Qing dynasty include the abolition of the 1000-year-long tradition of examinations in the Confucian classics to enter the Chinese bureaucracy.
1908
Two-year-old Puyi ascends the throne as China’s last emperor. Local elites and new classes such as businessmen no longer support the dynasty, leading to its ultimate downfall.
1911
Revolution spreads across China as local governments withdraw support for the dynasty, and instead support a republic under the presidency of Sun Yatsen (fundraising in the US at the time).
1912
Yuan Shikai, leader of China’s most powerful regional army, goes to the Qing court to announce that the game is up: on 12 February the last emperor, six-year-old Puyi, abdicates.
1915
Japan makes the ‘21 demands’, which would give it massive political, economic and trading rights in parts of China. Europe’s attention is distracted by WWI.
1916
Yuan Shikai tries to declare himself emperor. He is forced to withdraw and remain president, but dies of uraemia later that year. China splits into areas ruled by rival militarists.
1925
The shooting of striking factory workers on 30 May in Shànghǎi by foreign-controlled police inflames nationalist passions, giving hope to the Kuomintang party, now regrouping in Guǎngzhōu.
1926
The Northern Expedition: Kuomintang and communists unite under Soviet advice to bring together China by force, then establish a Kuomintang government.