Introduction
Pakistan and China have had deep political, military economic ties that date back to the formation of the respective countries. Each country benefits from this alliance. From Pakistan’s perspective, China provides Pakistan with military technology and weapons, infrastructure and other financial investment, access to Chinese markets, and support for its geopolitical objectives. For China, Pakistan provides China with an all-weather ally, with one way to thwart India’s rise, access to the Indian Ocean through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, access to Gwadar Port, which may partly serve as a future Chinese naval base, a place to showcase its Belt and Road Initiative, access to Pakistani markets, and shared intelligence. Given the wide range of benefits that each country derives from their alliance, it is expected that the relationship will continue to be robust.
The Creation of the India and Pakistan
When the British Raj ended, independence was granted to India and Pakistan as two separate states divided along religious lines. The partition resulted in one of the largest mass migrations of history with approximately 10-14 million people crossing the newly formed borders to reach the country of their religious affiliation. A 1951 Pakistani census counted 7,226,600 displaced citizens, the majority of whom were Muslims who crossed the line from India to Pakistan. Similarly, the 1951 Indian census counted 7,295,870 displaced people, the majority of whom were the Hindu and Sikh population that crossed the border from Pakistan to India after partition. Large scale violence accompanied the refugee crisis, with deaths estimated at between several hundred thousand and 2 million people. Most of the violence occurred in the previously British province of Punjab. Punjab, post-partition, was split into West and East Punjab, with the Hindu and Sikh populations migrating to the eastern bloc and the Muslim population moving to the western bloc. There were very few Muslim survivors in East Punjab, or Sikh or Hindu survivors in the Western Punjab region.
Geography of Pakistan
Map of Pakistan
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the world’s 33rd largest country by area at 881,913 square kilometers. Pakistan is bounded by India in the east, by Iran in the west, by Afghanistan in the northwest, and by China in the northeast. In the northwest, the Afghan’s Wakhan Corridor – measuring between just 13-30 km in width – separates Pakistan and Tajikistan. In the south, Pakistan has a 1,046 km coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman and shares a maritime border with Oman.
Its borders with India and Afghanistan are unsettled. Pakistan has fought multiple wars with India and numerous skirmishes with Afghanistan to resolve these border disagreements. However, these borders are still contested despite the previous conflicts. Pakistan’s land incorporates both the Khyber and Bolan Passes, through which wind traditional migration and trade routes that have historically linked Central Eurasia and South Asia. Pakistan has four provinces – Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh, two autonomous territories – Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and one federal territory – Islamabad Capital Territory. Additionally, Pakistan asserts that the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – controlled by India since 1947 – should be under its sovereignty.
Provinces and Territories of Pakistan
In 2019, Pakistan was the world’s fifth-most populous country, with an estimated 205 million people. This represents over a six-fold increase since partition, when its population was just 33 million. By 2030, Pakistan is targeted to overtake Indonesia as the world’s largest Muslim majority country. In 2010, slightly over half its population was below the age of 30 years. Its fertility rate is currently 2.68.
Overall, Pakistan is considered a subtropical country. About 88% of its land is semiarid to arid, receiving no more than 250 mm annual rainfall. Deserts represent approximately 14% of the total of the arid landscape. Its four most significant deserts include the Thar, the Cholistan, the Thall, and the Kharan.
Deserts of Pakistan
Pakistan is divided into three major geographic areas: the Northern Highlands, the Baluchistan Plateau and the Indus River Plain, with the plain’s two major subdivisions corresponding roughly to the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. The Northern Highlands include parts of the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram, and the Himalayas, and is home to five of the world’s fourteen tallest mountains, including K2, the world’s second highest.
Pakistan’s Baluchistan Plateau has altitudes ranging from 600-3010 meters and covers 347,190 km2. The plateau is subject to frequent seismic activity as the plateau sits atop where the Indian plate collides with the plate under Eurasia. The Indian plate is continuing to move northward, thrusting the Himalayas higher by an estimated 40 cm per century.
Pakistan’s third geographical area is the Indus River plain. The Indus River flows through the heart Indus River plain which was created by river silt deposits laid down over the centuries. All of Pakistan’s major rivers—the Kabul, Jhelum, and Chenab—flow into the Indus River as it travels southward. The plain has a catchment area of almost 1 million square kilometers. This plain has been inhabited by agricultural civilizations for at least 5,000 years, including the Indus Valley civilization or Harappan civilization which dates to as early as 2500 BCE. Today, the Indus River Plain also forms the core of Pakistan’s agricultural land. Overall, less than 20% of Pakistan’s land is suitable for intensive agriculture. Its remaining land is defined geographically by mountains, high plateau, and deserts, all of which yield little food.
