The death of Mao marked a new era in the social, cultural, political, and economic development of the nation. The new policy is based on deMaonisation and the implementation of capitalistic modes of production. People believe that it is namely the specific form of political governing in every particular country, which defines its citizens’ existential mode. However, when we adopt a historical approach towards analyzing the actual essence of political changes, it will appear these ideologies closely relate to the economic and cultural characteristics of groups of people, with which we associate these political doctrines in the first place.
The modernization of society covers all aspects of life. Mao Tse Tung was well aware of the fact that, for China to become an active player in the arena of international politics, it would have to become a fully unified nation first and he had rightly concluded that ideology (as a unifying factor) suited the best to Chinese mentality, as people who rarely bother to logically analyze the socio-political doctrines, designed in the West, but who nevertheless are quite capable of utilizing them for the purpose of achieving very pragmatic results. In his article “Cultures of Reason”, Bruce Bower provides us with insight on particularities of Chinese mentality: “In a variety of reasoning tasks, East Asians take a “holistic” approach. This is why the Chinese version continues to remain alive and well today and why this will continue to be the case in the future. Apparently, it never occurs to Chinese people that the fact that the prominent members of Chinese Party openly admit of being millionaires contradict the very essence of ideological doctrine – they could not care less about maintaining the “ideological purity” of Marxism, which they have adopted to serve very practical purposes (Guo 65).
This is also the reason why those Western political observes who predict the ideological demise of old regime in China, can be best referred to as not very intelligent individuals. Apparently, they are simply incapable of realising a simple fact that Chinese mentality is fundamentally different from the mentality of White people, simply because the majority of Chinese are being deprived of the sense of perceptional idealism, which is the main psychological trait of White people. New market economy is being viewed by Chinese rulers as the instrument of maintaining a high degree of uniformity among citizens, without which their sense of “totalitarism” would regress back to the tribal level (Guo 65).
Whatever the illogical it might sound, it is the oppressiveness of new doctrine, which corresponds to its vitality in China. Whereas in Russia, New market economy has been forcibly imposed upon citizens, majority of which used to perceive it as something unnatural, in China, New market economy does not show the signs of its weakening. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 did not gain any popular support among ordinary Chinese citizens, while being simply a reflection of Westernised young people’s subconscious longing to distance themselves from their own cultural traditions, which is why it was being crushed in swift and effective manner, without triggering any further protests across the country (Johnston 87).
This measure is taken with the aim to punish the United States for pursuing monetary and fiscal policies. Traditionally, these policies are aimed at stimulating the American economy. The major feature of these policies is that they may run a long-term risk of setting off inflation. The combination of the policies is likely to benefit China. The major outcome of the process is the possibility to rekindle economic growth in the United States. Taking this measure is very important since it can enable people to revive China’s faltering exports (Johnston 23).
The abrupt slowdown in China’s accumulation of foreign reserves is the process that has a strong impact on the investors. The major part of Chinese investors is sending large sums of money out of mainland China. A great number of Chinese investors are trying to get a professional response to worries about the country’s economic future. These worries are related to Chinese social stability in the face of rising unemployment. There is strong evidence that indicates on a capital flight, including the process of flooding cash into the Hong Kong dollar. The main specific feature of the mainland tourists is their decision to buy gold and diamonds (Guo 87).
The recent research indicates that China’s reserves have soared in recent years. The process has started when the People’s Bank bought dollars on a huge scale. Accumulating huge sums of money was used with the aim to prevent China’s currency from appreciating as money poured into the country. Taking this measure has prevented the state from a great trade surpluses and heavy foreign investment. The main specific feature of China’s trade surplus is that they have narrowed slightly as exports have fallen. The process took place altogether with foreign investment. The process has slowed as multinationals have conserved their cash (Johnston 55).
The overall process can be described as politically important. The major changes have occurred in the first quarter of our century. The outflow was likely to end up in the U.S. China was placed in the circumstances when it was no longer able to control the destination of the money (Kim 87). A specific feature of China’s economy is that it appears to be bouncing back from the global economic downturn. The process is characterized is much faster that the same process of trade partners’ economies. The major outcome of the process is an increase in imports to China. The same process takes place while the exports recover in less briskly manner. A specific feature of the process is that many international investment agencies showed the tendency to predict good prospects for goods further sales. China also mentions the need to sustain the process of political stability in the continent. Maintaining political stability is very important is case the states have to act under the circumstances of ever-increasing economy. A specific feature of the process is the presence of an implicit government guarantee (Kim 88).
The Chinese government decided to take measure to improve the situation for better. As a result, the state decided to issue the bond in Europe. In a short span of time the bond turned out to be success. As a result of this measure Chinese government has got a chance to attract a large group of buyers. The major part of the buyers is coming from Europe and Asia. While accomplishing their major goals many Chinese issuance companied had a chance to use more advantages then the insurance companies of the other states (Guo 65).
Some historians now suggest that Chinese people’s addiction to imported opium was the main contributing factor to this nation’s inability to effectively oppose European and Japanese imperialism, up until 1949, when China’s political leaders had taken over a political power in this country. We can agree with such claim only to a certain extent – as history shows, Chinese people had simply never knew what the concept of national solidarity stands for, until very recent times, when the new rule in China had created preconditions for Chinese citizens to begin considering themselves as belonging to a unified Chinese nation. In its turn, this provides us with the insight onto the true role of new doctrine, within a context of discussing contemporary socio-political developments in this country.
