A History of the World From the 20th to the 21st Century

first four years of communist rule some three- quarters of a million enemies, principally landown- ers, were summarily executed. ...

In 1952 Mao set out the general line of policy to be followed. China was in a period of transi- tion, from the foundation of wha ...

to increasing productivity and correcting the agri- cultural backwardness. This new line, which was intended to help China catch ...

1963 the party returned to more rational plan- ning. China’s professionals were appeased and told that they were part of the wor ...

China’s difficulties were compounded by its inter- national isolation. Khrushchev’s destalinisation in the Soviet Union led to a ...

A distinguished Chinese economic historian, Xue Mugiao, director of China’s Economic Research Centre, in the 1980s condemned the ...

over the central apparatus could do nothing to restore China to order and sanity. By September 1967 Mao was ready to accept that ...

During the last years of his life Mao became more remote, removed from the day-to-day run- ning of the state. Now deified he con ...

In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, the Chinese communist leaders acted like a caste of high priests. The ...

Guards had experienced real and heady power; in the name of Mao they had taken the law into their own hands, believing that they ...

was Mao’s faith in the power of ideology created a fatal impediment. It is remarkable that one branch of technology nevertheless ...

America’s trade embargo had long ended and China had taken its place fully in the international community, replacing Taiwan’s re ...

himself eschewed Mao’s personality cult, though as a member of the Politburo in charge of the army he was careful to counter the ...

tions and the availability of cheap Chinese labour attracted large-scale investment from Hong Kong. No doubt Deng was trying to ...

It was not surprising that China’s students were in the forefront of protest and demonstra- tions. They lived in bad conditions ...

sive role of the corrupt party, to the whole world. Buoyed by public support, the students escalated the confrontation, humiliat ...

growing despite birth-control campaigns – it had increased from 540 million in 1949 to 1,300 million by the year 2000 – the need ...

The intellectual ferment in China settled down surprisingly quickly. Dissent is kept under wraps. One explanation is the booming ...

Of China’s 1.2 billion people, 850 million live in the countryside. Heavy taxation, corruption and nepotism have resulted in a b ...

ishing growth of a cult in the 1990s, the Falun Gong which mixes Buddhist and Taoist beliefs with traditional physical involveme ...