A History of China (83 page)

Abuses and exceptions marked the policy’s history. Local authorities often assigned elderly women to check on young women’s menstrual cycles – an extraordinary invasion of privacy. Couples, on occasion, had to request ­permission to try to have a child. Government and party officials were accused of forcing pregnant women who already had a child to undergo an abortion. Another abuse was related to the traditional Chinese desire for a male heir. Limited to one child, couples would revert to subtle forms of infanticide inherited from earlier times – for example, abandoning a baby in inhospitable ­climates. Some spared a girl’s life by giving her to an orphanage. The development of sonograms that could detect gender reduced the rate of infanticide. If the sonogram showed a girl, couples chose an abortion. The long-term implications of the one-child-per-family policy were also problematic. The resulting shortage of women as marital partners for young men in their twenties and thirties is a serious concern. A few women from North Korea and Mongolia have married Chinese men, but an increasing number of young men have not and will not find mates. However, there have been recent exceptions to the policy. Peasants with a daughter have been given the opportunity to have a second child, in hopes of producing a son who could work the land. In addition, non-Han Chinese ethnic minorities, which the government had classified into fifty-five groups constituting about five percent of the population, have never been bound by the one-child-per-family policy.

Having devised a policy, however flawed, on population, the new leadership could turn to other pressing issues. Deng and his allies adopted the slogan “Four Modernizations,” referring to the engines for rapid growth. Moderni­zation in agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense would be the means by which China would progress and attain the level of the world’s dominant powers. Here too expertise would replace ideological purity as the criterion for advancement. Individuals would be selected and promoted on the basis of their technical knowledge, not their political correctness. In 1980, Deng recruited supporters to help in implementing these policies: Zhao Ziyang (1919–2005) became premier and Hu Yaobang (1915–1989) became general secretary of the Communist Party. They described their new policies as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”: a program centered on economic performance, not the ideology of the old mass campaigns. Deng also deviated from radical policies by emphasizing wealth as part of the Communist Party’s program. He asserted that the initial enrichment of a few would be valuable because it would inexorably lead to prosperity for much of the rest of the population. Wealth rather than strict adherence to socialist ideology was his principal concern. The new policy was enshrined in the slogan “to get rich is glorious.”

The new authorities first took aim at agricultural reforms. The communes had offered the peasants few incentives because additional yields on the land they farmed did not translate into significantly greater income. Under the new ­so-called responsibility system, incentives were restored and the communes abolished. Households had to meet specific quotas for output but could sell any extra produce on the open market, which in the early 1980s provided substantial income. The communes were decollectivized, offering peasants greater autonomy. The ideological communist decision making that had characterized the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution was eliminated. However, these two campaigns had done considerable damage in rural areas. Planting of inappropriate crops, construction of faulty dams, leaks of chemicals into the ground and into the water supply, and the encroachment by a larger population on the land, as well as increased urbanization, had created difficult problems. Yet, free of earlier restraints, many peasants flourished, and produce became more readily available in rural and urban markets.

An adequate food supply enabled the government to turn its attention to industrial development. However, the increase in agricultural production led to lower prices, and the government now also required payments for the peasants’ health and welfare benefits, which generated financial burdens in the rural areas. Variations in price levels, a growing population and the resulting intrusion on the land, and poverty in the countryside compelled some peasants to migrate to the towns and cities to seek work in factories or in ancillary urban organizations (established from the 1980s on). Simultaneously, cultural, social, and economic opportunities lured some ambitious peasants who wanted to live beyond the confines of the countryside. A substantial migrant population, amounting to tens of millions, developed, but they faced considerable difficulties. After they moved, they lacked the household registration (
hukou
) granted to all citizens and thus lost claims to housing, medical and welfare benefits, and education for their children. They were in a precarious position, yet they offered a labor force for industry and construction projects.

Modernization of industry also required investment and greater flexibility and freedom for managers and entrepreneurs. Zhao Ziyang, who had introduced successful economic reforms as party secretary in the province of Sichuan, now supported the privatization of state-owned enterprises and the decentralization of industry. He facilitated the use of enhanced revenues from agriculture to promote industrial development. The economic planners decided upon export-led growth and investment in light industries (such as textiles) rather than heavy industries (which required more investment) as strategies for economic development. As critical, the government actively sought foreign investment in so-called joint ventures. It offered favorable terms for foreign, often overseas Chinese, investors, including reduced taxes and the ability to fire lazy or inefficient workers. One remarkable innovation was the establishment of special economic zones in which private entrepreneurs dominated. The Shenzhen zone, near Hong Kong, was the first such special region where government regulations were minimal. The government adopted the so-called policy of “one country, two systems,” maintaining communism in China and accepting capitalism in Shenzhen and later in Hong Kong and Macao. By the early 1990s, a large number of foreign firms, taking advantage of relatively cheap labor, few environmental regulations, and state inducements, had invested funds or built factories in China. Gross domestic product rose throughout the 1980s, markedly so from the mid 1990s on. China began to supply increasingly more sophisticated consumer goods to the West and indeed much of the world and started to enjoy a favorable balance of trade. It soon became the world’s fastest-growing economy.

