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David Wang

Responses to Final Questions

Professor Dali Yang

17 March 2010

Question No.1

Though built on an apparent idea of reforming the Chinese nation’s government based on

interests of the people, the People’s Republic of China has seen throughout its brief history the

construction of legislation around the self-interests of individual and collective groups of party

leaders whose main concerns are not for that of the people, but rather for the protection and

stabilization of their own political power. An entire era – the Cultural Revolution – can be

argued as the prime example of this sort of corruption, but many other tumultuous political

events have also exemplified this trend throughout the nation’s history. These events and

intraparty conflicts have come to symbolize the level of un-institutionalization of the political

history of the People’s Republic of China thus far, but recent reforms have also begun its

rectification.

Coming into power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party came in with the general

mission of increasing the standard of living for all Chinese citizens and building up a

quintessential socialist nation. However, within a decade, destabilization of the political

monopoly of the CCP could be witnessed as a result of the economic situations, and certain

“rightists” began to rise up and protest many of the CCP’s policies. This resulted in the Hundred

Flowers Campaign of 1956-57, which was essentially a trap to correctly label the rightists who

seized this apparent opportunity to proclaim their protests. The Anti-Rightist Campaign was thus

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initiated, resulting in 300-500,000 outspoken rightists to be sent to labor camps on the

countryside (Lecture 1.14.10).

The tumultuous anti-rightist sentiments escalated into the climactic Lushan Conference,

which saw the clashing between two of the highest CCP members, Chairman Mao Zedong and

Defense Minister Peng Dehuai. Peng had travelled to his homeland of Hunan province to find the

grotesque effects of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies, and wrote a bitter letter to Mao about

those effects and his feelings towards them (Lecture 1.19.10). Mao saw this as a challenge to his

seat of authority, as he saw the revelation of the effects of his policy as a threat to his power.

Thus, he openly criticized and labeled Peng as a rightist at the Lushan Conference, and Peng and

his supporters fell from the Party’s favor. Despite the obvious effects it cast upon the general

populace, the Great Leap Forward had now become unarguable; any opposition was seen as

support for Peng, and thus led to persecution. This policy-making decision on the basis of a

protection of power clearly is a sign of the un-institutionalization of the Party’s leadership from

its original goals, as the priority for interests has most certainly switched from nation to self.

The escalation to the Cultural Revolution was based on the political belief set in stone by

Mao that “loyalty was to [his] person rather than his policies” (Macfarquhar 10). The panic that

was the Cultural Revolution can be considered a result of the seeming paranoia of Mao to threats

to his seat of power, much of the time based on claims simply to prove that no questioning would

be tolerated in the state. The chaos was further intensified by the desire by party officials to

utilize the spoils system based on loyalty to Mao, leading to accusations against rival politicians

for similar positions and other un-institutionalized behavior. One of the first victims to this

plague of erraticism was Wu Han, the playwright of Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, which Party

member Yao Wenyuan, a close affiliate of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, openly criticized in 1965 as a

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metaphor commenting in favor of Peng Dehuai’s persecution by Mao (Macfarquhar 17). This

was one of the first of many events in the ten years that followed – right up to the death of Mao.

Among the high number of cases representative of the Cultural Revolution is that of Liu

Shaoqi, Chairman of the PRC from 1959 to 1968. Amidst the aftermath of the Great Leap

Famine, both he and Deng Xiaoping had gained party prominence by advocating much more

liberal economic reform policies. Juxtaposed with Mao’s radical ideologies in the wake of the

disastrous Great Leap Forward, the duo had begun to gain an amount of influence within the

party that was dangerous to Mao. Denounced as “the ultimate, most highly venomous renegade”

by Lin Biao, Liu was formally labeled as a “traitor, renegade, and scab” and removed from all

party positions in 1968 (Macfarquhar 277). He died in hospice a year later, denied medical

supplies by Mao.

In the wake of the events of the Cultural Revolution, Vice Premier Lin Biao had risen to a

very high-esteemed position within the Party, and seemed to have Mao’s favor – the most

important attribute in the Chinese political hierarchy. Mao even suggested making Lin his

successor, as Mao was coming to realize that his death was impending, and needed a follower

with loyalty to serve him even after his death. However, for whatever reason, it seemed that Lin

became somewhat uncomfortable with his role as successor (Macfarquhar 324), and Mao, for

whatever reason, seemed to be uncomfortable with Lin’s influence in the Party. Regardless,

events escalated into Lin and his son, Lin Liguo, plotting to assassinate Mao in Shanghai, but

failing even make an attempt to do so; it is unclear to whether it was due to their failure to

complete the task or due to Mao’s uncovering of the plot against his life. Lin, his wife, and his

son attempted to flee the country afterwards, but perished when their plane to the Soviet Union

crashed in Mongolia (Macfarquhar 335).

