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Analysis Of A New Look A Reexamination Of The Great Leap Forward

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Curtis Harnish Ashley Chinese Society 12/18/2014 A New Look: A Reexamination of the Great Leap Forward This year China surpassed the United States as the world's largest economy. China's immense growth marks the end of the United States one-hundred forty year reign as the world's top economy. As recent as thirty years ago China was still a traditional agrarian society embarking on the path to industrialization. Considering the thirty years in which rapid growth allowed China to become the world's leading economy, the transformation to an industrial super power seems drastic and impressive. Such dramatic growth can only be characterized with an ability to adapt, which seems contrary to many of the views circulating in the West about the …show more content…

The Great Leap Famine claimed the lives of many Chinese citizens throughout all of China. Thirty million peopled died from starvation and malnutrition, and almost thirty-three million births were lost during the Great Leap Forward period. While this disaster is insurmountable and cannot be justified it questions the role of leadership in the shaping of this great tragedy. Adhering to Eric Li’s understanding of the adaptability of Chinese rule, the government sought to minimize these disasters and mitigate their losses. Though the start of China’s modernization was plagued with an inauspicious beginning, in a modern context the Great Leap Forward can be seen as the precursor for China’s emergence as the world’s strongest economy. Without condoning or condemning the effects of the Great Leap Forward, the ambitious goals of industrialization presented complex challenges in which the Chinese government sought to provide the most appropriate alternatives. Modern evidence suggests that the losses suffered during the Great Leap Forward could have been far worse and calls for a reexamination of the Great Leap …show more content…

“Is China’s Economy Really the Largest in the World?”. BBC News. December 15, 2014. Accessed December 16, 2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30483762. Kung, James Kai-Sing. Lin, Justin Yifu. “The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959-1961”. Economic Development and Cultural Change.(52.1). October, 2003. 51-73. Accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/380584. Li, Eric. “A Tale of Two Political Systems”. TED Talks. January, 2013. Accessed October 28, 2014. http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems?language=en. Lippit, Victor D. “The Great Leap Forward Reconsidered”. Modern China. (1.1). January, 1975. 92-115. Accessed December 2, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/188886. Song, Shige. “Mortality Consequences of the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward famine in China: Debilitation, Selections, and Mortality Crossovers”. Social Science & Medicine. (71). 2010. 551-558. Accessed December 3, 2014.

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