Read the original article here: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-02/20/c_137837303_2.htm
Background:
The second phase was known as the "Cultural Revolution", in which Chinese leaders purged intellectuals and tried to spread socialism and communism throughout all of China. With a new feeling of nationalism in place, China's third phase, starting from 1978 and still continuing today, encouraged the building of more factories and industries. This very quick development caused China's GDP to triple, and now China has the world's second largest economy.
A theory behind China's late development states that due to the competitiveness of Europe, every nation evolved in order to prevent colonization or exploitation. The competitiveness didn't affect China because she had bigger problems. During the 18th century, China's population skyrocketed from a mere 150 million residents to over 430 million residents. The leaders in office at the time weren't prepared for this situation, and thus a large famine hit China and many people couldn't find jobs.
Summary:
After many years of industrialization taking place, many residents have moved to the city for more job opportunities and to flee from poverty. However, due to poverty, they can't afford to bring the whole family, and thus many many families have split, causing the recent generations to be more independent and lonesome. Even though so many have moved, there are still 560 million residents living in rural areas, who to this day still suffer from poverty. In 2017, China decided to utilize around 7 trillion yuan (1.04 trillion usd) for rural vitalization. They planned to use this money to build more infrastructure, provide more public services, and create more institutions for the residents of rural areas. They also planned to further develop their agricultural technology in order to feed their growing population and to prevent any more famines.
I feel that China's autocratic government has benefited the country in terms of the revolution, because the government is able to make decisions faster and easier, therefore getting things done more efficiently. I believe China industrialized really quickly because almost everyone had the same goal. The propaganda in China boosted the nationalism, and therefore encouraged everyone to have a better work ethic.
Connections: This relates back to the China Unit and Silk Road Unit because after the Silk Road was closed down due to political complications, China's economy fell. But, the nation was able to quickly become a superpower again by boosting her economy through international trade, just as she did with the Silk Road. It also relates back to the WW2 Unit, in how the totalitarian countries were able to efficiently control their economy and industries, quickly industrialize, and build infrastructure efficiently, just as China has been able to do within the last few decades.
Questions:
1) Do you think China's autocratic government has benefited the country when it comes to their industrial revolution?
2) How has China industrialized so quickly and efficiently?
Additional Sources:
Increasing focus on rural and agricultural areas appears to have been extremely effective to the entire country economically. Providing efforts towards infrastructure in locations suffering from extreme poverty both benefits the citizens of the nation and the efficiency of the production of agricultural goods. Enforcing the economic backbones of all parts of the country contrasts the rushed and ineffective 5-year plans we learned about last semester, which lacked sufficient support on a wide scale and resulted in famine.
ReplyDeleteChina’s autocratic government did enable for a fast and effective industrial revolution that led to a huge boost in economic growth. According to Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, the poverty rate had fallen from a whopping 97.5 percent to 3.1 percent, impressive considering this change is only over 40 years. As mentioned in the article, providing money towards efforts to aid in the country’s infrastructure is productive in aiding the residents of China and in boosting the agricultural standpoint of the economy. Though China has lifted many millions of people from poverty (around 13 million in 2017), there are still 30.46 million people living under the national poverty line, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The country’s goal is to build a moderately prosperous society by 2020 and to do that progress must be made on the rural areas. This looks opportunistic, as shown in the advances made over the past half-century.
ReplyDeleteLink:http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/01/c_136942195.htm
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201812/09/WS5c0c68d0a310eff30328fea4.html
I feel that China's autocratic government did in part help to grow and make the country's industrialization more rapid. I feel that the rivalry and feelings of communism losing to capitalism because the country's lack of industrialization helped to drive the rapid industrialization seen today. Furthermore, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the previous attempt at industrialization did not have environments lacking private property rights or bad market systems. The article actually states that back then, China has very good private property rights and arguably, better market systems than England had in the 17th and 18th century. https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/june/chinas-previous-attempts-industrialization
ReplyDeleteI feel that the massive growth and numbers of factories in China had allowed the country make more money and industrialize along with other factors such as increased trade with other countries. China might also have been able to industrialize fast due to their huge population and therefore, huge potential of workers in the workforce. Combining the lessons from past industrializations of other countries and itself with a large workforce and foreign investment is what possibly helped China to achieve their massive industrialization.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterpham/2018/03/06/is-there-a-secret-growth-hormone-added-to-chinas-economy/#1a57e2923f13
As you said in your summary, I think the autocratic government of China has helped with the rapid growth of industrialization because the assertiveness helps get things done especially in such a populated country. But I also think China's industrialization had to do with the Chinese citizens because they had to work hard in order to get a job to feed their families and have a roof to live under. This increase in employment also can spark economic growth. Economic growth increases industrialization because there is more money or the GDP is higher, causing money to go towards important things like the building of infrastructures. Overall, the autocratic government of China along with hard-working citizens can help the rapid growth of industrialization.
ReplyDeleteI do believe China's autocratic government has helped with the growth of their industrialization. This is highly apparent in their overall economic welfare - the International Monetary Fund states that China has one of the fastest (if not THE fastest) growing economies in the world since 1978, or the start of China's third phase of the Great Leap Industrialization Period. However, the costs of this rapid industrialization have taken a tole on the rural population of China. In order to keep up with the food demands of the rapidly growing Chinese population, many farmers work long and tiring days for low income, making it nearly impossible to move up in social status. I believe that now that China has such a large economy, it is time to focus on the quality of life of Chinese citizens. That is probably why China has spent 7 trillion yuan on helping create infrastructure in rural areas.
