China: A Journey of 76 years from absolute poverty to Prosperity I
Dr. Syed Mehboob
Senior Business and Political Analyst
China is the role model for developing countries. Today, China stands at the forefront in terms of economic development, poverty alleviation, stability, science and technology, quality education, human development, artificial intelligence, and global connectivity. However, seventy-six years ago, it was a poverty-ridden country. It was a journey from absolute poverty, marked by hardship, fighting against foreign aggression, addressing internal problems, learning from the outside world, and embracing commitment, hard work, dedication, concentration, and sincerity in leadership and meritocracy. This transformation turned China from a poverty-ridden nation to a developed, dignified nation and a world power.
The study of any country’s economic system cannot be separated from its history, origin, culture, values, philosophy, and ideology. What China achieved in forty years, from 1980 to 2020, is astonishing, as a similar achievement was made by Europe in four centuries. The West had done it by discovering two continents, massacring two hundred million aboriginals and natives, and colonizing large regions in the world. The Chinese did it without wars, loot, bloodshed, invasion, and plunder, without the discovery of vast oil and gas resources, with IMF policy advice or World Bank assistance.
In the year of revolution 1949, China was the largest underdeveloped nation in the world. Its first three decades, from 1949 to 1979, were under strict Marxist-Leninist centralized planned economic management, and it achieved a great degree of social sector development. Before the two opium Wars, China accounted for thirty-four percent of global GDP. These opium wars were launched jointly by the British and French forces from 1840 to 1860 to force China to import opium and open up its coastal cities for trade to address a burgeoning trade deficit. China was subjected to a coalition of eight nations in 1901, resulting in pillage, loot, and plunder of the capital city of Beijing. Thus came the era of do more mantras, gunboat diplomacy, and unequal treaties on the Qing dynasty, and China came to be known as “The Sick Man of Asia “.
The true liberation of dawned on China with the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949. China’s liberation, however, came at a heavy cost, because the exploitative Western imperialist powers did their best to avert the rise of this great Asian Power. China was devastated, poor, and the largest underdeveloped country in the world. China looked towards the Soviet Union, but at the height of the Cold War, under Nikola Khrushchev’s era in the 1960s. The Soviet assistance ceased, and China was left to fend on its own. A great famine due to the mass dislocation of population in the Great Leap Forward era, from 1958 to 1962, left China in a miserable state. Moreover, China was confronted with the greatest domestic turmoil of the century, known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, when the nation’s universities, colleges, schools, factories, etc, closed and the entire population was on the move to denounce supposedly the bourgeoisie and capitalist elements within the communist party. The decade-long cultural revolution cost China several decades of development. The rise of great reformist Deng Xiaoping in 1978 heralded a new era in China’s contemporary history. The reformist leadership introduced wide-ranging reforms in all aspects of the economy and society. It reversed some of the major aspects of the centralized economic management and ideology-laden policies in the domestic sphere, instead enacting the rule of law, freedom, and merit. In the domain of foreign affairs, a resumption of normalization of relations with the USA, Western Europe, and Japan took place. So China began a new journey of prosperity and development.
In 2012, it was another quantum leap towards development when President Xi Jinping started a new era of progress. He made a plan to lift 30 million people further from poverty. So, in four decades from 1979 to 2020, China astonishingly lifted 800 million people out of poverty. President Xi Jinping aims to realize the Chinese dream of prosperity and convert China into the most advanced country by 2050. A major initiative of President Xi Jinping is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of US$1,300 billion to connect 150 countries. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the flagship project of BRI, with the first phase from 2015 to 2020 of 22 projects worth US$20 billion already completed. These include power plants, highways, motorways, and infrastructure.
Evolution of Political Thoughts in China from 1949-2019
The communist party launched three anti-campaigns, i.e, against corruption, waste, and bureaucracy in 1950, five anti-campaigns, i.e, against bribery, non-payment of taxes, fraud, embezzlement, and spying.
