People's Republic of China
CHINA. People's Republic of China
A state in Central and East Asia. Area - 9.6 million km². Capital - Beijing (14.6 million), largest cities: Shanghai (17.11 million), Tianjin (10.1 million), Shenyang (6.8 million). Administrative division - 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing), and 2 Special Administrative Regions (SAR) - Hong Kong and Macau. Population - over 1.292 billion (excluding the population of Taiwan, SAR Hong Kong, and Macau); 91% are Han Chinese, with 55 other nationalities and ethnic groups (Zhuang, Uighurs, Mongols, Tibetans, Hui, Koreans, etc.). Official language - Chinese. The religion of believing Chinese, especially in rural areas, is a mix of Daoism and Buddhism. Among adherents of other religions are Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics. Currency - yuan = 100 fen.
It has diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation (established with the USSR on October 2, 1949). In December 1992, a Joint Declaration on the principles of relations between the Russian Federation and the PRC was signed.
National holiday - October 1 - Day of the Proclamation of the PRC (1949).
According to the 1982 constitution, the People's Republic of China is a "socialist state under the democratic dictatorship of the people, led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants."
The highest legislative body of state power is the National People's Congress (NPC). Its permanent body is the Standing Committee (SC) of the NPC. Deputies are elected from provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and the People's Liberation Army of China for a term of 5 years through multi-tiered elections (the lower-level people's congress elects deputies to the higher-level; direct elections are held for the lowest-level people's congresses - township level; direct elections with more candidates than seats are used to form committees of rural residents, which are local self-government bodies and are not part of the state power system). In the last NPC elections in 2003, more than 2900 deputies were elected. The NPC elects the head of state - the Chairman of the PRC and his deputy, the Chairman of the SC of the NPC and its members, approves the Premier and the composition of the State Council of the PRC, which is the highest executive body of state power, elects the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the PRC, which oversees all armed forces of the country, and approves its composition.
Since 2003, the Chairman of the PRC has been Hu Jintao, the Chairman of the SC of the NPC has been Wu Bangguo, the Premier of the State Council of the PRC has been Wen Jiabao, and the Chairman of the CMC of the PRC has been Hu Jintao (since 2005). *
The Communist Party of China (CPC) was founded in 1921. Since 1949, it has been the ruling party. The CPC Charter states that the party is guided in its activities by Marxism-Leninism, the ideas of Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping as the quintessence of the party's experience. It has over 60 million members. The General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee is Hu Jintao (since 2002). The governing bodies of the Communist Party of China include the Central Committee, the Politburo of the Central Committee and its Standing Committee, the Secretariat of the Central Committee, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and the Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee (organizationally and in terms of personnel, it is identical to the CMC of the PRC). The printed organs of the CPC Central Committee are the newspaper "People's Daily" and the theoretical journal "Qiu Shi."
Alongside the CPC, there are 8 democratic parties in China: the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang (founded in 1948, over 50,000), the Democratic League of China (1941, more than 130,000), the Association for Democratic National Construction of China (1945, over 70,000), the Association for Promoting Democracy in China (1945, over 60,000), the Workers' and Peasants' Democratic Party of China (1930, over 60,000), the China Justice Party (1925), the September 3 Society (1944), and the League for Democratic Autonomy of Taiwan (1947). These parties unite over 500,000 members.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions unites over 100 million members.
The CPC, along with democratic parties and social organizations, forms the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, established in 1949), its central organ being the All-China Committee of the CPPCC. The Chairman of the All-China Committee of the CPPCC is Jia Qinglin. The CPPCC is a form of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CPC.
