Fri, Oct 01, 1999 page13

• From Mao to Jiang: The saga of China

  In 1945, Mao Zedong said that dialogue with the KMT could result in the "peaceful construction of a democratic institution." But the Great Helmsman's vision of China took on a Stalinist framework of lawlessness and terror. Under Deng Xiaoping, party ideology began to loosen. With Jiang Zemin in power, the possibility of yet another change is great

  • By Ruan Ming (阮銘)
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  I. Civil War and Lost Opportunities
  
  

  In 1945, the war against Japan and fascism ended in victory for the allied forces. While the world experienced the so-called second wave of democratization, China also faced an historic opportunity for "the peaceful construction of a democratic institution."
  
  

  On September 27 of that year, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) was interviewed by a Reuters reporter in Chongqing. During the interview, the reporter asked Mao "what is the Chinese Communists' definition for a free, democratic China?"

  

  ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

  Mao answered that "a free, democratic China would be a country in which all ranks of governments, including the central government, would be produced by popular, judicious, and anonymous voting, and the country would realize the "of the people, by the people, and for the people" concept of Abraham Lincoln and the "four freedoms" proposed by Franklin Roosevelt."

  Was Mao lying through his teeth? No. The "Party's Instruction" issued before Mao departed from the wartime communist capital of Yanan (延安) to Chongqing pointed out that, "under pressure from abroad, the KMT may conditionally recognize our party during the upcoming negotiations, and our party may also conditionally recognize the KMT to lead to the peaceful construction of a democratic institution." Mao also pointed out in the same paper that "the main form of struggle in China would change from armed struggle into peaceful struggle in the legislature; national problems shall be resolved by political mechanisms, and, therefore, the party must strive to adjust to this new development."

  However, the KMT held the power to decide between war and peace. Among the KMT's 4.3 million-strong armed forces were 39 brigades of crack troops equipped with military hardware provided by the US. The KMT's absolute advantage in terms of manpower and equipment gave the militaristic faction -- those eager to annihilate the communists -- the upper hand within the KMT. Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) declared during a military conference in Nanking in October of 1946 that "the communist troops would be defeated within five months." Exactly five months later, KMT troops had taken more than 170 thousand square miles and more than 160 cities from the communist troops.

  At the beginning of December, 1947, Chiang expelled the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) representatives from Shanghai, Nanking, and Chongqing, and ordered Hu Tsung-nan (胡宗南) to invade the borders of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia provinces (陝西,甘肅,寧夏). Hu successfully overran Yanan, located in Shaanxi, on March 19. Chiang sent a telegram to Hu praising him for "completing a meritorious service for the party and the country by taking over Yanan, and vindicating my decade-long rage." Chiang then personally led a group of Chinese and foreign reporters to Yanan for a victory celebration. However, the significance of Chiang's victory was mostly symbolic. He won a vacated city. Hu did not locate the principal communist forces. Thereafter, the KMT began a period of military defeats.

  It was tragic for Chiang that he did not make good use of the popular support after the defeat of Japan, refusing to cooperate with US General Marshall in putting an end to the civil war, and, as a result, failing to direct China along the path of political democracy. If, instead of choosing to fight in 1946, Chiang had chosen peace and democracy, as he had promised at the opening ceremony of the negotiation conference between the KMT and the CCP, China's history in the second half of the 20th century would have been rewritten. Mao's empire would never have built. The CCP, like the communist parties in France and Italy after WWII, would have become merely a relatively powerful competing force in the political party system of a free and democratic China. The economic revival envisioned by the Marshall Plan would have been implemented in China even before western Europe had had a chance to benefit from it.

  However, Chiang chose to fight. Despite an absolute military advantage, the KMT's victories were fleeting. Despite absolute military disadvantage, the Chinese Communists turned defeats into victories. The determining factor of Mao's victory over Chiang was political. Mao won popular support by raising a banner of "opposing the civil war and hunger, and demanding peace and democracy."

  As a result of the civil war, the KMT fled with its military and political forces from China to Taiwan. The CCP thereafter monopolized the politics and economic resources of China without any countervailing forces, a monopoly of power which far exceeded that of its predecessor, the KMT. Mao won the war under the banner of democracy, but at the cost of China's historic opportunity to establish a political democracy.

  II. The Mao Empire -- a mixture of Marxism and the Chin Shih Huang-ti (秦始皇帝) system

  Fifty years ago today, Mao announced the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC 中華人民共和國) at Tiananmen Square. However, "the peaceful construction for a democratic institution" never took place.

  Two years after the establishment of the PRC, China waged war against Korea under which it fought against US troops. Thereafter, the country, under the military, economic, and technological embargo of the western countries, took a path of military and heavy industrial development based on the model of Stalin's Soviet Union.

  In 1958, Mao refused to join the Soviet Union in establishing a "unified fleet" under a "military cooperative." Mao then had an argument with Khrushchev. Mao was determined to break up the partnership with the Soviet Union and take a separate path in establishing his own imperial system.

  The system under Mao's empire was, as described by Mao himself, a mixture of "Marxism and the Chin Shih Huang-ti (the first emperor of China, founder of the ancient Chin Dynasty (秦朝) system." Marxism of course referred to the tradition of a proletarian class system. Mao's version of Marxism, also in his own words, was "a total dictatorship by the proletarian class against the capitalist class."