ReplyDelete^ Link for the International Monetary Fund: https://www.imf.org/EXTERNAL/PUBS/FT/ISSUES8/INDEX.HTM
DeleteI think that China’s autocratic government benefitted the country when it comes to their industrial revolution. Though I believe that they shouldn’t have an autocratic government, we see that the government had improved the poverty situation and has boosted its industry a lot. As stated by the World Bank between 1980 and 2015, poverty in rural China has declined by 94%. (http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/ending-poverty-in-china-what-explains-great-poverty-reduction-and-a-simultaneous-increase-in-inequality-in-rural-areas) Though we may not support the government of China, we can very easily see that they are trying to get rid of poverty, which is a very good thing. As stated in the original article, we see that the increase of population within China has caused them to need to industrialized very quickly. It is also stated in the original article that China plans to invest lots of money to improve the rural conditions in China, which will help their overall goal of trying to become more prosperous economically.
ReplyDeleteI believe that China's new government has made a positive impact in Chinese industry. It has statistically boosted production of trade-able goods, as supported by the graph indicating that China is experiencing exponential GDP growth. However, at the same time I believe that China should not have continued with this form of government and the plans they attributed with it because it severly negatively impacted the quality of life of the civilians, so most of them suffered or even died due to their impoverished conditions, practically working in hopes that it would support the next generation. The new investments that China is also making to improve quality of life of the working class seems like a solution, but only a temporary one. This is because China will not be able to continuously shell out money to support both their rising population and the constant need of the working class (because they have been under payed). This means that in order to make a stable system, China will need to consider altering their industrial methods to account for the quality of life of the civilians. My opinion regarding a solution (not *fact*) is that China will experience a revolution that leads them to improve the life of their civilians and enforce a more stable system. This will not happen, however, without external help, as stated by the video that China is censoring social services, so any revolutions would be pointless in reaching a majority of such a large population without these services. China's industrial government has caused some great revolutions and benefits for China, but is not sustainable as China is forced to harm their civilians or shell out an unremarkable amount of money to maintain their support.
ReplyDeleteI believe that China's autocratic government has helped them industrialize faster and believe they made some good decisions that helped their country industrialize. The Chinese started their third stage of industrialization with improvements to their agriculture (https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/april-2016/chinas-rapid-rise-from-backward-agrarian-society-to-industrial-powerhouse-in-just-35-years) instead of just skipping straight to having factories built. As stated in the background, China had suffered a huge famine in their past, which would be something that they would not want to suffer from again so I believe the government focusing on this in their attempt to industrialize was very beneficial. Since they no longer had to worry as much about producing enough food to feed their country, they could start to focus on other projects more I believe. Also since their government was autocratic, they can accomplish things quite efficiently with no opposition to their plans, meaning they would be completed with possibly less complications. Although I think the type of government has benefited China in recent years, the government has done harm to the people. As stated earlier, the famine was caused by the government making bad decisions and due to it being autocratic, the people could not say much. If China's government stays autocratic, it could lead to situations like this in the future that harm the population of China.
ReplyDeleteI think China's autocratic government has helped the country industrialize. This has created more jobs and has opened more jobs. China's GDP has also increased, as shown in the graph which makes China the second largest economy. Like you mentioned, China is able to industrialize really quickly and overall,the autocratic government has helped with poverty in the country.
ReplyDeleteI believe that China´s autocratic government has caused the country to grow faster and easier that many others. Despite the moral problems with using propaganda on citizens, it allowed China to unify the country in a way that economically boosted them. While the government is currently doing things to revamp the economy in their country side, it is important to look at the problems caused by the government. The radical removement of intellectuals from society proved the measures that China was willing to go through with to make sure government plans were followed through with. If unifying the country meant oppressing a large portion of its citizens then I believe the people should have a say in the governments course of action. If people's lives are controlled to closely they will end up revolting or causing other problems for the government, similar to how the French protested against the feudal system in the 1700's. Although China has used their control for economic success for the people, they have to take extra care to listen to the needs and wants of their citizens, in order to avoid civil unrest.
ReplyDeleteI believe that China's autocratic government has helped China industrialize faster and they have made both good and bad decisions during the process. I think that it was a good idea to switch to steel production to increase China's economic output, but I don't think that having everyone switch from producing crops to steel was good as many people died due to the lack of food and could cause production to be even less. However, at the same time the quick shift to steel production caused China to undergo their industrial revolution at a much faster rate, but with the cost of 30 million lives. I think that the idea of transitioning to the industrial revolution was a good thing for the country, but not having enough working on crops only caused harm to the country.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the autocratic government did have large influence in the countries industrial success. Despite the methods used by the government with propaganda and the killing of intellectuals, It helped build a strong sense of nationalism. This nationalism encouraged factories and industries to be made which today, gives China its second position in largest economies. I think that China's quick success in industrialization came from their numbers. Nationalism had a major affect on production however the large population of China, many of whom unemployed at the time received the opportunity to get work on building factories and industries. This gave China the industrial boost it needed to get its economy up.
ReplyDeleteI believe, after reading this article, that China's autocratic government has greatly helped to industrialize China. This is because it gave China that ‘push’ it needed to get things going. By forcing the Chinese people to melt steel, for example, instead of grow crops, China became very on track with the modernization of the European countries around them. Also, by having an autocratic leadership, the standard was more set and stone, as opposed to, for example, a democratic leadership. What I mean by that is, the government was able to lay out a concrete plan without having to compromise with its people about their wants. This lead to a quicker, and more effective industrialization. Without the autocratic government, I feel that China would be much more behind than where it is today.
ReplyDelete