China is one of the oldest states in the world, the birthplace of many important discoveries and inventions (paper, gunpowder, printing, compass, seismograph, etc.) made as early as the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, the country became the target of colonial expansion by several imperialist powers (Great Britain, Japan, Germany, the USA, etc.). As a result of military defeats and the conciliatory policy of the Manchu Qing dynasty, which ruled in China from the 17th to the 20th centuries, the country was reduced to a semi-colonial state. A significant event in modern Chinese history was the Xinhai Revolution (1911-13), which overthrew the Manchu monarchy and proclaimed the Republic of China. The provisional president of the republic was Sun Yat-sen. In 1919, China was shaken by the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal "May Fourth Movement," triggered by the reaction to the decision of the Paris Peace Conference to transfer control of the Chinese province of Shandong to Japan and all rights previously held in China by the defeated Germany in World War I.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) in the early years after its founding acted in alliance with the Kuomintang (the ruling party of the Republic of China, founded by Sun Yat-sen). After the death of the latter, his successor Chiang Kai-shek broke the alliance with the CPC and from 1927 began a struggle against it, which escalated into a civil war. The situation in China was complicated by the presence of several militaristic political groups that did not recognize the central government.
The Soviet Union constantly provided support and assistance to the Chinese people in their struggle for freedom and independence. In an address to the Chinese people and the governments of South and North China on July 25, 1919, the Soviet government declared its renunciation of all special rights and privileges that Tsarist Russia had in China. In May 1924, the first Soviet-Chinese agreement on general principles for settling issues between the USSR and the Republic of China was signed in Beijing, establishing diplomatic relations and laying the foundation for the development of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. The USSR maintained diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and simultaneously maintained ties with the CPC through the Comintern. The late 1920s and early 1930s were marked by a number of incidents against Soviet diplomatic missions in China, on the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER, which passed through the territory of the PRC and was managed by the USSR) and on the border with the USSR, organized both by the central government of China and militaristic groups.
During the war against Japanese aggression (1937-45), the alliance between the CPC and the Kuomintang was restored, lasting until the end of the war with Japan. After which the civil war in China resumed. The USSR provided moral and material assistance to the Chinese people in the anti-Japanese struggle. The defeat of the Japanese Kwantung Army by Soviet troops in August 1945, the liberation of Manchuria, the surrender of Japan, and the transfer of captured Japanese weapons to the People's Liberation Army of China (the armed forces of the CPC) created favorable conditions for the victorious completion of the people's democratic revolution led by the CPC. On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed (it is a member of the UN).
From 1949 to 1952, the government of the PRC nationalized the property of foreign capital and the large Chinese bourgeoisie, carried out agrarian reform, restored the economy devastated by war, and from 1953 began implementing the first five-year plan for the development of the national economy (1953-57). With the help of the USSR and the countries of Eastern Europe, China fulfilled the first five-year plan, implemented economic transformations in cities and villages, and laid the foundations for industry. In the second half of the 1950s, the leadership of the PRC decided to shift the focus of work from economic activity to ideology and politics. A "struggle against rightist elements" was launched, affecting a significant part of the figures in science and culture, unrealistic economic development indicators were set, a massive collectivization of means of production, livestock, and residential buildings of peasants was conducted, agricultural cooperatives were liquidated, and "people's communes" were formed. Direct losses to the national economy during the so-called "Great Leap Forward" (1958-60) exceeded 100 billion yuan. The process of "adjustment," which had smoothed out the consequences of the voluntarist policies of the late 1950s, was interrupted in 1966 by the decade-long "Cultural Revolution," which caused a crisis in the national economy, disorganized the party, state, and administrative-economic apparatus, and delayed the socio-economic development of the country for almost two decades. The number of victims during the "Cultural Revolution" amounted to about 100 million people.
The 3rd Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee of the 11th Convocation (December 1978) condemned the "Cultural Revolution," rehabilitated repressed leading workers, and shifted the focus of the party's work to economic construction. The 12th Congress of the CPC (September 1982) criticized the cult of personality of Mao Zedong and the mistakes he made in the last years of his life, adopted a strategy for the modernization of society. According to the Chinese leadership, it will be carried out in three stages: by 2000, the goal was set to increase the gross industrial and agricultural output by four times and achieve an average standard of living for the people (this goal was exceeded); by 2021 (the 100th anniversary of the CPC) - to raise China to the level of a moderately developed country; by 2049 (the 100th anniversary of the PRC) - to transform China into a modern highly developed power. In the early 1980s, deep economic reforms began in the country. In rural areas, a transition to family contracting for land cultivation was implemented, various forms of ownership and types of economy developed, and peasants were returned their homestead plots, granted the right to develop sideline production, and sell products in markets (beyond mandatory state purchases). Since 1984, the pace of reforms noticeably accelerated in cities. Their main elements included expanding the economic independence of enterprises, reducing the scope of directive planning, transitioning to wholesale trade in means of production, reforming the system of prices, labor, wages, and using various forms of ownership (state, collective, private), and actively introducing the achievements of scientific and technological progress. In the foreign economic sphere, an open policy was proclaimed, aimed at expanding ties with foreign countries, attracting foreign capital into the economy, creating special economic zones and open economic areas, and forming an "open coastal strip."
