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China's Communist Rulers: Summary

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Richard McGregor, an Australian who spent nine years in Beijing the capital of China as bureau chief and as a correspondent for the Financial Times, has written a historic novel about the Chinese Communist Party’s influence over Chinese society. The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, first published in Britain in 2010, is an assembly of stories and hypothesis about the Chinese system which McGregor composed after his years in China. This book provides the best explanation of China’s government and the Party today while being easily understood by a foreigner. Many examples are provided based on the USA and Taiwan as well as British government that assist the reader in further understanding China’s policies. Additionally, …show more content…

The current government has improved in the years of reform since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The party today is less involved in the private lives of Chinese citizens. The author does a great job explaining the extent of the parties power and how its complete control over the state-owned enterprises as well as people made modernization possible in China. On the other hand, corruption is one of the major challenges the one-party government faces today. The party's absolute control over all of the major valves of the economy and society made it is extremely hard to eliminate the abuse of power within the party. Richard McGregor discusses that the reasons for corruption and overwhelming deception are the government’s inability to think through the consequences well. In fact, the system discourages the leadership to weigh in and elaborate on their plans. Instead, party officials are encouraged to hit their KPIs (key performance indicators), then move on to their next job. For example, the author describes in great detail how the local politicians in Shanghai got ahead of themselves in regard to Beijing construction business and were eventually brought down in one of the most public corruption cases in China’s history. This internal competition and growth at all costs may cause a very significant economic bubble. There is an emerging view that much of the reported growth and development has been funded by off-balance sheet entities such as trusts and that China’s Government Debt to GDP ratio is dramatically higher than it is publicly

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The Chinese communist party gained much power after going after and attacking the Kuomintang and its anti communist policies into Taiwan. With the growth of the communist party’s power, the peasant and lower class experienced major influence that would change the course of their lives forever. Chinese peasants and the Chinese communist party between circa 1925 and circa 1950 had a relationship in which the party fostered and cared the state of the people. This created a sense of nationalism and pride for the peasants, while they were advocating social equality, and showing anti-Japanese sentiment. First of all, the Chinese communist party greatly influenced the peasant class in sparking and igniting a sense of nationalistic unity into the

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In Elizabeth Economy’s monograph, the Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese state, the topic of a new modern china is discussed and breaks down how President Xi Jinping wishes to steer the country into the future. Elizabeth Economy explains President Xi Jinping’s desire to constitute a Third Revolution and how there will be a “New Chinese State.” To start, one must first understand China’s past to learn what a “New Chinese” State would look like. During the time of Mao Zedong, China attempted to become a player on the World scale.

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When Japan invaded China in 1937, they started a chain of events leading to their defeat at the end of the second world war. Between circa 1925 and circa 1950 the Chinese communist party took hold of China sparking nationalism and anti-japanese stances, bringing the people new opportunities, and advocating social and gender equality. The Chinese people felt a loss of pride when Japan invaded them, but with the rising of the communist party they felt a new sense of nationalism and pride in their country. When looking at the conversation between a teenager and his grandfather, we get a wider picture at what life was like before the communist party rose to power.

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In this review he argues against Kataoka’s claims that the resistance to Japan, especially in its urban impact, may be a more significant explanation of the CCP in the Chinese Civil War than Mao Tse-tun’s 1928 rural policy. Seybolt stats that without Mao focus and peasant support on the rural areas, the CCP would have never gain enough manpower or strength to stand toe to toe with Japan and the Nationalist in the first place. In Garver’s “The Origins of the Second United Front: The Comintern and the Chinese Communist Party,” is focused on the Comintern and its role in the formation of the CCP-KMT Second United Front. He argues that it is important to recognize and understand Moscow’s role during the pivotal year and a half prior to the Xian Incident, and especially of possible conflict between the Comintern and Mao Zedong, over the issue of a united front with Chiang Kai-shek. Lastly, Zhang and Weatherley’s “Owning up to the Past: The KMT’s Role in the War against Japan and the Impact on CCP Legitimacy,” examines the emerging debate in China over the true contribution made by the KMT in the war against

