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Lesson 1: Overview of China's Geography and Graphic Recent History
Lecture 01-2: Recent History
GEOG 399: Migration and Development of China
Lecture Overview
This lecture covers: • The 1950s • The 1960s and 1970s • The Economic Reform • 1989‐2009
Student protests in Beijing in 1989
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The 1950s
• 1949: CCP won the civil war; founding of the PRC (Taiwan became a renegade province)
• 1949‐52: Rural land reform – redistribution of land to tillers
• 1953‐57: First Five‐year Plan, an industrialization program modeled after Mao proclaimed the founding of the PRC on Oct 1, 1949 at Tiananmen rostrum. Soviet Union. In the countryside, collectivization carried out.
• 1958: Great Leap Forward – a mass campaign to boost steel poduction, in an effort to "catch up" with the Great Britain
• Farmers were drawn into producing steel ; urban residents also set up backyard furnaces.
• At the same time, collectivization (forming communes) led to serious disruption of life and
farm production This poster in the Great Leap Forward depicts the frenzy for steel production. • 1960‐62: the failure of the GLF led to mass famines, leading to an estimated deaths of about 30 million
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The 1960s and 1970s
• 1963‐65: Economic readjustment program to deal with problems of the GLF • 1996‐76: Cultural Revolution • power struggle within the party top echelon • also a radical movement to create a “new world” • students were encouraged to attack the establishment • tens of thousands of intellectuals and cadres were purged • 1976: Mao died, leading to the arrest of the “Gang of the Four”
A papercut in the Cultural Revolution period. The art shows the Red Guards holding up Mao’s “red books ” in their campaign to change the old world.
Economic Reform
• 1978: Deng Xiaoping became the paramount leader
• 1979: China launched economic reform in the countryside – partial return to a system of family farming also "open door policy"; four "special economic zones" were set up; FDI was welcomed; China and USA formally established diplomatic relation. • Urban reforms were launched.
Under Deng’s reforms, people were encouraged ”to get rich” and own stocks. Cell phones now replace ubiquitous Mao’s red books in people’s hands.
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1989 – 2009
• 1989: Students movement in Tiananmen Square but was suppressed. • 1997: Hong Kong was returned to China under the “one country, two systems” • 1999: Macao was returned to China • 2001: China entered the WTO • 2008: Beijing hosted the Olympic Games The web site for a well‐acclaimed documentary on the Tiananmen Incident in 1989.
Major Problems
Many problems brought forth by rapid economic growth under an authoritarian political system:
• The wide gap between the rich and the poor • A huge poor migrant class in the city • A skewed economic model heavily reliant on state investment and exports Smog in Beijing, 2015 • Serious environmental degradation • Rampant corruption
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Lesson Summary
In this lesson you learned
• The 1950s • The 1960s and 1970s • The Economic Reform • 1989‐2009
Lesson 1: Overview of China's Geography and Recent History
End of Lesson 1
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GEOG 399: State, Migration, and Development of China
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