However, the implementation of reform measures was not without complications. At the turn of 1988-89, the socio-economic situation in the country sharply deteriorated, reflected in the June events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square. In conditions of "overheating" of the economy, inflation, rampant capital construction, exacerbation of sectoral disproportions, growth of corruption, and abuses by personnel workers, the 3rd Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee of the 13th Convocation (September 1988) again took a course towards "regulating the national economy," tightening credit, budget expenditures, monetary emission, temporarily "slowing down" reforms, and increasing state-administrative intervention in the economy.
Since 1992, China has been transitioning to a "socialist market economy" and intensively integrating into the global market. The state sector is the object of reform. With the exception of a small group of the largest, strategically most important enterprises, other state-owned assets are subject to gradual corporatization with the involvement of both domestic and (to a lesser extent) foreign investors. State monopoly is established in a small group of sectors (large energy, rail, pipeline and air transport, banking, defense industry, some branches of metallurgy, and several others). Measures are envisaged to further increase the share of non-state forms of ownership in the national economy, liberalize foreign trade, and improve conditions for foreign investments. The constitution of the PRC guarantees the legal equality of all forms of ownership. Prices for goods and services have been liberalized (except for a narrow group of strategic goods and services, as well as banking rates). Special attention is paid to mobilizing factors for the intensive development of the economy - accelerating scientific and technological progress, energy conservation, etc.
Deep changes are occurring in the social sphere, with state policy gradually being shifted to market principles (introduction of pension and medical insurance with the involvement of workers' own funds, abandonment of free housing distribution, transition of the education system to a paid basis, etc.).
Through these measures, it is planned to double the GDP in the first 10 years of the 21st century compared to 2000 and create a comprehensive system of market economy, and by the middle of the century to largely complete the modernization of the country and shift the economy to an intensive path of development.
A large-scale reform of the state apparatus of the PRC has been carried out, the number of which decreased by half from 1998 to 2001. The number of ministries and state committees was reduced from 40 to 29. Sectoral ministries were practically liquidated, and the role of macroeconomic and macrosocial regulatory agencies was significantly increased. Duplication of functions of executive authorities is eliminated, and the decision-making process is simplified and centralized. Similar transformations are taking place at the regional level. The functions of the State Planning Commission (transformed in 2003 into the State Committee for Development and Reforms) have been fundamentally changed - instead of directive planning, it is to promote the creation of a market mechanism and the corresponding infrastructure. The remaining inviolable political system led by the Communist Party is assigned the role of a mechanism for implementing reforms and a guarantor of socio-political stability.
In March 2003, the 1st session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) formed a new leadership of the PRC for the next 5 years. In the field of political reform, steps are planned to further build a rule of law state, expand the powers of representative authorities, reduce the bureaucratic apparatus, conduct alternative elections to representative bodies at the township and county levels, and in some cases governors of provinces are elected from several candidates.
The most important priority during the transformations remains the preservation of social stability. The main factors capable of destabilizing the socio-political situation in China are corruption in the party-state apparatus, crime, the dire situation of workers in many state-owned enterprises, excessive property stratification, the growing gap in development levels between the interior and the most prosperous coastal regions, separatism in national areas, primarily in the Xinjiang Uighur and Tibetan autonomous regions.
The situation in the national economy remains generally stable. China is one of the most dynamically developing countries and in recent years has accounted for up to 1/3 of global economic growth. In the past 25 years, China's GDP has increased annually by 9.4% and rose from $147 billion in 1978 to $1.65 trillion in 2004. (Statistical data on the Chinese economy are provided without taking into account Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.)