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The bloodshed that resulted from the tanks and soldiers drew foreign attentions. Thus, the Tiananmen Square has destructed China’s communist image over the past decade. Nevertheless, the Chinese government did not take the protest as a turning point to its socialist market or government. China launched its political and socialist reforms in 1976, thirteen years before

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Das (2008), noted that by 2008, China’s economy had gone from horrible to booming. Interestingly, 2008 is considered “the year the Asian century truly began” (p. 57). If China’s economy was in poverty, but then turned itself around so quickly, something must have drastically changed. Further research by Das, a Ph.D. in international economics, credited this miraculous change to implementation of free-market ideas: “rapid growth…in China, has resulted from free-market-oriented…economic policies and principles” (p. 60). Because China applied free-market principles to its economy, it was able to turn itself completely around from a poor country to a rich one.

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Elections in China are based on a hierarchical electoral system, meaning the leader is directly elected from a group of representatives, who are elected by the voters of the locals in that area; much similar like how Australians can vote in electorate. The difference is that the Chinese government is a single party state, creating a single centralized focus of power within the country. This power is granted to the Paramount Leader, who is the highest leader of the party and the state. Due to so much power concentrated in a small group of people, there are often reports of corrupt high officials from within the party. The Transparency International had ranked Australia in the top 10 countries with low levels of corruption and China 80th

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Political corruption is one political issue is happening with many countries all around the world and the United States. This issue makes the government has a lack of transparency. The political system has been weakening. People in society do not have the freedom to check the government and cannot protect their community. Political corruption makes politics in those nation has less stability.

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China’s healthcare has been through a roller coaster of reform, impacting the health of every citizen throughout history. The country has endured many impactful changes with the large shifts in power, eventually leading to its current healthcare system today. The Cultural Revolution of China was a starting point, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) taking power in 1949. The CCP implemented a health system reflecting the Marxist communist ideology. Health care was universal.

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1587: The Year of No Significance Précis Ray Huang contends, in 1587: The Year of No Significance, that the year of 1587 of the Ming Dynasty is significant for linking the past history of China and the future events of it (Huang 1). Huang exemplifies the importance of how the many failures of adapting and innovating by members of the government were led up to and realized in this year, along with their future effects on China (221). Altogether, Huang advocates for the noteworthiness of 1587 as a connecting point of Chinese history.

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The transition of power in China changed the dynamics of post-World War II relations. For the United States, the so-called “Loss of China” was a a catastrophe, not only because the US supported Chiang Kai-shek in the last few years, but also because it seems to be a victory for the Soviet Union and the global Communism. For China, in 1949 started for the first time in its history the possibility to build foreign relations without being “suppressed by unequal treaties” by western powers. But China‘s relations to other countries remained very complicated and complex.

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Rather than reducing social and economic inequality, China’s rapid economic growth magnifies the gap of benefits received by people in different socio-economic groups. As we will see, social and economic inequality are two sides of the same coin and is not solely the product of economic development. In addition to pure market forces, state policies play a significant role in contributing to the high levels of inequality China experiences nowadays. Despite the government’s concern towards inequality, recent interventions are not sufficiently targeted at the main causes of this issue which result in the continuing climb of China’s inequality figure. Nevertheless, contrary to conventional wisdom, the threat of inequality to China’s social and

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Analyse the reasons for, and the consequences of, China’s attempt to modernise and overcome its weaknesses in the period 1862 to 1864. From 1861 to 1895, China began a self-strengthening movement to modernise by adopting foreign ideas to improve their political, military, and economic state. The main reason for this was to defend themselves against future threats, from both external and internal forces. In addition, the Tongzhi Restoration from 1860 to 1874, was also a part of the self-strengthening movement, put in place with the purpose of reviving the Qing dynasty’s fading powers and halting dynastic decline. However, the movement met with limited success, due to the entrenched social-cultural ethos of the Chinese people, and the failure

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