TNAG-1711-FCO40-2389-Future-British-Consulate-General-in-Hong-Kong-HMS-Tamar-1987 — Page 84

THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC

"You cannot chop rotten wood if you give up cutting. Persist and you can cut through gold

and stone." (Proverb)

The People's Republic of China was established on 1 October 1949. The new government faced enormous problems of establishing administrative control and restoring an economy ravaged by warfare. Land was redistributed to the peasants and by 1953 the economy had been restored to its pre-1937 level. In a campaign which reached its peak in 1955 the peasants were organised into collectives and the remaining private industries passed into collective ownership. By 1956 the leadership felt confident enough to encourage greater intellectual freedom and launched the "Hundred Flowers" movement. However the criticisms proved unacceptable and the foremost critics were imprisoned during the subsequent "anti-Rightist" campaign.

The first Five Year Plan (1953-58) had been based on the Soviet model of development, with priority given to heavy industry. In 1958, searching for a Chinese model, Mao Zedong launched an ambitious economic programme known as the "Great Leap Forward" which involved the intensive organisation of agriculture through the commune system and the widespread development of small-scale local industries. The programme foundered, with problems aggravated by poor harvests from 1959 to 1961 and by the withdrawal of Soviet aid in 1960.

In 1959 Mao retired as Head of State and was replaced by Liu Shaoqi. Under his direction and that of Premier Zhou Enlai, the economy gradually recovered. However Mao became increasingly concerned by the policies and style of their leadership, which he regarded as revisionist. In 1966 he launched the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" with the aid of his wife, Jiang Qing, and the then Defence Minister, Lin Biao, and encouraged the Red Guards, consisting mainly of students, to criticise the Party and Government. Officials at all levels, including President Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, then the General Secretary of the Party, were disgraced and the Party machine was all but destroyed. In 1967-68 violence and anarchy forced Mao increasingly to rely on the armed forces to maintain order and exercise control. In 1971, Lin Biao, who had been designated Mao's successor, was killed in an air crash while attempting to flee to the Soviet Union after the failure of a coup d'état. Following his fall the army's influence was reduced and many Party and Government officials were rehabilitated.

The last years of Mao's life were marked by an increasingly intense struggle for succession between those leaders who had come to power during the Cultural Revolution (such as Jiang Qing), and the old guard of the Party (personified by Zhou Enlai), many of whom had been rehabilitated after being disgraced in the Cultural Revolution. In 1973 Deng Xiaoping was rehabilitated, and was clearly intended by Zhou Enlai to succeed him. Zhou died in January 1976. He was succeeded as Premier (and as second to Mao in the Party) not by Deng but by the then relatively unknown Hua Guofeng. Deng was dismissed for a second time in April 1976. Mao himself died in September and within a month Jiang Qing and her associates (the "Gang of Four") were arrested, and Hua Guofeng was appointed Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

Deng Xiaoping was rehabilitated for a second time and restored to his former positions in 1977. From then on he increased his power at the expense of Hua, who lost his Party Chairmanship and Premiership to Deng's followers (the former in 1981 to Hu Yaobang and the latter in 1980 to Zhao Ziyang) and was eased out of all his leadership positions by September 1982. Although many elements of Mao's Thought have been retained he is now judged to have committed serious errors after 1957 and many of his ideas have been rejected and his policies reversed. Deng has been the driving force behind a thoroughgoing programme of economic and social reform aimed at modernising the economy, developing China's external relations (the "open door"), especially with the West, and implementing a limited and gradual liberalisation of Chinese society.