This dramatic growth necessitated a secure supply of natural resources. In the 1980s, China had sufficient supplies for domestic purposes, and the government ensured that prices for Chinese consumers remained low. For example, oil from Daqing, a highly touted site during the Cultural Revolution, met the country’s needs during the early stages of industrialization. However, by maintaining low prices, the government prevented the oil companies from investing in and thus searching for new oil reserves. Eventually recognizing that under these circumstances supplies would remain low, the government finally liberalized prices in 1990 in order to obtain sufficient oil for its burgeoning industrial base. By the mid 1990s, the pace of industrialization had increased so rapidly that domestic supplies of oil were insufficient. The oil companies then were permitted to invest abroad and sought diverse sources to avert dependence on any one country. Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, and Sudan and even India, Syria, and Myanmar attracted Chinese investment. Because some of these states were authoritarian and did not respect human rights, the Western democracies criticized China for supporting or at least not ostracizing such regimes. China generally ignored these objections and tried to ingratiate itself by providing economic aid and offering military training to the countries in which it was investing. Chinese oil companies had the advantage that the government did not expect them to make substantial profits. Thus, they were in a better position than other countries’ oil companies, which required considerable profits.

The spectacular economic growth from the 1990s on resulted in a frenzied effort to secure a variety of mineral and natural resources. Chinese companies, often with low-interest loans from the government, traveled around the world – from East Asia to the Middle East to Africa and even to Latin America – to negotiate deals for these precious reserves. They either invested in foreign extractive industries or purchased commodities such as copper, coal, and gold. Their traders also traveled to buy such raw materials as wool and cashmere for the light industries they had developed.

Having a favorable balance of trade based on its industries, the government now fostered the third modernization, science and technology. Its first step entailed the dispatch of students to the more developed countries, including Japan and the West. Most studied engineering, science, or other practical subjects, often with subsidies provided by such international financial agencies as the World Bank or by the individual advanced states. However, China suffered somewhat from a “brain drain,” as quite a number of students decided to settle in the lands where they had studied. Yet, once economic growth accelerated in China in the twenty-first century, more students appeared to return. The government’s financial support for scientific research centers and universities has increasingly enticed well-trained researchers and engineers to go back to their native land.

Economic growth has also translated into development of China’s defense capabilities, the fourth modernization. By the early 1980s, the Sino–Soviet struggle had receded, so China could begin to concentrate on other nonthreatening defense issues. At that point, the government moved its focus to expanding its military forces and updating its weaponry. The People’s Liberation Army became an increasingly professional organization. Although the size of its army, navy, and air force has grown, the government has been relatively cautious and has not, until very recently, adopted an adventurist policy of encroaching on its neighbors, especially after the cessation of hostilities with the USSR and the end of a territorial war with Vietnam in 1979. It has brandished its weaponry during unstable times in its relations with Taiwan; to affirm its claims in the South China Sea in disputes with Southeast Asian countries and Japan; and to challenge US observation or spy planes that appeared to cross into Chinese airspace. Yet it has generally avoided bellicose acts and instead has often used economic pressure to resolve disputes. For example, in 2010, the Chinese suspended trade in rare minerals, vital for industry, to Japan during a conflict.

Political developments after Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power around 1979 did not prove to be as smooth. Having ousted Hua Guofeng, Deng initially recruited pragmatists and more liberal officials to implement the economic reforms he supported. He did not, however, contemplate drastic political changes and did not advocate the kind of liberalization for the political system that he had championed for the economy. Because his position as chair of the Military Affairs Commission had been crucial in his victory over Hua, he did not foresee a decline of the military’s power. Moreover, he acted decisively when dissidents placed posters on the so-called Democracy Wall in Beijing. Wei Jingsheng (1950–), perhaps the most renowned such activist, appeared to challenge not only specific policies but also the entire communist system, by emphasizing democracy as the fifth modernization. The government brought him to trial, and he was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Other dissenters met similar fates. At the same time, any perceived challenges in art, literature, and the cinema faced government censorship. The greater access and exposure to Western models in the arts, journalism, and television affected and stimulated some Chinese to seek greater individual freedom. University students, in particular, found lack of choice about their venues for employment galling. The government continued to determine where they would work – a specific enforcement of Communist Party policy. There was increased resentment against this and other policies that limited freedom of choice. Cynicism was also prevalent, especially as levels of corruption accelerated. Entrepreneurs with
guanxi
(connections with high officials in the local or central government) could secure lucrative contracts, dispossess peasants from their lands, and evade regulations or even the law to enrich themselves. More and more students and intellectuals were appalled by these conditions.

The government severely criticized dissenters and sometimes dealt with them harshly, prompting reactions from the growing body of dissatisfied people in the country. It dismissed a few prominent figures from their positions, expelled dissidents from the Communist Party, and detained those it perceived as obstructive or potentially subversive. It also adopted a harsher policy toward the writings and performances of dissenters. Yet student demonstrations ­persisted. In 1986, Deng began to blame the liberal officials he had brought to power during his accession to his leading position in the late 1970s. He would eventually target Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, two pragmatists who were identified with economic reform and greater openness to the West and had risen to be secretary generals of the Communist Party, for inspiring such demonstrations. Hu and Zhao had antagonized many officials by attempting to streamline the bureaucracy, fighting corruption, investigating the activities of children (“princes”) of high-ranking party and government officials, demanding greater transparency, supporting free-market reforms, rehabilitating victims of the Cultural Revolution, promoting freedoms of speech and the press, expressing concern about the growing gap between rich and poor, calling for reduction of military expenditures, and advocating fewer controls on ethnic minorities. Deng specifically criticized Hu for encouraging bourgeois sentiments and “spiritual pollution” – that is, acceptance of Western values and ideas. In 1987, Hu was compelled to resign his position as secretary general of the Communist Party.