  The "Chin Shih Huang-ti system" referred to the traditional imperial dictatorship. A famous poem by Mao clearly pointed out that many of the famous emperors in China's history including Chin Shih Huang-ti and Han Wu-ti (漢武帝) were inferior to Mao himself in terms of literary talent. Although Mao admired these ancient emperors, especially their military strength and political accomplishments, he lamented their lack of culture and intellect. Mao wanted to be the "philosopher king" described by Plato. Mao asked the Soviet Union to send a philosopher as the ambassador to China to engage in philosophical discussions with him. Mao said he and US president Nixon, during the latter's visit to China, spoke only about philosophy, and that Nixon spoke to Chou Enlai (周恩來) about everything else. Lin Biao (林彪) called Mao the "four greatnesses" (四個偉大) -- a great leader, a great teacher, a great commander, and a great helmsman. Mao said he only wanted to be a great instructor, and declined the honor of the other "three greatnesses."

  The story indicated that Mao not only wanted to be a traditional Chinese emperor, but he also wanted to be like the Pope of the West who controlled both the people's physical bodies as well as their souls.

  Based on these traditions, Mao established his communist empire, which ran directly against universal values such as freedom, democracy, and human rights. The endless lawlessness and terror under this system were comparable with the combined terrors of Stalin's Soviet empire and the ancient Chinese empires. The disaster created by the system also far exceeded those generated by all the great empires in both Western and Chinese histories. If this system of terror and dictatorship had not changed, there would have been no end to China's suffering and devastation.

  III. The Deng Empire -- opening the economic bird cage, but shutting tight the political cage

  Under Deng Xiaoping's (鄧小平) leadership, China finally left behind the giant catastrophes of the Mao era. The rest of the world at this time also began experiencing a third wave of democratization. It would not have been hard for Deng to follow the historical current of democratization and make a clear break with Mao's empire. In fact, Deng did try to change the system of terror that Mao had employed. Deng once publicly said that "institutionalizing and legalizing democracy makes democracy immune to changes upon the change of leadership and the change of the leader's views and focus." If Deng had carried out this view, then he would have completely changed Mao's empire, and turned communist China into a free and democratic China, the way that Mao had promised in 1945.

  However, history ruthlessly repeated a tragedy. Deng did consider genuinely resolving the problems in the system. In fact, in 1980 the Politburo (中央政治局) approved a proposal for the amendment of the party and the country's leadership system. However, the proposed amendments were never carried out, and as a result the June 4 incident occurred in 1989 in Tiananmen Square.

  Deng's empire was different from Mao's empire. On the one hand the tradition of a dictatorship by the proletarian class under Marxism, and the ancient Chinese imperial system remained unchanged. On the other hand, the party's control on the economy and ideology began to loosen.

  The basic question Deng's regime addressed was: should the economy be closed or opened to the outside? Deng answered it by breaking open the closed economic system under Mao's empire and beginning to develop a market economy, which helped China win a place in the global market.

  Second, Mao emphasized the ideological struggles between classes. Deng, in contrast, toned down the role of ideology. China's economy did manage to leave behind the chain of the Marxist doctrines and took part in the competition in the world capitalist market. However, in the areas of politics, culture, and intellectualism, Deng insisted on an ideological control under the "four fundamental principles."

  After the June 4 Incident, Deng suffered from a paranoia against democracy brought on by old age. He refused to bring up the subject of reforms to the system, and equated democracy with chaos. Therefore, Deng's empire may be characterized as "opening the bird cage for the economy, while shutting tight the political cage."

  IV. The Jiang Empire -- a gun in one hand, a pencil in the other

  The character of Jiang Zemin's rule lies somewhere between the Mao and Deng empires. In the economic field, Jiang continued Deng's liberalization. Jiang once described himself as "firmly holding onto the gun barrel" -- the armed forces and the military police -- "and the pencil" -- the ideological control. In terms of politics and culture, Jiang implemented a Mao style "total dictatorship."

  Jiang's path is a mixture of Mao-style politics, Deng-style economics, and a militaristic diplomacy bolder than under either the Mao or Deng empires. The militaristic diplomacy of both Mao and Deng was mostly preventive. Mao was mostly concerned about preventing the Soviet Union's invasion. Deng on one occasion invaded Vietnam, after establishing diplomatic relations with the US. However, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Deng put emphasis on waiting patiently for opportunities and not taking a dominating role.

  Jiang never served in the military, but he aims to be a military giant. During his 10 years in power, military expenditure has experienced an unprecedented increase. A significant amount of high technology weapons have been purchased from Russia. China is also for the first time building aircraft carriers.

  Today, on the 50th anniversary of the PRC, Jiang will inspect troops to show off the fact that the military power under his command far exceeds the military power that was wielded by both Mao and Deng.

  Jiang has also published dialogues of Marxist, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Deng, and himself in an attempt to show that he is not only the successor of the Mao and Deng empires, but also the new Pope of contemporary Marxist ideologies.

  It is wrong for US President Clinton to hope that Jiang will incorporate China into the "new world order" and take a path toward democratization. Jiang, in fact, is preparing for an expansion of military domination. Jiang will try to stop the third wave of worldwide democratization from hitting Asia through the expansion of China's military domination. A glaring example of Jiang's ambition is his obstruction of the international community's extension of aid to quake-devastated Taiwan, insisting that all Red Cross and United Nations assistance to Taiwan must first go though China. This is a domineering move that not even Mao or Deng dared to try.

  Ruan Ming is a visiting professor at Tamkang University and former special assistant to the Chinese Communist Party's Secretary-General Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦).
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