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Mao’s ailing health in the 1970s, coupled with the death of Lin Biao, had led his wife,

Jiang Qing, to begin following her political ambitions. She and her three closest associates

(Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan, and Wang Hongwen) comprised the “Gang of Four”, a foil to

the newfound position of strength in Deng Xiaoping (Macfarquhar 296). The “Gang of Four”

found their strength in the essences of the Cultural Revolution – the media and propaganda

network – and railed against the economic initiatives of Deng Xiaoping. They served as a

political threat to the weakening Mao, but as the sole defenders of the ideals of the Cultural

Revolution (contrary to Deng), he could not get rid of them, as power would then go to another

political foe (Deng Xiaoping) (Macfarquhar 396).

The Gang of Four continued to gain prominence in the waning years of the Cultural

Revolution. In January 1976, Premier Zhou Enlai died of cancer, and the nation descended into a

state of grievance. The apprehensive Gang of Four feared that the collective mourning by the

masses for Zhou could turn against the Gang’s political agenda, and decided to take action. On

April 5, 1976, the Qingming Festival, they ordered for the military to clear Tiananmen Square of

the wreaths and messages mourning Zhou’s death, incinerating them at Babaoshan (Macfarquhar

425). The masses’ response was that of protest, leading to the first Tiananmen Incident, where

thousands of protestors rallied against the Gang of Four’s actions. The Gang of Four used this as

an excuse to bring down Deng, claiming that the entire ordeal was organized by him to gain

political influence, removing him from all political posts within the Party (Macfarquhar 429).

Mao’s death in September 1976 essentially brought an end to the Cultural Revolution, as

his successor Hua Guofeng was quick to have the Gang of Four arrested and taken out of the

political picture (Lecture 1.28.10). The end of the Cultural Revolution brought the end to the

prime example of un-institutionalization of the People’s Republic of China, where original

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national and political goals had been abandoned in favor of the preservation of power, influence,

and other self-interests. Mao, Lin Biao, and the Gang of Four were perhaps the guiltiest of these

practices, as they utilized their political influences to criticize and oust vulnerable party members

who could possibly have threatened their political power, thus further bolstering their own

influence and power within the Party. This intraparty struggle for control thus hindered the

creation of effective policies that benefitted the interests of the populace; instead, it usually

resulted in poor legislation that disregarded those interests.

With Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power in June 1981 came a sense of that institutionalization

that had been long missing from the Party’s agenda. The economic reform policies in the Deng

era resulted in the reemergence of a sustainable Chinese economy, especially in the agricultural

sector, which saw huge increases in economic opportunities and prosperity for the rural

population (Yang 214). However, the persistence of the older Mao-era leaders having political

influence throughout his reign ultimately led to the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of

1989. Instigated by the death of Deng-supporter Hu Yaobang, tens of thousands of protestors

rallied in the square, calling out against authoritarianism and for economic liberalization. The

wake-up call of the protests became the launch pad for a series of economic reforms, including

the considerations of institutional economics for the transition from the traditional Chinese

economy to a more modern market economy (Fewsmith 89). The policies implemented in the

aftermath of the Tiananmen incident, especially in regard to the national economy, showed a

more defined and institutionalized form of political governance that the nation hadn’t seen much

of in its brief history.

The main reason for un-institutionalization within the People’s Republic of China was

due to the pursuit of self-interests by many of the elite Chinese Communist Party members from

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the Anti-Rightist Campaign to the end of the Cultural Revolution, hindering policies that most of

the time was detrimental to the overall well-being, and contrary to the interests, of the general

populace. With the ushering in of the Deng Xiaoping era came slight reprieve and more insight

into the importance of prioritized goals, but the persistence of old Mao-era Party leaders still

hindered development. With the Tiananmen incident fresh in the minds of the Party, however,

much more has been done to strive toward completing those goals made in the best interest of the

people. Though those goals have evolved since 1949, recent economic and social reforms have

shown that the nation is closer to a state of institutionalization for the people of the nation.

