Communist China Celebrates 60

On Oct. 1, Beijing marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China (more precisely, the consolidation of power by the Chinese Communist Party on the mainland) with the largest military parade showcasing goose-stepping soldiers and the country’s latest advances in weaponry. While the parade’s audience was mainly internal, it reminded foreigners of Hitler’s military extravaganzas and the annual May Day parades of the Soviet era. China announces to the world that it is becoming a confident great power led by the CCP.

In Chinese culture and body politic, 60 is a significant number. It takes 60 years to complete a cycle in the Chinese calendar, which tracks years by 10 tian gan (“heavenly stems”) and 12 di zhi (“earthly branches”). In explaining life goals to his disciples, Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) said, “At 15, I had my mind bent on learning. At 30, I established myself. At 40, I had no doubts. At 50, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At 60, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At 70, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.“

If a country is akin to a person, then a 60-year-old country is supposed to have “come of age” and settled on a wise course of development. Considering few persons during Confucius’ era lived till age 70, the PRC at 60 is no small feat: It has arguably outlived its expected longevity (considering the demise of the world’s other communist regimes) and it may still have a reasonable lifespan ahead.

The PRC at 60 thus calls for taking stock of what the country has and has not accomplished and speculating the future. It is an occasion for both celebration and reflection.

The PRC’s 60-year record can be usefully divided into two three-decade-long periods. In ironic Hegelian-Marxist dialectic contradictions, the CCP in each period attempted to rectify the problems from the previous era, but in each later period the party was “saved” only by embracing the “enemies” from the previous era.

The first three decades (1949-79)—roughly from when Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the PRC at Beijing’s Tiananmen to his death in 1976 and the purge of the “Gang of Four”—can be summarized in one word: revolution. After the Communists defeated the Nationalists, who (led by Chiang Kai-shek) moved to Taiwan and have preserved the Republic of China (ROC) on the island since 1949, Mao launched a bloody revolution by ruthlessly eliminating the “evils” of the previous era: “imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic-capitalism.“

Despite certain social progresses in its early years (e.g., gender equality), the PRC under Mao was a coercive totalitarian state built upon personality cult. Successive political campaigns (Suppression of Counterrevolutionaries, Three-Anti, Five-Anti, Hundred Flowers, Anti-Rightist), each targeting a segment of the populace, destroying lives and mutual trust. The catastrophic Great Leap Forward (1958-61) caused 30 million to 40 million deaths.

The Cultural Revolution (1966-76) did enormous damage to China and to the CCP’s legitimacy. China was on the brink of civil war and withdrew all its ambassadors save the one in Cairo. Contrary to Mao’s 1949 alleged proclamation that the Chinese people have “stood up,“ the nation was in “angry self-isolation,“ as Richard Nixon put it in a 1967 Foreign Affairs article. Although the revolution destroyed the bourgeoisie and expelled imperialism, China was backward and isolated. The people were atomized and the party discredited.

The next three decades can be summarized as the era of reform, beginning with Deng Xiaoping’s pragmatic policies of rejuvenating the economy by infusing market forces and foreign capital. The party also changed its raison d’ætre to promoting economic growth. It survived by raising the standard of living of many people, co-opting social elites, using selective but effective measures of repression, and championing nationalism.

Externally, Beijing pursues a shrewd foreign policy that embraces globalization and buys the time for China to achieve greater power and wealth. An average annual economic growth rate of 10 percent for the past 30 years propels China to be the world’s second largest economy and exporter. The once-backward “people’s army,“ beneficiary of double-digit increases in defense expenditure for each of the past 20 years, has acquired impressive capabilities across the board. The 2008 Beijing Olympics put on a spectacular show and Chinese athletes won the most medals. The Chinese government and population are proud and confident. The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, excised from collective memory, seems like ancient history.

Ironically, the CCP accomplished all these and saved itself by courting the capitalists and foreign capital—precisely the enemies that Mao’s China sought to destroy. As Harvard historian Jay Taylor puts it, it is Chiang’s vision, not Mao’s, which is alive in China today. Mao’s China was egalitarian but poor. China today is richer but unequal. The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth 2006, estimates that 1.5 million (0.4 percent of total) families control 70 percent of China’s national wealth. The PRC’s six-decade “accomplishments” took a full circle.

China’s national-day parade also raises soul-searching questions. Facing an aging population, endemic corruption, and severe environmental degradation, how long can the CCP continue to thwart political participation and rely exclusively on growthism and nationalism? Invoking slogans of “peaceful ascent” and “harmonious society,“ will a rising China be a threat to peace and western values? Can China become a genuinely respected great nation without honestly reflecting upon its checkered past? Will the PRC outlast the readers of this article? The future prospect of the PRC looks unclear.  Vincent Wei-cheng Wang is chairman of the University of Richmond’s Department of Political Science. Contact him at . 