History of Socialism and Communism in China

What is Socialism and Communism? And what it is like in China? Answers are not easily available. The country holds its secret as close to its chest as freemasons used to do. Socialism believes in private ownership and distribution based on contribution to production. On the other hand, communism advocates for classless society and abolishment of private ownership.

However, both ideologies tend to create a progressive lifestyle for its people, economically and socially. Communism is an extreme form of Socialism. Although China is one of the last five modern communist states (C4- Communism slide) yet, socialism and communism always remain an issue of debate in China. It is very hard to answer whether China is a pure socialist or communist state. This is because, according to Article 1 of the Chinese constitution, “China is a Socialist state” (www.npc.gov.cn) but it is ruled by the Chinese communist party (CCP). Most of the time, China has been noticed promoting communism in its political system inspired by the work of the famous philosopher and communist Karl Marx. Which have much positive and negative impact on the Chinese society such as the standard of living of millions upon millions of people has improved at the same time it has caused more wealth gap between the rich and the poor.

‘Chinese Communist Party was founded on July 1, 1921, by Mao Zedong and his team. Mao Zedong was a Chinese Communist leader and chairman of the Communist Party of China and principal founder of the People’s Republic of China.’ (ebscohost.com). Mao Zedong, Yan’an (1942) used to say that, “Marxism-Leninism has no beauty, nor there is anything mysterious about it. It is only extremely useful”. (EBSCOhost) He brought communism in china in the form of Maoism. Maoism believes in permanent revolution and stressing the importance of peasantry, small scale industry, and elimination of privately-owned property (EBSCOhost). In 1949, urban China had work units and people shared everything such as farming, harvesting and even private cooking was banned.

This resulted in huge poverty and death of millions of Chinese. This situation started changing after Deng Xiaoping became the leader of CCP in 1978. This period was also known as the transition period for the Communist party. This is because after decades farmers could sell their crops, people were allowed to start their business and Foreigners were granted to invest in China. This was the very first time when someone talked about its policy in line with socialism and Deng named it as, “Socialist with Chinese characteristics” (Inkstone). This brought huge economic growth in China. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, China has contributed more than any other country in global economic growth. The main reason for this was that everything you buy was very cheap and affordable. Although private business exit in China still its economy is largely run by the state. (Inkstone)

China also believes that socialism and communism is the way to prosperity and other nations should follow this option to fasten their process of development. Nowadays China is inclined more towards a market economy where demand and supply plays an important role (Inkstone). In the contemporary context, the Chinese market has slowed down tremendously due to Trade War between China and the United States. In 2018, Donald Trump imposed taxes on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports. In return, China imposed tariffs on $110 billion worth US products. The situation got heated up when Trump threatened China to increase the tariff from 10% to 25% on a wider range of Chinese products. Looking at the trade statistics it seems China is the one to lose from the conflict. This is because the US imports more goods than China and US tariffs will reduce American demand for Chinese goods. Both sides stand to lose a great deal from another but there is still a hope that the US and China will reach an agreement before the end of the year (EBSCOhost).

Chinese’s way of the ruling has also influenced religious minorities in the country big time. Since President Xi Jinping took office six years ago, the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party (reuters.com). According to Reuters magazine, the Chinese government thinks that religion such as Christianity is the biggest obstacle between their governance of the country as it restricts people to pay their loyalty to the state rather it distributes their loyalty between local churches and the country, which slows the pace of development overall.

China is also working hard on being the regional superpower- Investing in neighboring countries i.e. Srilanka, Pakistan (rcg.org). This influence is also helping them in preaching their ideology of socialism. This creates more understanding of Chinese government and eliminates misconceptions about their system of governance.

The Communist party is a single ruling party in China; this means that it has all the power to take important decisions for China. All the political decisions taken by the Chinese communist party directly affect Chinese society. On March 21, 2018, a journalist named Chris Buckley wrote an article in The New York Times, “China gives communist party more control over policy and media”. This article gives the idea that the communist party has expanded its roots due to which socialism in China seems to get blurred as the Chinese economy seems to be moving more towards capitalism. However, the Communist Party still holds the utmost power upon their people.

