A Personal View – March 2014
In China, the history & significance of the Long March is well known. But steeped in propaganda, the truth is not known to the Chinese people.
During the 1920s & 1930’s, China was a very unstable country. The Chinese Emperor Puyi ruled from 1908 at the age of 2 years old until his abdication in 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution when he was 6 years old. He made a brief appearance to prominence again when the Japanese appointed him Kangde Emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo [Manchuria] after its capture in 1931. He then ruled until the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1945.
China was then in a chaotic state [sic]. The Quomindang or Nationalist Party under Chiang Kai-shek nominally controlled China but in reality the Warlords controlled vast swathes of the countryside. But worse was to arise. The Chinese Communist Party was born in 1921 with Mao Zedong as a founding member.
As an aside, the main driver for Mao forming the CPC was his anti-imperialist stance. By a hypocritical act, in 1950 Mao annexed Tibet & incorporated it into China! So much for his anti-imperialist credentials!
In 1934 the CPC declared the Jiangxi State independent under the appellation The Jiangxi Soviet Republic of China. [JSROC]
By means of a number of encirclements, the Quomindang under Chiang squeezed the JSROC almost to the point of extinction. The Communists were left with no other option but to flee but only after disastrous losses. This was the commencement of the mythological Long March.
Mao, a propagandist at heart, used the defeat en route at Xiang to be appointed as head of the CPC. Minor victories at Zunyi & Luding were portrayed by Mao in glowing terms. Mao’s plodded on for another 7800 miles according to Mao until they reached the province of Shaanxi.
Only recently have the myths regarding the Long March started to be corrected; its distance an obvious one as it amounts to no more than 3750 miles being half of that claimed by Mao. Despite this, it significance to modern China’s history is undoubted.
One could call this the story of two Long Marches as the truth is gradually extracted from the fable.
What was the end result of the Long March? Certainly not the Valhalla or Communist utopia but rather two murderous episodes: the Great Leap Forwards & the Cultural Revolution. Both crippled the country & set it back by a generation.
Nobody has specifically been recognised for the post Mao Zedong Great Leap Forward but the honours should be bestowed upon Deng Xiaoping. His key insight was that China had to copy the American method of development. Not having the requisite skills nor capital, the way in which this could be achieved was by means of foreign investment. With a huge untapped market & highly skilled low cost workers, China over a period of 30 years became the factory of the world.
Deng is generally credited with developing China into one of the fastest growing economies in the world for over 30 years and raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions of Chinese.
The improvement is reflected in one statistic which caught my attention: vehicle sales. From a situation in 1976 on Mao’s death where the car population of China was measured in tens of thousands to a situation where in 2013 the sales of passenger cars & light trucks totalled 21.9 million. This is equivalent to 25% of the world’s output. This compares to sales of 15.1 million in the USA.
I characterise the economic development under Deng as China’s Second Long March. Unfortunately Deng has not received adequate recognition as the champion of this feat. The metamorphosis of an unproductive moribund economy into a world class productive one in 30 years is undoubtedly a stroke of genius.
This Long March has brought prosperity to half a billion people. The task is not yet complete as another half a billion still needs to be given an adequate standard of living. In addition the rump of the loss making unproductive nationalised industries needs to be shuttered. Given the rate of expansion, this process should take no longer than another thirty years.
Going forward, the Chinese need to embark on another epic odyssey, its third Long March, a march to freedom, democracy & the Rule of Law.
Without another Gorbachev & a Deng, the fears of the CPC will not be ameliorated as their greatest fear is being swept from power. The once omnipotent CPC is now reduced to anxiety attacks about political opposition. Power for power’s sake is the name of the game.
Does the CPC have the prescience & the will to change or will it require another revolution?
I fear that the latter will eventuate.