Major Milestones of the Modern History of China - Essay Example

The modern history of China The Modern History of China Question Chinese history has been characterized by the fight or rather conflicts of ideologies between the red and the experts. Red was a term used to refer to political and ideological positions that were developed by Maoist doctrine. These doctrines were usually contrasted with "expert" which was used to denote the passion of particular knowledge or skills, and sometime both. The knowledge and skills were mainly on science, economic management, and technology. The Cadres were required to hve both redness and expertise ideologies, emphasis on either redness or expertise was noted depending on the poitical affiliation of an individual. This difference of ideologies between the reds and the experts, affected every aspect of Chinese life and more specifically it was key in the revolutions that were witnessed in the history of china. The ideologies were also seen to be affecting the literature in China. In fact, from the year 1949 when the when the communist leadership led by the Chinese Communist Party, there was a change in the education system so that it included the changing the curriculum of literature from the liberal literature to the study of systematic Chinese literature. This of course affected the literature and arts that are produced by the people who studied the two different curricula. The aim of the CCP was to make sure that the education system resembled that of the Soviet Union since both were communist states. Apart from changing the curriculum for those that were studying the government under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party also tried to control the literature produced by the established writers and actors. Literature or arts that did not seem to be revolutionary or that went against the communist ideologies which were actually redness in this case was unaccepted and could not be published. Writers and artists were urged to take a stand and pick a political standpoint in their literature, literature that seemed to be lukewarm were seen by the government as empty and could not pass the required message to the readers and was therefore not published. The only form of literature that could be published are those that praised the communist ideologies or those that called the readers to act against anti- socialistic ideas. The government was doing all this in order to try and maintain the people’s minds on the communistic ideas. The communist government did not want the scientist or other scholars who included the artist who were open minded about both the socialism and communism to influence the peasants into the ideas of capitalistic society. This clearly shows that the fight between the redness and expertise affected literature directly. However, despite the influences and the pressures from the government the artists had the ideas that literature was an art of imagination and an avenue where people can discuss the real problems facing the people and, therefore, did not need to be influenced by the political ideologies. They said that restraining artist to a specific political ideology was restricting their imagination which would in turn affect the quality of literature that is being produced. Generally the ideologies raised by the redness and expertise era together with the ascension of the Chinese Communist Party to the leadership affected modern Chinese literature directly. First, it changed the education system as pertaining to literature and made scholars of literature and consequently future artists to have a limited study of literature by denying them the ability to study liberal literature. It also affected the established artists by dictating what type of literature would be published. This led to poor development of modern literature in China as the artists were restrained to the literature dictated by the communist government. Question 2 For almost 2 decades, Confucianism has influenced the social, political and ethical facets of Chinese civilization. Confucianism is a philosophy which deals with the behavior and activities of people’s daily lives it was developed by a Chinese philosopher called Confucius. It contains a set of ethical issues and rules of morality that guides on how people relate to one another. It, therefore, forms the foundation in the development of norms of social morality which in turn influence how people relate personally, in a family and in the society at large. Among other aspects of life Confucianism has played a key role in the development and influence the education of the Chinese people. Education has a close association with person’s social class. In the olden Chinese societies, success was defined by the social class of a person and not necessarily by the wealth that a person has. Social class is associated with occupation and the moral role in relation to the line of work. According to the Confucius and his theories, there are four main social groups when occupation is used as the base. The four groups include; the scholars, farmers, workers and businessmen. The scholars are the highest in the social class; they did the mental work and their decisions affected the entire society. The second, the farmers acquired their honor since they worked and provide food sustenance for the whole population or society. The third in the social class levels, the workers depended upon their personal skills and efforts to prosper. The fourth, the businessmen was seen to be depended on their self- interest gains for survival. However, sometime their wealth would bring them some social status. According to Confucius, the higher-ranking man thinks of the virtues and authorizations of law while the “small” as he called them thinks of self comfort and favors that he wishes to receive from others. Basing on Confucianism, leadership were supposed to be intelligent people with remarkable levels of ethics and needed to have done a lot of scholarly work. This, therefore, means that scholarship was associated with leadership, high moral character and high social class. This view is still valid today in Chinese societies all over the word; they believe that scholars belong to the highest social standing in the society. Education provides the route to the scholarly status. The value of education in the formation of a good social class shapes the daily lives of Chinese societies and families. They believe that success in education results in a better life which is characterized by earning a good job, having a good marriage or relationship and finally a higher social status. Therefore, education is central to Chinese families. This is proven by a research done in the United States, which showed that Asian Americans of Asian descend have risen to be the highest minority groups in careers in many career fields. The Confucianism also came with the hierarchy of education which included passing the centralized national examination before proceeding to the higher learning institutions. Upon passing the examinations, one was given a special hat that was associated with education. The system of education was well structured with the hierarchy, in most of the Chinese societies the hierarchy of the education system still persists to date. The achievements acquired through education are easily visible and measurable by the number of educational certificates or degrees that one has and test performance. The Chinese believed that getting good grades, proceeding to highly ranked schools and getting ‘higher’ degrees are the best route to success. Because the educational system is well structured ladder, it is not necessary for an individual to design his/her own education course. The hierarchical education system developed during the Confucianism period still exists in most of the Chinese societies in the world. This shows that the education system used by the Chinese is the one developed by Confucius. The culture of placing high value on educational success is also still evident in most Chinese societies including those in America. The central of Chinese culture lays the collectivist ideology that influences family affairs and conduct. Referring to Confucianism there are five basic relationships, which include; emperor subject relationship, father-son