An overview of 50 years of the People's Republic of China: Some progress, but big problems remain

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 159, 1999, Pages 569-579

  Pye, Lucian W ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FUTURE PROSPECT; MODERNIZATION; NATIONAL ECONOMY; NATIONAL POLITICS;

CHINA;

EID: 0032712568     PISSN: 00094439     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0305741000003337     Document Type: Article

References (29)

1. In an early, major debate, Karl A. Wittfogel argued that Mao's thoughts and actions were consistent with orthodox Leninism as applied to a backward, peasant-based country; see his: "The legend of Maoism," The China Quarterly, No. 1 (January-March 1960), pp. 72-86. Benjamin Schwartz in his "A Reply to Karl A. Wittfogel," The China Quarterly, No. 2 (Spring 1960), insisted that Mao had altered key tenets of Leninism precisely because of his peasant base of power.
2. In an early, major debate, Karl A. Wittfogel argued that Mao's thoughts and actions were consistent with orthodox Leninism as applied to a backward, peasant-based country; see his: "The legend of Maoism," The China Quarterly, No. 1 (January-March 1960), pp. 72-86. Benjamin Schwartz in his "A Reply to Karl A. Wittfogel," The China Quarterly, No. 2 (Spring 1960), insisted that Mao had altered key tenets of Leninism precisely because of his peasant base of power.
3. Academic understanding of Chinese thought control practices was also greatly advanced by Robert Lifton's Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brain-washing" in China (New York: W.W. Norton, 1961).
4. Official U.S. Marine Corps history as quoted in Alexander George, The Chinese Communist Army in Action (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 4.
5. We now know from Soviet and Chinese documents that for more than two years before Mao finally visited Moscow, he and Stalin had been in frequent communication about such a visit and that there had been nearly half a dozen suggested dates. Mao was anxious to go, but Stalin was hesitant for fear that the visit could not be kept secret and thus Mao would have been "named a Moscow agent." See Michael M. Sheng, Battling Western Imperialism: Mao, Stalin and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), ch. 8.
6. For an perceptive comparison of the economic roles of the traditional Chinese family and the "socialist family" (the danwei) of the PRC see Wang Fei-ling, From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). The evolving importance of the danwei is analysed in Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). The anger and frustration over class background identifications which exploded in the Cultural Revolution is the central theme of Lynn T. White III, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China's Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
7. For an perceptive comparison of the economic roles of the traditional Chinese family and the "socialist family" (the danwei) of the PRC see Wang Fei-ling, From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). The evolving importance of the danwei is analysed in Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). The anger and frustration over class background identifications which exploded in the Cultural Revolution is the central theme of Lynn T. White III, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China's Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
8. For an perceptive comparison of the economic roles of the traditional Chinese family and the "socialist family" (the danwei) of the PRC see Wang Fei-ling, From Family to Market: Labor Allocation in Contemporary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998). The evolving importance of the danwei is analysed in Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth Perry (eds.), Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Contemporary Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997). The anger and frustration over class background identifications which exploded in the Cultural Revolution is the central theme of Lynn T. White III, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence in China's Cultural Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
9. Because of a quirk in their language, it is not surprising that the Chinese may have some difficulties distinguishing "rule by law" from "rule of law" since both are pronounced in Chinese in exactly the same way, with the same tones, fa zhi shi, but written with different characters. The word play in trying to change "rule by law" to "rule of law" was skilfully carried out by Li Shenzhi, former head of the Marxism-Leninism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in his essay in Political China: Facing the Era of Choosing a New Structure, edited by Shi Binhai, senior editor of The China Economic Times, who was detained shortly after publication. (Reported by Erik Eckholm, "China's fine art: linguistic survival," New York Times, 20 September 1998.)
