The Legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party - Essay Example

? Topic: China’s Security and Foreign Policy The Legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party was founded by Mao Zedong, one of the historic figures of the twentieth century who also played a major role in the establishment of the Red Army and the development of a defensible base area in Jiangxi province during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He formally assumed the chairmanship of the party in 1945 after consolidating the rule of the party years after the Long March and directed overall strategy during the Sino-Japanese War and the civil war. His reliance on the peasantry (a major departure from prevailing Soviet doctrine) and dependence on guerrilla warfare in the revolution were essential to the Communist triumph in China and following the establishment of the PRC (People's Republic of China) in 1949, Mao was responsible for many of the political initiatives that transformed the face of China. During his regime, the initiatives he undertook include land reform, the collectivization of agriculture, and the spread of medical services; this leader of the revolution remained alert to what he saw to be new forms of oppression and sensitive to the interests of the oppressed in the era that the country had major reforms. In 1958 he advocated a self-reliant Great Leap Forward campaign in rural development and the failure of the Leap led Mao to turn many responsibilities over to other leaders as well as to withdraw from active decision making and make it include majority opinions. During the early 1960s, Mao continued his restless challenge of what he perceived as new forms of domination where in foreign policy he led China's divorce from the Soviet Union. Domestically, he became increasingly wary of his subordinates' approach to development, fearing that it was fostering deep social and political inequalities; when Liu, Deng, and others seemed to be ignoring his call to remember class struggles Mao in 1966 initiated the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, exploiting discontent among some students and others. The Cultural Revolution was successful in eliminating many who opposed his policies but led to serious disorder, forcing Mao to call in the military to restore order in the late 1960s, the result of which was not favorable to the country at large. For decades, Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) was one of the most prominent and respected leader of the communist movement who reached out to otherwise hostile political forces; he played an important role in securing Chiang Kaishek's release during the Xian (Sian) Incident of December 1936 and he headed the CCP liaison team to oppose Japanese imperialism and similarly, Zhou represented the CCP in negotiations with the Nationalists during the mediation effort of U.S. General George Marshall. The history of the country talks of another of the first generation Chinese Communist Party leaders Deng Xiaoping, who held prominent positions in the government in the 1950s and 1960s, but was eliminated from office, imprisoned during the years of the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76 and his family persecuted. His goal in 1976 was to set China back on the course of economic development that had been badly interrupted during the final years of Mao's leadership as his rallying cry became the Four Modernization articulated by Zhou Enlai in 1975, which entailed the development of industry, agriculture, defense as well as science and technology. Chinese Foreign Policies in the Global Order China has placed particular emphasis on the development of good-neighborly relations and partnership with border countries in order to prevent external threats from exacerbating internal frictions and as well has emphasized non-military aspects of its comprehensive national power. It has developed approaches such as setting aside areas of disagreement with neighboring states, focusing on confidence-building measures to promote ties; and engaging in economic integration and multilateral cooperation to address shared concerns, (Bergsten, Gill, Lardy & Mitchell, 2013). According to Feng, (2010), in China, there is no real partisan contest for power, let alone policy polarization under partisanship between competing parties on issues such as employment and inflation, which are the major determinants of the well-being of such a country. Since 1978, the Communist Party of China has been embracing economic performance as its top policy priority as in the earlier years of reform under Deng experienced a transition toward market economy from a centrally planned economy while under Jiang and Hu, these earlier accomplishments have been further consolidated. As well, leadership initiatives are important in the sense of political continuity as high economic growth is the engine of Chinese modernization in a long-run strategy pursued by all Chinese leaders since 1978. China’s opening was a