The censor of the communist party controls Chinese film, television shows, and radio. Under the plan, the party will deepen its control over many other ways of communication by keeping a close eye on all the press events, publications, radio, film, and TV. According to this plan, the party will take decisions over the foreign films that whether it could be released in China or not. This article also tells us about the other plans made by China’s political system to bring a higher profile in economic and foreign policy. This plan will promote small groups that will work on economic and foreign affairs. Xi Jinping multiplied these groups and made them more public and powerful than ever before. These groups will work in different areas of the country and find a solution to overcome the obstacle between the path of China and its economy. This plan is believed to bring more efficiency to the party and advancement in Chinese society.

Moreover, China is a country which doesn’t give its citizen the right to speech, which means people are not allowed to speak politics freely. This is a part of governance in China because there is a huge population in China, so they must control the speech right. Some people in China are happy with the communist party because they think that, the party made their country strong, especially economically. In contrast, there are some people who tend to save socialism by making their own political party but are never successful. In 2017, Xi Jinping vowed that, “Beijing will not allow one country, two systems” which means that he will not allow any other political party to exist in China as it can cause division in Chinese territories (EBSCOhost). Wang Zheng was an associate professor in Beijing who tried to start her own political party against The Communist Party. As a result, she was given a life sentence in solitary confinement in a prison (The New York Times).

Due to The Communist party today Chinese wealth is significant, visible and highly concentrated, and income distribution is highly skewed. Per capita income has reached around US$8,500 at current exchange rates. Incomes are obviously much higher for many in major east coast cities, which increasingly look like other affluent Asian cities and the reasons for these contributions are;

1. The ambition of its people – being hungry for generations is a strong motivator.
2. Its massive domestic market and scale, which offers a strong platform for domestic Chinese firms to expand.
3. Pragmatic and adaptable market-oriented economic reform and decision-making since the late 1970s. When policy mistakes are made, like opening some financial market segments too rapidly, it has demonstrated the ability to recover and adjust.
4. Broad engagement in the international trading system.
5. Bright new public and private infrastructure, including IT and telecom, fast trains, roads and highways, commercial and residential structures.
6. A bold leap into the digital economy creates the potential for huge natural monopolies and oligopolies that are built at home, and which can then compete aggressively globally.
7. A selectively open domestic market and the blurred relationship between private business and the Chinese state, especially state enterprises. This blurring can create local advantages and barriers to entry for foreign firms, notably in sectors such as financial services.
8. Mass education is still expanding, and the education of women is accelerating. Technical skills are strong, and elites that engage with foreigners in major cities are fluent in English. (theglobeandmail)

Despite these advantages, China faces significant constraints to continuing growth. China remains the world’s third-largest country by geography. A population of 1.4 billion people – and still rising – needs to be housed, fed, educated and economically engaged. Hundreds of millions of Chinese still live in rural areas and raising their living standards further is a massive challenge. Many of these challenges are exacerbated by the one-party state, which now includes a presidency with no end date. In addition to its documented abuses of human rights and weak (though improving) rule of law, many China watchers debate whether advanced business innovation and further economic reform can take place amid continuing one-party rule. Extensive political interventions in the economy, or inconsistent and arbitrary judgments in its court system, could frustrate private initiative.

China’s rapid economic growth and expanding geopolitical influence make it a rising regional and international power in trade, diplomatic and military issues. While its rhetoric has frequently been bold, it is unclear how the one-party Chinese government will manage to be a dominant regional power and a central global player (theglobeandmail).

Freedom of religion is also of bigger concern in China, religious minorities are being sent to intern campaigns where they are being forced to denounce their religion. Violation of basic human rights has been displayed everywhere and whoever refuses to obey the authority is being punished badly (ucanews).

In conclusion, as China taking on these challenges, we expect China to remain on a solid if slowing, growth path. And have more respect for freedom of speech and treating their citizens with justice and equality. Meanwhile many millions of Chinese, real incomes and wealth will continue to rise. On the contrary, China's development of its own philosophy of governance is only going to enhance and will include a more influential way of growth and prosperity for the region and the wider world.