relationship, husband- wife relationship, elderly-young relationship and friend-friend relationship. When keenly analyzed three of these relationships affect the family. These indicate that the Chinese culture advocate for the prosperity of the family. It suggests also that family is the central part of one’s life. Every part of the life is dependent on the influence of the family. This includes education which was mentioned as very important in the social standing of the Chinese societies. Parents have an obligation to affect their children’s education. When a child fails to perform well in education then parents also consider themselves to have failed in their parenting. The pressures of success affect both the parents and children since failure to succeed brings embarrassment to the whole family, while educational success is seen as an achievement of the whole family. Modesty and humility are also very much valued in Confucianism it notes that ‘contentedness leads to loss’ while ‘humility leads to gain’. This called the Chinese people to be humble despite their successes. It s important for them to continue doing their work and look for areas that needs to be improved. They are concerned that praises has negative effects on the success that has already been acquired. This has affected Chinese life style to date. They still believe in the values of modesty and humility and always work to perfection. The Chinese society also considers harmony and hierarchy of family which is central in the Confucianism as very important. The Confucius doctrine encourages people to let a prince be a prince and a father to be a father and each person’s roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. In its filial piety it depicts the parent – child relationship as a show of respect from the child towards the parents and the elderly. Confucianism associates this virtue with good citizenship and leadership, in those children who respect their parents and the elderly grow to be good leaders and citizens. Filial piety is still considered very important in many Chinese families and societies, they believe that respecting the parents and the elderly is key. Being unfilial is unacceptable and regarded as disobedience, children have very little options, and they have to follow the leads of their parents. Parents in fact, have a role to play in today’s education options of their children. Generally, Confucianism is a very important part of the Chinese culture from the time it was formed to the present time. It forms the basis of the beliefs. It guides the lifestyle of the Chinese societies in the different parts of the world. The reason why it still has a role to play is because it was integrated into the culture and formed part of the key principles and virtue of the society. Question 3 The Chinese communist revolution that characterized the better part of 19th and 20th centuries raises crucial points on the ability of revolution to metamorphose people and society, since historically; revolution is still a topic full of controversies. The great proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976 seems to be the most significant in the Chinese revolutions. Unlike the 1949 revolution where the military success could not ensure a more forthcoming and democratic government characterized by equality in social and economic avenues, the great proletarian cultural revolution of 1966 was more successful. In the great proletarian cultural revolution of 1966 to 1977, Mao Zedong together with his followers in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established mass political campaigns to call on the public to consider their commitment to the communist values and ideas. In so doing, he was also weakening the grip on the traditional bureaucracy that had become the culture of the Chinese government. At the time of the revolution (1966), the capitalist leaders had been the ones in control of china and as a result Cultural Revolution had been criticized since it was thought to result in excesses and an attack on the elitism and individualism. Therefore the revolution was unprecedented not only in China but in any other communist state. Mao marshaled the youth who did not have any experience with revolutions and also who did not have knowledge of the conditions that may lead to revolutions. Through becoming members of different groups like the Red Guard and involvement in the scramble for good political leadership, they learned that they could make change that was anticipated to come true in the society. However, the youths have been accused of humiliating innocents who were thought to be enemies of the revolution. The revolution ideas and the slogan were first developed by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai who was allied to Mao. He said that a class of enemies had reared its head in China and was promoting programs that were capitalistic in China. He demanded radical shift of ideologies that were against the ideas of socialistic political system and economic base that was key in the traditional Chinese society. He stated that the aim of the Chinese people was to get rid of bourgeoisie and capitalism by all means. a position that was corroborated by Mao. Zhao also called for a struggle to wipe out the bad ideologies of capitalism and bourgeois in all avenues including the academic fields, educational fields, and journalistic fields that is in literature, art and other avenues of civilization. Activities by the Red Guard, a revolutionary movement of communist youth that played a major role in pressing for reforms was first reported in Beijing secondary schools and Mao announced that he supported the actions of the Red Guard. After the secondary schools other groups of youths followed suit and it resulted in a country wide demonstrations by mainly the youths belonging to the Red Guard. The demonstrating youth attacked people especially those in leadership. The revolution was called to stop by Mao in 1969, after there had been destruction in the country, however, the ideologies of Mao and the struggle continued until his death in 1976. Following his death, his wife and other prominent people in his party were arrested including the ‘gang of four’, this led to the official end of the revolution. The revolution is significant tot the Chinese history since through it most aspects of chine see history were affected. The education to start with was affected for six years, the student form primary schools all the way to the universities had been asked to live the schools die to the revolution. This led to a lot of school dropout since most of the students did not go back to school after the revolution. The revolution also affected the social and economic status of China as a country. There was a lot of destruction of property during the revolution in addition to this there were no economic practices taking place for close to the ten years of the revolution. Some of the people also had to be moved from the urban centers to the rural areas and this affected their livelihoods. Many people were persecuted as a result of the violent struggles that accompanied the revolution across the country. Other suffered a wide range of abuses including humiliation in the public, imprisonment torture, seizure of property and sustained harassment. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed; also religious and cultural sites were stripped of their value. Despite all this negative significance of the revolution the positive were also outstanding since following the revolution there was a remarkable growth in economy as well as the a change to a better education system. The goals of the revolution, mainly to revert back to the socialistic state were also achieved. Works Cited Chen, Yuan-tsung. The Dragons Village: An Autobiographical Novel of Revolutionary China. London: The Womens Press, 1980. Print Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976). London: Routledge Classics, 2002 Grace, Hui-Chen,Huang and Gove Mary. "Confucianism and Chinese Families: Values and Practices in Education Vol. 2 No. 3; February 2012 10." International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 2.3 (2012): 10-14. Kerry Schaefer and Lisa Torre. China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Read More