gradual process carefully managed by the Central Government and in 1979-1980, China opened up only four Special Economic Zones (SEZs) (three zones in Guangdong province and one zone in Fujian province) on the Southeast Coast; in 1984, 14 coastal cities were opened up, in 1985, more coastal areas were opened up, in 1990, Pudong New Area in Shanghai received the most favorable treatments like SEZs, in that in 1992, inland China was opened up, in 2001, China joined in World Trade Organization, and since then China’s opening has moved from limited market opening into a full market opening, from the old pilot-based policy-oriented opening into a broad opening under a formal legal framework, (Pan, 2012). Across the observation years, the top receivers of (Foreign Direct Investment) FDI have always been the coastal provinces as on the other hand; two north-eastern coastal provinces have risen in receiving FDI; Shandong rose in rank to third and Liaoning to fifth as another important observation is that some provinces adjacent to coastal provinces have become more attractive to FD as Centripetal and centrifugal forces accompany the existence of FDI. When centripetal forces dominate centrifugal forces, FDI tends to agglomerate and when centrifugal forces are stronger than centripetal forces, FDI tends to disperse showing a significant effect in the reliance on FDI to such a country. China had used its own policies to alienate itself from the rest of the world from 1949 to 1979, the information costs were extremely high when the country started to open up and move from a centrally planned economy to a market economy in the late 1970s having seen the due benefits. Foreign investors knew very little about this socialist country and the way of doing business there, and thus huge risk and uncertainties were involved in foreign investment; the existence of operational foreign enterprises, let alone successful ones, offered one of the few positive signals about the local area to potential foreign investors. More importantly, existing foreign firms generated a number of benefits for new entrants. The information sharing among foreign investors was highly valuable to new entrants and existing foreign firms constantly confronted local authorities for more suitable infrastructures and institutions. The need for foreign direct investment in recent years has motivated a growing body of literature in FDI as some theoretical and empirical papers go back to intrigue the writings of authors such as Iversen (1935) and Aliber (1971) in their analysis; as well as Kindleberger (1969) focusing on the FDI benefits. On the other hand, the theory of internationalization as well as the eclectic paradigm has been widely utilized in a range of different opinions about the same, (Dunning, 1998). Traditionally, FDI has flowed from developed economies into developed and developing countries and more recently a new trend has emerged in the pattern of FDI (Ramamurti, 2004; Jansson, 2007) but during the past two decades, emerging markets have become active players in foreign investment (Meyer and Estrin, 2004). The nature of Chinese outward FDI The rapid increase of Chinese foreign investment has been an outstanding trait in recent years (Marchick, 2007); and the Chinese Investment Corporation, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, has contributed to this growing trend (UNCTAD, 2008). Although China was at one time in its infancy as a foreign investor, it has experienced tremendous growth accounting for only 0.17 percent of the world outward FDI in 2007 and became the seventeenth largest investor among outward investors in 2005, (Rios-Morales, & Brennan, 2010). Policies were designed to encourage Chinese firms to invest and set up factories overseas and among the policies and measures implemented were the establishment of the Database of Foreign Countries’ Investment Environments, which provides relevant information about investment opportunities, market research and other types of necessary information in the assessment of foreign investment (Rios-Morales & Brennan, 2006). Impact on Foreign Policy Making and Future Implications According to Bergsten, Gill, Lardy, and Mitchell (2013), the direction that China and U.S.-China relations take will define the world’s future; for the United States, a rising China increasingly affects American prosperity and security, calling for some clear-eyed thinking and tough economic, political, and security choices for the twenty-first century unfurls, the stakes have never been higher for getting U.S. policy toward China right. China’s urgent need to acquire natural resources for its economic development, including but not limited to energy (oil and natural gas), has led Beijing to reach out increasingly to nations with resources avail, China has proclaimed its interest in a peaceful international environment to enable Beijing to focus its energies inward on its enormous internal challenges; China’s energy diplomacy has led to close relationships with unsavory