Question No.2

A category of essential issues that should be taken into account whenever discussing

domestic Chinese policies is that of the rural-urban gap, which has been a contested group of

concerns well before the Chinese Communist Party’s rise to power in 1949. Coming into power

with resolve to “[transform] a backward agrarian nation into a civilized and progressive

industrial nation” (Yang 21), the CCP was faced with running a nation that was primarily

agricultural – a challenge for any administration in an industrializing global society. Mao himself

acknowledged that “[China] have a rural population of over 500 million, so how [its] peasants

fare has a most important bearing on the development of our economy and the consolidation of

our state power” (On the Correct…People, 1957). Without a doubt, the relationship between the

state and the rural communities of the nation quickly became a spotlight in the political

spectrum.

Policies, however, seemed to instead have seemed to be detrimental towards the

agricultural population, instead favoring the urban, industrial sector. Indeed, the Soviet

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development model that was adopted by the Chinese government did emphasize the use of the

rural community to fund the urban heavy industry development (Lecture 1.14.10). Mao

addressed this discrepancy in his February 27, 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of the

Contradictions of the People, where he cited an increase of 150,000 million catties in the

national output over seven years, as well as the total annual amount of the grain tax to be only at

80,000 million catties. However, he does acknowledge that annual incomes of urban workers are

higher than that of rural peasants, but he attributes this to the “latter’s cost of living [being] much

lower than that of works in the cities” (On the Correct…People, 1957). It is obvious here that the

tensions between the urban and rural sectors of the newly-reformed nation have already been

stressed enough for the highest official to address them, and that whatever policies the state has

already implemented (the first Five-Year Plan from 1953-1957) has still left the peasantry

dissatisfied with their current situation.

The Party’s second Five-Year Plan, commonly known as the Great Leap Forward, which

has caused what is considered the largest famine of human history. From 1956 to 1962 – two

years before the second Five Year-Plan’s instigation and the end of it, respectively – the

mortality rate in China increased by 122.8%, resulting in the estimated deaths of anywhere from

16.5 to 40 million excess deaths due to the famine from 1958-1961 (Yang 37-38). Despite the

common occurrence of famines prior to the Great Leap Forward policy implementation, “it

appears that the average Chinese unmistakably linked the famine 1958-61 with the Great Leap

Forward and its associated policies, including communization” (Yang 39). Though the urban

population was still affected by the consequences of the Great Leap Forward, the starvation –

and therefore mass deaths – was primarily confined to the countryside. This connection was

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made by the Chinese population, especially the peasantry, increasing the tension in the rural-

urban gap.

A call for a second Great Leap by the Party officials in 1959-60, as reported by various

editorials – including the People’s Daily – left the populace aghast, as it seemed as if their

leaders were apparently “oblivious to the deepening crisis they were precipitating in rural areas”

(Yang 71). The second Great Leap would be centered on a renewal of the commune mess hall

system, which saw disastrous results with “excessive food consumption” leading to the “collapse

of production incentives in commune work” (Yang 55). This seeming disregard for the level of

catastrophe the people were experiencing led to many frustrations against the government, which

converted to an assumed attack on the “communist wind”, as referred to by Zhou Enlai in a letter

to all party officials on November 6, 1960. The lack of rectification by local officials to halt its

“attacks” on the Party was addressed as “doing serious damage to the productive forces in

agriculture” (Yang 76).

This probably was not the best way to address the issue, as these claims against a

“rightist” attack upon the CCP’s policies soon were null due to the escalating severity of the

famine. Mao himself ordered investigations to find the truth behind the claims at the grassroots

level, and the results found that the malnutrition and mass hunger issues were caused by the mess

hall and supply systems (Yang 78). Though the truth had been clearly evident, Mao still could

not claim that his own policy, the Great Leap Forward, could’ve produced such disastrous

results. He decided to begin sanctioning of household contracting in 1962, establishing himself

as the political leader of the nation over many of his senior colleagues who favored contracting.

Mao, at this point, felt that the disastrous results of his agricultural reform policies were

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dangerous to his supreme position in the government, and stability of his power became his first

priority.

The Great Leap Forward thus became the first of many turning points in the rural-urban

gap situation. Following the confrontation between Peng Dehuai and Mao at the Lushan

conference in 1959, party unity began to erode away, and policies were made more for self-

interest than for that of the people. As the government seemed to represent less and less of the

interests of the rural population, the peasantry’s woes began to erode away at the political base

that Mao’s administration had established thus far into the nation’s history, as even Mao was

“incapable of erasing the horror of the famine” (Yang 97).

