1. Chinese Revolution

2. WWII Chinese government estimates that 20,000,000 Chinese were killed.
Weakened the Republican/Nationalist army of Chiang Kai-Shek, strengthened Communist Party.

3. Chinese Economy from WWII - Present
After WWII, the Communist Party gained a lot of support.
Mao Zedong was the leader

4. Mao’s China
Mao Zedong used propaganda to spread the ideas of Communism and published “The Little Red Book” to teach people communist philosophies

5. The Great Leap Forward - 1958
In 1958 Zedong began a radical program called the Great Leap Forward to increase production in farms and factories
The Communists rushed to increase production and made people with little to no experience try to farm or produce steel in their backyards.
The steel was of poor quality making it useless and the poor weather resulted in a widespread famine.
An estimated 30 million people died of starvation

6. The Cultural Revolution - 1966
Create a society with no ties to the past:
Closed schools
Urged students to rebel against their students, these people were called “Red Guards”
Many Ancient Chinese buildings were destroyed
Anyone opposing Zedong was attacked by the young Red Guards
Finally, they began to turn against Zedong and were eventually imprisoned
Hundreds of thousands of
people were killed
China was in turmoil!

7. The Four Modernizations - 1981
Deng Xiaoping became the new leader of China in Over the past 20 years, China has seen slow changes in their economy, allowing some free enterprise (meaning that the government does control ALL aspects of the economy)
Xiaoping led The Four Modernizations:
Farming
Industry
Science
Defense

8. Modern China Today, China is a major economic power
China still only has one political party, the Chinese Communist Party, meaning there is no political freedom
In 1989, people gathered in Tiananmen Square in China’s capital to protest for democracy. The government sent in troops and tanks, 1000’s were killed or wounded.

9. Modern China There is still a need for human rights reforms…
China today is one of the world’s greatest manufacturing countries
While the economy is slowly changing, there is not much room for political change given the fact that there is only one political party allowed.

10. Inferring what you know…
Based off of what you know about Mao Zedong, what is the irony of this political cartoon, and what it is trying to communicate?