regimes, which has raised questions about China’s role as a responsible international actor; first publicly introduced by Hu Jintao at the World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005, while the exact meaning and policy implications of harmonious world are undefined, the slogan is meant to demonstrate China’s commitment to global peace and stability, and to the goal of a more just and equitable international system. According to Mackerras, (2005), it is very clear from all this material that China is undergoing a rapid and accelerating modernization process, not entirely consistent throughout the country, and is very much more pronounced in the urban than in the rural areas. However, it is affecting the whole country and having a profound impact on the standard of living of the people, this modernization process is producing groups of people who are richer, better educated, more sophisticated generally and more influential than the majority of the population, groups of as in general the modernization process and the growth of the middle classes are more concentrated Rios-Morales & Brennan, (2010) argue that a variety of motivations have been offered for the emergence of Chinese FDI that include the support of exports, the expansion of market presence, the acquisition of foreign skills, improvement of quality products, exploitation of own advantages on markets abroad and the establishment of local distribution networks (Rios-Morales and Brennan, 2006; Buckley, Cross, Tan, Liu & Voss, 2008). In addition, the goals of building international brands, accessing advanced technologies and establishing R&D centers in developed countries help to explain the rise of Chinese FDI, a number of factors underpin the previously mentioned motivations, the increasing financial strength and the growing exposure of Chinese companies to international business has been suggested as explanations. The emergence of a new generation of ambitious and often well-educated entrepreneurs has also been a contributing factor (Dunning, 2006) as finally, strong government support has ensured that these firms have the financial strength and lower costs of capital to execute their internationalization strategies (Buckley, Cross, Tan, Liu & Voss, 2008). References Aliber, R.Z. (1971). A theory of foreign direct investment. Kindlerberger, C.P. (Ed.), The International Corporation. Cambridge: MIT Press, MA. Bergsten C. F, Gill, B., Lardy R.N. & Mitchell D., (2013). China: The Balance Sheet: What the World Needs to Know Now about the Emerging Superpower. Accessed on Dec 18, 2013 http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080916_cbs_1_foreignpolicyf.pdf Buckley, P.J., Cross, A.R., Tan, H., Liu, X. & Voss, H. (2008). Historical and emergent trends in Chinese outward direct investment. Management International Review. 48(6), pp. 715-48. Dunning, J. (1998), Location and multinationa enterprise: a neglected factor. Journal of International Business Studies. 29 (1), pp. 45-66. Feng, Y., (2010). Growth, inflation, and employment in China. Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies. 3(2), pp. 97-109 Iversen, C. (1935), Aspects of International Capital Movements. London :Levin and Munksgaard, Jansson, H. (2007), International Business Marketing in Emerging Country Markets. The Third Wave of Internationalisation of Firms. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Kindleberger, C.P. (1969), American Business Abroad. New Haven: Yale University Press, CT. Mackerras, C., (2005). China’s ethnic minorities and the middle classes: an overview. International Journal of Social Economics. 32(9),pp. 814-826 Marchick, D. (2007), The Extent of the Government’s Control of China’s Economy and its Impact on the United States. Testimony before the US-China Economic & Security Review Commission, May 24. Meyer, K. and Estrin, S. (2004), Investment Strategies in Emerging Markets. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Pan, M., (2012). FDI agglomeration change in China. New Mexico, USA, New Mexico State University. Journal of Chinese Economic and Foreign Trade Studies. 5(3) pp. 172-184 Ramamurti, R. (2004). Developing countries and MNEs: extending and enriching the research agenda. Journal of International Business Studies. 35(4), pp. 277-83 Rios-Morales, R., & Brennan, L. (2010). Chinese investment in Europe. EuroMed Journal of Business. 5(2), pp. 215-231 Rios-Morales, R. and Brennan, L. (2006). Ireland’s innovative governmental policies promoting internationalization. Research in International Business and Finance, special issue. 23 (2), pp. 157-68 UNCTAD (2008), The World Investment Report 2008: Transnational Corporations and the Infrastructure Challenge, United Nations, New York, NY and Geneva, July. Accessed on Dec18, 2013 from https://www.google.co.ke/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Functad.org%2Fen%2Fdocs%2Fwir2008_en.pdf&ei=TFeyUpr5COvuygP01oDIBQ&usg=AFQjCNG1EFjdefNrvSjpPZCHJzlo4f2kow&sig2=5fH71Y5-8SFOB5Xvw1F42Q&bvm=bv.58187178,d.bGQ Read More