Phases in the evolution of China’s political thoughts from 1949 to 2019
Mao Zedong 1950-1976
·Land reforms, communes: Korean War; Three anti and five anti-campaigns (1950-53)
·Five anti-campaigns, i.e, bribery, non-payment of taxes, fraud, embezzlement, and spying (1953)
·Hundred Flowers bloom and New Democracy Campaign (1956)
·Anti-Rightist Campaign, break with the Soviet Union (1957-58)
·Great Leap Forward (Great Chinese Famine) 1958-1962
·Cultural Revolution, Great Disaster (Dealing with Lin Biao, the Gang of Four) Globally, propaganda workers of the world unite and strengthen the Third World solidarity (1966-76)
Den Xiaoping 1979-1997
Reform and open door policy (1979-2019) romance with western normalization of diplomatic relations with the USA, Western Europe, Japan, adoption of One China and Two systems ( 1997-2000 for return of Hong Kong/ Macao respectively 1989.
Jiang Ziamin (1993-2003) Three represent ( Sang Daibiao), i.e, the Communist Party representatives, the development trends of advanced productive forces, represent the orientation of an advanced culture, represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people of China joining the World Trade Organization ( WTO) in December 2001
Hu Jintao 2003-2013 Building material civilization and Spiritual Civilization, fighting three evils i.e, separatism, extremism, and terrorism
Xi Jinping ( 2013 to date)
In November 2012, during the CCP’s 18th party congress, Xi was again elected to the standing committee of the Politburo (reduced to seven members), and he succeeded Hu as general secretary of the party. At that time, Hu also relinquished the chair of the CMC to Xi. On March 14, 2013, he was elected president of China by the National People’s Congress. Among Xi’s first initiatives was a nationwide anti-corruption campaign that soon saw the removal of thousands of high and low officials (both “tigers” and “flies”). Xi also emphasized the importance of the “rule of law,” calling for adherence to the Chinese constitution and greater professionalization of the judiciary as a means of developing “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Under Xi’s leadership, China was increasingly assertive in international affairs, insisting upon its claim of territorial sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea. President Xi has taken a great initiative, “One Belt, One Road” for joint trade, infrastructure, and development projects with East Asian, Central Asian, and European countries.
Xi managed to consolidate power at a rapid pace during his first term as China’s president. The success of his anti-corruption campaign continued, with more than one million corrupt officials being punished by late 2017. In October 2016, the CCP bestowed upon him the title of “core leader,” which previously had been given only to influential party figures Mao Zedong and Jiang Zemin. The title immediately raised his stature. A year later, the CCP voted to enshrine Xi’s name and ideology, described as “thought” (“Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in a New Era”), in the party’s constitution, an honor previously awarded only to Mao. Xi’s ideology was later enshrined in the country’s constitution by an amendment passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2018. During the same legislative session, the NPC also passed other amendments to the constitution, including one that abolished the term limit for the country’s president and vice president; this change would allow Xi to remain in office beyond 2023, when he was supposed to retire. The NPC also unanimously elected Xi to a second term as president of the country in March.
Xi’s power and influence were bolstered in 2021 when the CCP passed a historical resolution in November that reviewed the party’s “major achievements and historical experience” of the past 100 years and looked to plans as well. It featured praise for Xi’s leadership; more than half of the document was devoted to the accomplishments under Xi in the nine years he had led the party, such as reducing poverty and curbing corruption. It was only the third such resolution in the party’s history—the previous two were passed under Mao and Deng—and it elevated Xi’s status, ensuring that he would be seen as a significant figure in the party’s history.
In October 2022, Xi was unanimously elected to a historic third term as general secretary of the CCP, further consolidating his power. On the same day, the party unveiled the 20th Politburo Standing Committee, which, in addition to Xi, consisted of six others. On March 10, 2023, Xi also secured an unprecedented third five-year term as president of China, a development that was widely expected after the Chinese constitution was amended in March 2018 to remove the two-term limit on the presidency. As the only candidate, Xi garnered the votes of all 2,952 delegates to the Congress to remain the head of state.
The Chinese Flag, a symbol of great struggle, unity, and National Pride
According to the current government interpretation of the flag, the red background symbolizes the revolution, and the golden colours were used to radiate on the red background, though the colours represent one of the five elements of fire and earth. The five stars and their relationship represent the unity of the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The orientation of stars shows that the unity should go around a center. In the original description of the flag by Zeng, the larger star symbolizes the communist party of China, and the four smaller stars that surround big star symbolize the four social classes ( the working class, the peasantry, the Urban petite, and the national bourgeoisie) of China’s New Democracy mentioned in Mao’s On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship.
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