People’s Republic of China at 70
WHAT DOES IT MEAN AND WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR THE WORLD’S SECOND-LARGEST ECONOMY?
What does the future hold for the world’s second-largest economy?
The Sharp Sword stealth drones and the intercontinental ballistic missiles and the truck-borne monuments to the Communist struggle are ready.
Flowers have been planted and red lanterns hung along all the major thoroughfares of Beijing. Almost 100,000 people have been practicing their formations in Tiananmen Square.
The Communist Party is ready to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China today with unprecedented extravaganza.
It is China’s most important and high-profile event of the year: the Communist state has now lasted longer than the Soviet Union, which endured for 69 years.
Here is what the anniversary is all about and what will happen:
Rebirth from civil war
Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic from atop Beijing’s Gate of Heavenly Peace on October 1, 1949, at the tail end of a vicious civil war with the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, in which millions died. Chiang and the remains of his government fled to Taiwan that December after a last stand in southern China failed.
With the country in ruins, Mao embarked upon an ambitious rebuilding project with the help of the Soviet Union, as China was largely isolated from the Western world and especially the US. Since embarking on landmark reforms beginning in the late 1970s, the country has emerged from isolation to become the world’s second-largest economy.
The President’s speech
President Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the Communist Party, will open the celebration today with a speech. Xi is the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. The current Chinese leader bowed three times in front of a statue of Mao at Tiananmen Square and paid respects to his embalmed remains in a rare gesture yesterday, according to state media. The last time a Chinese leader bowed to the statue of the ‘Great Helmsman’ was six years ago, when Xi commemorated Mao’s 120th birthday. Xi is likely to address familiar themes during his speech, such as his vision of the “Chinese dream” of “rejuvenation” to restore the country’s former glory.
Tanks, missiles and drones
The anniversary will be a chance for China to show the world its growing military might, with a phalanx of weapons and 15,000 soldiers parading across Tiananmen Square. Tanks, bombers, a supersonic drone and a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States are expected to be among nearly 600 pieces of military hardware and 160 aircraft on display. Xi is expected to watch from the south entrance of the Forbidden City, the same spot where Mao proclaimed the founding of the PRC.
Doves and floats
Soldiers will not be the only ones marching today. Some 100,000 civilians will walk along the parade route, along with 70 floats highlighting the country’s accomplishments. A replica of a space rocket has been spotted sticking out from behind a wall around the parking lot of the Workers Stadium along with other floats. Numeric symbols will feature prominently, with the organisers releasing 70,000 doves and 70,000 balloons. In the evening, artists will take over Tiananmen for a performance that will be capped by a fireworks show.
Restricted event
October 1 marks the start of a weeklong national holiday, one of the country’s two “golden week” vacations, when tourist sites across China are packed and Chinese travellers flock abroad. But most ordinary citizens hoping to catch a glimpse of the parade will likely have to settle for watching it on live television, as security will be tight. The procession will also be shown in 70 movie theatres across the country. Roads will be closed in a massive perimeter spanning several blocks around Tiananmen Square. Authorities banned the flying of kites and homing pigeons ahead of the event.
Trade talks after celebrations
Soon after the National Day holiday ends, the party and government are in for a busy few weeks. Chinese negotiators are set to head to Washington for trade talks early in the month, and the party will in October hold a key closed-door meeting of its senior leadership.
When Chairman Mao Zedong stepped forward in Tiananmen Square on October 1, 1949, and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, many patriots rejoiced. A large number of Chinese who were not Communists were still happy that after years of humiliation by foreign powers, a vicious Japanese invasion and a bloody civil war, China was now finally united. For the first time in roughly a century the Chinese had regained their dignity. Mao was widely credited for this.
Mao’s feat of unifying the country and restoring national pride is still a reason for many people in China to respect his legacy, and for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to justify its continued monopoly on power. Party propagandists insist that China without Communist rule would descend once more into chaos and fall prey to hostile foreign powers.
There are, however, other reasons the CCP is still in power, even after Communist rule has collapsed everywhere else. The party has adapted well to capitalism. Seeing what happened to the Soviet Union after Mikhail Gorbachev’s democratic reforms, China’s rulers refused to follow his example. The CCP made a tacit deal with the educated urban class from which most of the protesters came. One-party rule would create the orderly conditions for people to become wealthy.
‘Self-cultivation’
There is a deeper historical reason for the success of Communist Party rule in China. Imperial power in China was always backed by a quasi-religious dogma. Confucianism, originally a moral as well as a political philosophy, became an ideology imposed to instill obedience to authority. Rulers have used Confucianism to support social hierarchy and autocratic rule. Official promoters of the creed have put an authoritarian spin on what started as a humanist philosophy.
This closed system based on orthodoxy was difficult for modern reformers to challenge, or disentangle. It was not enough to topple a particular imperial regime. To stage a real revolution in the name of democracy, which was attempted in the early decades of the 20th century, Chinese reformers felt it was necessary to sweep away the orthodoxy.
That was the main point of the so-called May Fourth Movement of 1919, when students and intellectuals marched through the streets of Beijing under the banners ‘Mr. Science’ and ‘Mr. Democracy’. Confucianism had to go. Science became for some Chinese thinkers a new kind of dogma, something that explained everything.
Many Chinese intellectuals of the May Fourth generation were attracted to Marxism for that very reason. Liu Shaoqi, one of the early Communist leaders, wrote in 1939 a tract titled How to Be a Good Communist. His description of the ideal revolutionary, with its stress on ‘self-cultivation’, sounded remarkably Confucian.
Even after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the separation of church and state did not happen. Disrespecting or even just ignoring Mao’s Little Red Book, for instance, in the 1960s was treated as a form of blasphemy.
After Mao died, and especially after Deng’s capitalist reforms, Maoism and Marxism began to lose their potency. Party members paid lip service to the party orthodoxy, and children were still taught it at school, but nationalism began to replace the old Communist dogma. This, too, created what some Chinese and experts describe as a ‘spiritual vacuum’.
President Xi Jinping is aware of this. That is why he is trying to tighten the party’s grip on ideology, as well as revive Maoist thought. His personality cult, stressing firm paternal leadership, as well as the authority of his philosophic thoughts, is widely seen as a way to reinstate the Communist variety of imperial rule after years of government by a succession of bland technocrats.
Xi is no Chairman Mao, however. The CCP will continue to justify its rule by standing for order, national greatness and something called ‘Socialism With Chinese Characteristics’ while (some of) the people continue to get rich. The exact nature of this type of socialism is not so important, nor is whether people really believe in it. There were many schools of Confucianism, too. As long as the party remains in power, control of spiritual and intellectual life will prevent people from coming up with any viable alternative.