Another essential issue with regard to the rural-urban gap was the Third Front, the effort

to develop industry in China’s southwestern interior in light of the escalating conflicts between

Vietnam and the United States. A massive amount of Chinese domestic resources and funding

(specifically around 50% of all Chinese investments) was allocated towards this project (Lecture

2.11.10), and this funding towards industrialization in certain areas (especially Hunan, Sichuan,

and Hubei – the hometowns of Mao, Deng Xiaoping, and Lin Biao, respectively) and thus was

not apportioned to remedy the rural communities still reeling from the devastating results of the

Great Leap Famine. This was another way that the CCP conveyed a sense of disregard towards

the interest of the rural populace, further deteriorating the ephemeral unity achieved at the

beginning of the Great Leap Forward in 1957.

After the end of the Mao era in 1976, economic reforms began to take effect to rectify the

tensions between the rural community and the urban populace, which the state has seemed to

favor due to the course of events up until this time. However, the instigation of the Household

Responsibility System in 1981 to replace the egalitarian distribution that was implemented

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during the Mao era started to see very positive effects in regard to the standard of living for most

of the Chinese population. The system was applied in low-key local experiments in Anhui and

Sichuan provinces, and saw encouraging results; Qingjiang commune in Gansu county adopted

the system in 1979 and saw more its grain output more than double over the course of the next

year – 2.2 million jin in 1979 to 4.65 million jin in 1980 (Yang 160).

The appealing aspect of the Household Responsibility System for the rural communities

was the ability to gain more profits for producing more goods past the government-deemed

quotas for production. Peasants were given unrealistically high quotas to reach in the early stages

of the Mao reforms, and were not rewarded an adequate amount to produce past these levels of

production. With the Household Responsibility System, quotas were drastically reduced, and all

excess quotas were sold on the free market. This, of course, was a concern for the central

government: the aspects of the responsibility system seemed call for the “abandonment of

collective agriculture and therefore socialism” (Yang 167). The ability of the CCP to allow for

the Household Responsibility System to take effect represented the willingness for the

government to abandonment political principles and show concern for the interests of the rural

population.

The rise of township and village enterprises (TVEs) in the 1980s closed the rural-urban

gap even more. Though existent since the 1970s, the TVEs produced only 3% of the national

gross value of industrial output in 1971 and only 9% in 1978 (Yang 214). However, they became

an integral part of the economy in the 1980s, jumping from barely under 50 billion yuan in

output in 1978 to barely under 650 billion yuan in output in 1988. The number of enterprises

jumped from 1.5 million in 1978 to 18.9 million in 1988, and the number of employees nearly

quadrupled (Yang 214). This was because the TVEs opened up a source of “rural nonfarm

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employment and agricultural commercialization” that “contributed to the swift expansion of

consumer society beyond urban China” (Yang 215). This increase in TVE allowed for better

wages, working conditions, and standard of living for rural communities, closing the rural-urban

gap little by little.

Looking at the effects of Chinese public policies, it may seem apparent that the policies

may favor the interests of urban areas, especially that of coastal areas, more so than those of the

rural population. However, though there may have been some lobbying for policies favoring

urban interests, the policies that the Chinese government has made simply affect the rural

population at a much more apparent and severe degree than the urban populace. In the Great

Leap Famine, for example, urban rations were still affected by the food shortage, but because of

the higher standard of living in the urban areas already established prior to the CCP’s takeover in

1949, the malnourishment and starvation were seen at a much more severe scale in the rural

areas than in urban ones.

Policies instead tended to favor toward the CCP’s individual self-interests, as they were

intended to. Mao’s control in the government, for example, was in danger after the results of his

Great Leap Forward became apparent, and his policies from then on, though generally

detrimental to the rural populace, were made not for the advancement of the urban interests, but

rather his own political interests. This can also be seen with the allocation of investments in the

Third Front, where much of the money went toward the protection of three of the top leaders’

home provinces. However, these policies made for self-interest led to an increase in the rural-

urban gap. Since then, rectifications to close the gap as much as possible have been made, as

seen by the economic reforms in the 1980’s, but the gap is still very noticeable in present-day

China.

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Works Cited

Fewsmith, Joseph. China since Tiananmen. Second edition. New York: Cambridge University

Press, 2008. Print.

Macfarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. Mao’s Last Revolution. Cambridge: First

Harvard University Press, 2006. Print.

Yang, Dali L. Calamity and Reform in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Print.

Zedong, Mao. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People. Eleventh Session

of the Supreme State Conference. 19 June 1957. Speech.