China: People ' s Republic of China and Mao Zedong Essay

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Study Guide-CHINA

Section 1-The Making of the Modern Chinese State page 356-369

-Timeline-

1911 Revolution led by Sun Yat-sen overthrows 2000 year old imperial system and establishes the Republic of China

1912 Sun Yat-sen founds the Nationalist Party (Guamindang) to oppose warlords who have seized power in the new republic

1921 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is founded

1927Civil war between Nationalists (now led by Chiang Kai-shek) and Communists begins

1934 Mao Zedong becomes leader of the CCP

1937 Japan invades China, marking the start of World War II in Asia

1949 Chinese Communists win the civil war and establish the People’s Republic of China

1958-1960 Great Leap Forward

1966-1976 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

1976 Mao Zedong dies

1978 Deng Xiaoping becomes China’s most powerful leader and launches the nation on the path toward rapid economic growth

1989 Tiananmen massacre

1997 Deng Xiaoping dies; Jiang Zemin becomes China’s top leader

2002-2003 Hu Jintao succeeds Jiang as head of the CCP and president of the People’s Republic of China; re-elected to those positions in 2007-2008

2008 Hosted the Olympic Games in Beijing

NOW Xi Jinping, President of China (elected on Nov 15, 2012) - President of the People's Republic of China

-Politics in Action-
The 2008 Beijing Olympics were widely touted as China’s “coming-out party.” They were seen as signifying global recognition of China’s emergence as a rising power in world affairs
China is ruled by a Communist Party that maintains a tight and often repressive grip on power
In the mid-1970s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not only among the world’s poorest nations, but it also had one of the most tyrannical political systems
But the PRC is one of only a handful of countries that is still a communist party state in which the ruling party claims and enforces an exclusive monopoly on political power and proclaims allegiance (at least officially) to the ideology of Marxism-Leninism
The rift between China’s authoritarian political system and its increasingly modern and globalize society remains deep and ominous

Communist-party a type of nation-state in which the communist party attempts to exercise a complete monopoly on political power and controls all important state institutions

Marxism-Leninism the theoretical foundation of communism based the ideas of the German philosopher, Karl Marx (1818-1883), and the leader of the Russian Revolution, V.I. Lenin (1870-1924). Marxism is, in essence, a theory of historical development that emphasizes the struggle between exploiting and exploited classes, particularly the struggle between the bourgeoisies (capitalist) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Leninism emphasizes the strategy and organization to best used but the communist part to overthrow capitalism and seize power as a first step on the road to communism

The Chinese Nation at a Glance Ethnic Group
91.9% Han Chinese
8.1% Other (Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Yi, Tibetan, Miao, Manchu, Mongol, Buyi, Korean)

Languages
Standard Chinese (Mandarin) based on the Beijing dialect; other major dialects include Cantonese and Shanghaies. Also various minority languages, such as Tibetan and Mongolian

Religions
81% None
12% Buddhist
2% Christian
1-2% Muslim
5%Idk/refused to answer

Political Organization

Political System
Communist part-state; officially, a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship

Regime History
Established in 1949 after the victory of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Chinese civil war

Administrative Structure
Unitary system with twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, four centrally administrated municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macao)

Executive
Premier (head of government) and president (head of state) formally elected by legislature, but only with approval of CCP leadership;