Keri Gilligan - Blog Post 3

Blog Post 3: China and its Economy

Throughout the course, our class has discussed a lot about China since it can be categorized as a modern great power. In particular, China is often viewed as a threat to the United; this is typically from an economic standpoint. With this, the word communism is frequently thrown around. China operates under a one party system with the Chinese Communist Party, CCP, the ruling party. From a Western perspective, it may be assumed that every aspect of China is communist, but the economy does not exactly follow this rule. 

During my East Asian Politics course, I’ve studied Chinese history and looked at the evolution of China and what has accounted for its major growth. When people think of China, many think of Mao Zedong, communism, and censorship. And since China is so heavily associated with Mao Zedong who mobilized the masses, enacted land redistribution, and left much of China poor, there is no sign of China being anywhere close to having a capitalist economy. Although these were and are a part of China, a lot is being left out by viewing China with such a narrow lens. With taking a second look at Chinese history, it would be clear that China does not have a communist economy. China’s economy has many capitalist qualities, but just more state involvement. 

Characteristics of a capitalist economy are best shown during the period after Mao’s death in 1976. It was when the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Deng Xiaoping, implemented new economic reforms that China was able to build its economy. His leadership guided the Four Modernizations that were supposed to lead to a modern state: agriculture, military, industrialization, and science & technology. These ideas helped China transition from Mao’s era to a prosperous one ahead. Another leading idea that was used as the framework for Deng to transform China was the Cat Theory. In Deng’s words, “It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice” as a way of saying that whatever will create a strong economy, China will use them. This allowed for China to have a more free market system and open up to the rest of the world. At this point, China was so poor so people listened. This set the tone for the rest of China’s history to the present and can be used to begin to explain how China’s economy has been growing.

Deng also implemented new policies that would put China on track for economic prosperity. One of them was the Household Responsibility System where land was divided into pieces and each family was responsible for meeting a quota that would go to the government. Anything over this quota could be kept, or sold on the market providing a direct incentive to produce more. Additionally, the Special Economic Zones opened China up to the rest of the world by welcoming foreign investors through zones, mainly along the coast of Southern China. This enabled better taxation and provided incentives for investors to be a part of the Chinese market. Throughout this expansion, the government was supporting it. In this way, China’s capitalist economy differs from the United States as it has more government planning.

It is crucial to examine countries from a historical perspective to understand why a state is behaving the way it does. The Western perspective that China is a communist power that does not allow for capitalism is flawed. By looking at the period after Mao with Deng Xiaopeng in power, it is clear that China very much has a capitalistic economy.


Comments

  1. pols170 claire doyle blogOctober 27, 2021 at 10:59 AM

    China really is an important power to discuss in political science and economics courses. It is such a major power that sometimes seems overlooked because of how it poses a threat to the US. It is so interesting you learned so much about China and communism. I also was under the impression it was all under a communist rule. I like how you pointed out that China is essentially a capitalist economy, just with more state involvement.

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    1. Keri GilliganNovember 12, 2021 at 3:36 PM

      I think it is definitely natural to think that China is a fully communist state that is dominated by censorship because this is the Western view that we are often exposed to.

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