Political and Economic Reforms in Cold War China

Mao’s Legacy Mao tried to improve and transform China’s economy but most of his programs were not very successful Five Year Plan-Slow agricultural growth Great Leap Forward-resulted in food shortage and decline in industry

Why? Lack of modern technology No incentives for higher production/peasants not motivated Communes replaced traditional family structure/life

Some Chinese communists started to talk about modernizing (adopting some aspects of capitalism) Mao launched the Cultural Revolution and his Red Guards ‘cleansed’ China of these anti-revolutionary influences

China and the West China enters another moderate phase under Zhou Enlai takes over He begins to open up China to the West Nixon travels to China & establishes diplomatic relations and limited trade

Mao and Zhou die and Deng Xiaoping, another moderate leader takes power Deng implements the Four Modernizations: 1.) agriculture 2.) industry 3.) defense 4.) science/technology

As more and more Chinese learned about the West, people began to question their lack of freedoms Beginning in April of 1989, Chinese students began to protest in Tianamen Square Deng declared martial law and ordered 250,000 troops to surround Beijing June 4, 1989 -- tanks and armed soldiers roll into the square wounding 100s and killing 1000s Marked the beginning of a govt. crackdown to stomp out pro-democratic protests

China in the 1990s The world (esp. in the US) pressured China to release political prisoners and ensure basic rights for the people China refused to promise that its policies would ever change Although China has seen many economic changes, these changes don’t always lead to political reforms

Censorship in China The Chinese government continues to exercise great control over many areas, including the press and the media. Journalists are not allowed to print their opinion or anything that would criticize or embarrass the government. As a result, sometimes Chinese citizens aren’t even aware of the problems their society is facing. You are going to read the handout about current issues facing China. Some are good, but most have negative side effects. Once you are done reading, you are going to write a newspaper article as though you are a journalist in China describing the current issues facing society. Remember, you are being CENSORED and you’d like to avoid going to jail for insulting the government. That means your article needs to be POSITIVE and UPBEAT, even if the problem is really bad. BE CREATIVE, but make sure to include lots of facts you learned from the reading. Your article must take up all the space provided and include a picture. This is an ASSESSMENT grade!!