Lampton (87) suggests that it is utterly inappropriate to refer to Chinese version of market, as being solemnly inspired by abstract considerations of building classless society, on the part of Chinese “promoters of workers’ cause”: “Why hadn’t the Red Army taken big cities? Did this prove that this wasn’t a genuine proletarian-led movement? How it was possible to speak of “communism” or “socialism” in China, where over 80 per cent of population was still agrarian, where industrialism was in infant garments – if not in infantile paralysis?” (Snow, p. 37). Before we answer this question, we will need to define the essence of New market economy as ideology that actively opposes the concept of biological evolution, by placing the concept of “people’s equality” into the very core of its assumptions on the subject of what defines the essence of social and political processes in every particular society (Li 42). According to the laws of thermo-dynamics, the achievement of “equality” is only possible at the expense of establishing a state of energetic balance in society, when further scientific and cultural progress becomes impossible, by definition, as equality unable the free flow of energy. In other words, equality implies the existence energetic stalemate in society; it is nothing but the euphemism for the notion of entropy and chaos (Guo 34).
As we have mentioned earlier, Chinese society has traditionally been existentially stagnant – even today, the majority on Chinese people in country’s rural areas live as they used to thousands of years ago, they are simply incapable of expanding their mind outside of pursuing with their daily routine. Therefore, it is not simply an accident that it were namely Chinese peasants that had accepted New market economy as very natural worldview. Whereas White people have traditionally been individualists (which explains why the government could never take roots in industrialized Western countries), the majority of Chinese people are closely associated with new form of existence (Guo 99).
Therefore, the adoption of New market economy simply corresponded to the inner workings of their mind – they never viewed it as abstract political philosophy, but as the very practical instrument of becoming infused with the notion of national solidarity, the absence of which prior to 1948, has been the main contributing factor to China’s inability to effectively oppose European and Japanese colonialism. Nowadays, the membership in Chinese Party continues to increase. Li, points out to the fact that it is far too early to suggest that it is only the matter of time, before old ideology looses its appeal in the eyes of Chinese citizens: “China’s government has recently been trumpeting the fact that an increasing number of young Chinese are joining the Party. By the end of last year, 65 million Chinese were party members, and nearly half of them were under the age of 45. Recruitment has been particularly successful on university campuses, particularly at Beijing’s top schools like Peking University and Qinghua University” (Beech 2001). Chinese society can be compared to society of ants – millions and millions of ants act in accordance to society’s needs, when the deaths of single ants have no significance whatsoever. It is only when these ants work on behalf of their interests that their existence makes sense, but once being left outside of their ant house on their own, they begin running around without any particular purpose. When together, ants act in accordance with the specific roles that were ascribed to them since their birth, as if they were being governed by a collective “super-mind” (Lampton 87).
But such “super-mind” does not exist physically – ants simply become socially conscious, when together. New market economy is nothing but the tool of keeping Chinese together, because only when they are together that they have a chance in international competition for Earth’ natural resources. This is why it makes no sense applying Western social concepts to describe the essence of political processes within Chinese society. “Yellow” race represent the “dead end” of human evolution, because it became fully specialised, which means that Chinese people can only advance for as long as they maintain close contacts with representatives of leading race. It is not simply a coincidence that the amazing progress of Chinese economy in recent years is closely associated with manufacturing of industrial products by Western companies for Western markets, when Chinese workers are being utilized as cheep substitute for robotscs (Lampton 66). Some direct foreign investment may occur more for the purpose of overcoming goods and services trade restrictions than for strictly obtaining a higher rate of return on capital. There is also evidence that fund managers of large institutions have actively sought to diversify asset holdings internationally in order to minimise risk due to uncertain returns. Hence, in practice, consistent with standard portfolio theory, capital flows may be driven to a large extent by the expected variance of returns on capital and not just the return itself. the greater is capital mobility, the greater the macroeconomic welfare gains, there is a contrary view which suggests capital mobility has become ‘excessive’. In developing countries, greater capital mobility resulted from the increased global integration of capital markets in the wake of worldwide financial liberalization. This has facilitated higher transnational capital flows which contributed to wider external balances (Lampton 66). Under current conditions of highly mobile financial capital there are potential gains from international trade in saving and that foreign investment has important real macroeconomic implications.
In sum, in post-Maos’ era the actions of the Chinese government are aimed at providing the best circumstances for the first bond issuance. According to the recent data China’s forex reserve has reached a record level. This information has been supported by the statistical data. The analysis of short-term debts might help the state to raise its forex reserve levels. According to the recent research, China shows the tendency to issue bonds. The major reason for that is that the state is currently lacking money. Many Chinese businesses show the tendency to buy American business’ bonds. During this period of time China has loaned people trillions of dollars. At present, the modern economy is heading for recession (Lampton 72). The situation is largely reasoned by an empty treasury and massive foreign debt that is currently faced by state. The main specific feature of the government is that it has introduced a number of important proposals the main objective of which is meeting the Government’s criteria for investment in China. While meeting this objective Government has introduced foreign investment guidelines. These guidelines are set in order to define China’s activities in different areas of economy. The presence of the defined investment guidelines makes it possible for the people for investors to negotiate changes. The major parts of these changes depend on the industry, and the level of its involvement.
Works Cited
Guo, Sujian. Post-Mao China: From Totalitarianism to Authoritarianism? Praeger Publishers, 2000.
Johnston, Larry. Ideologies: An Analytic and Conceptual Approach. Toronto: Broadview Press, 1995.
Kim Samuel S. Whither Post-Mao Chinese Global Policy? University of Wisconsin Press 1981.
Li, Cheng. China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy. Brookings Institution Press, 2008.
Lampton, David M. The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds. University of California Press; 1 edition, 2008.
Shirk, Susan, L. China: Fragile Superpower. Oxford University Press, USA, 2008