10. Because of a quirk in their language, it is not surprising that the Chinese may have some difficulties distinguishing "rule by law" from "rule of law" since both are pronounced in Chinese in exactly the same way, with the same tones, fa zhi shi, but written with different characters. The word play in trying to change "rule by law" to "rule of law" was skilfully carried out by Li Shenzhi, former head of the Marxism-Leninism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in his essay in Political China: Facing the Era of Choosing a New Structure, edited by Shi Binhai, senior editor of The China Economic Times, who was detained shortly after publication. (Reported by Erik Eckholm, "China's fine art: linguistic survival," New York Times, 20 September 1998.)
11. On the problems of Chinese national identity, see Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993; and Jonathan Unger (ed.), Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996).
12. On the problems of Chinese national identity, see Lowell Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim, China's Quest for National Identity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993; and Jonathan Unger (ed.), Chinese Nationalism (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996).
13. On the Chinese political system, see Kenneth Lieberthal, Governing China: From Revolution Through Reform (New York: W.W. Norton, 1985).
14. On the role of factions in Chinese politics, see Andrew Nathan, "Policy oscillations in the People's Republic of China, a critique," The China Quarterly, No. 68 (1976), pp. 720-733; Lowell Dittmer, "Patterns of elite strife and succession in Chinese politics," The China Quarterly, No. 123 (1990), pp.405-430; Lucian W. Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1981).
15. On the role of factions in Chinese politics, see Andrew Nathan, "Policy oscillations in the People's Republic of China, a critique," The China Quarterly, No. 68 (1976), pp. 720-733; Lowell Dittmer, "Patterns of elite strife and succession in Chinese politics," The China Quarterly, No. 123 (1990), pp.405-430; Lucian W. Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1981).
16. On the role of factions in Chinese politics, see Andrew Nathan, "Policy oscillations in the People's Republic of China, a critique," The China Quarterly, No. 68 (1976), pp. 720-733; Lowell Dittmer, "Patterns of elite strife and succession in Chinese politics," The China Quarterly, No. 123 (1990), pp.405-430; Lucian W. Pye, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1981).
17. Ezra Vogel, "From friendship to comradeship: the change in personal relations in Communist China," in Roderick MacFarquhar (ed.), China Under Mao: Politics Takes Command (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969).
18. For how the structure of incentives for local Party leaders produced the motivating force behind the highly successful VTEs, see Jean C. Oi, Rural China Takes Off: The Institutional Foundations of Economic Reform (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
19. Deputy Prime Minister Wen Jiabao quoted in the China Daily, 19 October 1998. According to the World Bank's standards of $1 a day for measuring poverty, more than 200 million fall below the line.
20. Deborah Davis et al. (eds.), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Arthur Lewis Rosenbaum (ed.), State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992).
21. Deborah Davis et al. (eds.), Urban Spaces in Contemporary China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Arthur Lewis Rosenbaum (ed.), State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992).
22. For an appraisal of the post-Deng leadership see Bruce Gilley, Tiger on the Brink: Jiang Zemin and China's New Elite (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
23. On the increasing problems of the reforms in rural China, see Scott Rozelle, "Stagnation without equity: patterns of growth and inequality in China's rural economy," The China Journal, Issue 35 (January 1996), pp. 63-92.
24. The crisis of the state-owned enterprises is well analysed in Edward S. Steinfeld, Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-Owned Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Nicholas Lardy has detailed the appalling problems of the banking system in China's Unfinished Economic Revolution (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
25. The crisis of the state-owned enterprises is well analysed in Edward S. Steinfeld, Forging Reform in China: The Fate of State-Owned Industry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Nicholas Lardy has detailed the appalling problems of the banking system in China's Unfinished Economic Revolution (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998).
26. "China's economy," The Economist, 24 October 1998, p.26.
27. "Bankruptcy the Chinese way," New York Times, 22 January 1999. The collapse of Gitic was followed in less than a month by the closing of five other leading investment trust corporations.
28. Geremie Barmé, In the Red: Contemporary China Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).
29. For example, State Councilor Wu Yi announced an infrastructure programme to meet the massive deficiencies in transportation and power generation, and also to stimulate the economy, but for which he gave a totally unrealistic figure of 10 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) for the years 1998 to 2000, a sum that would be equal to about 40% of the cumulative gross domestic products for those years. Nicholas Lardy, "China chooses growth today, reckoning tomorrow," Asian Wall Street Journal, 30 September 1998.