On October 1st 1949, * Mao Zedong in declaring the foundation of the Peoples’ Republic of China said : The Chinese people have stood up !
Since the opium wars, China had been a hostage of European and Japanese imperialism. Divided and ruled by warlords who owed patronage to various powers; China suffered endless civil strife , famines and humiliation. The Kuomintang, originally a nationalist party had attempted half- heartedly to modernise China, but had thrown in their lot with warlords and compradors. They were aided by the U.S.A, yet failed to face Japanese aggression in China.
Mao Zedong and the communist party assembled a broad alliance of people in China. With guerrilla armies they took on the Japanese and at the same time broke the hold of vicious warlords who plundered the Chinese people. In the country side ,they instigated land reform and set up basic facilities like schools and clinics for the people.
Their efforts and tactics wore down the Japanese after 14 years of war, which cost over 30 million Chinese their lives. The defeat of the Kuomintang was inevitable because of their reluctance to take on the Japanese and failure to serve and unite the people of China .
China in 1949, was an impoverished , shattered country and the challenge given to Mao Zedong and the communist party by the people of China, was to unite the country and to vastly improve the lives of the vast swathes of the population most of whom were poor peasants . The other task was to restore the dignity and sovereignty of the Chinese people , lost over a century of foreign interference and warlord depredation.
From the sick man of Asia, the country’s growth to the world’s second largest economy, has been truly transformative. More than half of China’s population, over 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty.
And indeed, over the past 70 years of history , marked by many twists and turns the Chinese people continue to stand even taller.
Modern China stands as a beacon of progress for billions of the world’s people to find their own path forward to progress and independence.
| * This moment in China and world history provided the inspiration and impetus for colonial an ex-colonial nations across the globe to follow. Indeed, in Vietnam , Korea , Malaya and Indonesia, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialism movements took stock of the tactics , methods and discipline of the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong and set off a world wide chain reaction. |
| In 1952 the Chinese GDP was $US30 billion . By 2018 it had increased 453 times to $US13.6 trillion. The per capita income was $US11,000 in 2018 (73rd in the world) compared to just $US200 in 1952. In 2018 China had unemployment rate of 3.8%. Now 2,800 bullet trains transverse China to 550 cities. Eight million students graduate from 2,900 universities |
The world’s largest single aperture radio telescope