Geography of Pakistan
From a geopolitical point of view, Pakistan’s geography presents many challenges. Most of Pakistan’s political borders fail to align with any natural geographical boundaries which would make them easier to defend. Similarly, Pakistan’s borders do not follow any clear ethnic divisions. Instead, its boundaries were drawn to separate as nearly as possible the majority Muslim and the majority Hindu populations of the Indian subcontinent.
Pakistan’s greatest geopolitical rival is India, and it is with India that its borders have the fewest geographical defenses. In disputed Kashmir, India currently holds the geographical advantage, including in the Siachen Glacier which is also contested with China. If Pakistan could gain control over all of Kashmir, it could put in place a more formidable mountain defense line in its northeast. Instead, the mountain defense that Pakistan does control in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is in its northwest, located far from Pakistan’s major population centers. Furthermore, many of Pakistan’s most significant cities (and population centers) are located along the Indus River Valley, leaving them exposed if India were to attack. Pulling populations to the west of the Indus River for defense in time of war would mean that Pakistan would be ceding half its country and much of its arable land to India.
Pakistan’s largest cities
Along its coastline, Pakistan is also vulnerable. It has only a few significant ports, that if blockaded, would effectively transform Pakistan into a landlocked country. Karachi, alone, handles approximately 60% of Pakistan’s cargo, making it a very strategic target.
On its border with Afghanistan, the British drawn Durand border line between Afghanistan and Pakistan is also in dispute. In particular, the line divides historical Pashtun tribal areas. Afghanistan has long dreamed of uniting its 43 million Pashtuns with Pakistan’s 15 million Pashtuns. To this effect, Afghanistan lays claim to a border that extends significantly east of the Durand Line. As recently as 2017, the president of Afghanistan has said that Afghanistan will never accept a border between the two countries that splits the Pashtun tribal area in two. Indeed, when Pakistan applied to join the United Nations in 1947, because of the tribal land dispute, Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan’s membership application.
Kyber Pass – One of several Afghan-Pakistani mountain passes
Therefore, Pakistan faces countries on both sides of its borders that openly claim land to which Pakistan has effective or aspirational sovereignty. This makes Pakistan vulnerable to a two-front war if India and Afghanistan ever formed an alliance. Complicating the border dispute is the fact that part of the border with Afghanistan runs through the very mountainous Pashtun tribal lands. The rugged mountainous geography makes the border very difficult to police for both countries. Drug smugglers, terrorists, traders, and refugees regularly cross the border undetected in both directions. This makes the Pakistani-Afghan border one of the most unstable and violence-prone borders in the region.
Pakistan’s border with Iran cuts through the arid and sparsely populated region of Baluchistan, also dividing the Baluchistan people between the two borders. In general, Iran and Pakistan cooperate to eliminate Baluchistan separatist movements in their respective areas. However, relations between Iran and Pakistan are complicated by the fact that Iran is predominantly Shia Muslim while Pakistan is predominantly Sunni Muslim. (Pisenti, 2020)
The Kashmir Conflict
Besides creating various border disputes, the India-Pakistani partition also created a conflict regarding the ownership and sovereignty of Kashmir that remains unresolved to this day. Kashmir is a 138 km² ethnically diverse region located in the western section of the Himalayan range. It is renowned for its scenic lakes, meadows, and snowcapped mountains. At the time the partition, both India and Pakistan each argued that they had sovereignty over the entire princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Instead, the region was partitioned with India controlling approximately 55% of the area including the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier and 70% of its population. Pakistan has sovereignty over approximately 30% of the land that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgiyt-Baltistan. In 1963, Pakistan ceded to China about 15% of its recognized territory including Askai Chin (claimed by India) as well as the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract (claimed by India) and part of Demchok sector. The disputed line dividing the Indian and Pakistani regions is called the Line of Control while the line dividing the contested region between India and China is called the Line of Actual Control.
Srinagar, the largest city of Kashmir
Division of Kashmir into Areas of Control: Pakistan-Green; India-Orange; China-Gold
Overall, Kashmir is approximately 67% Muslim, 30% Hindu, 2% Sikh and 1% Buddhist. Kashmir Valley – constrolled by India – is home to approximately 30% of Kashmir’s population; this population is 95% Muslim while Ladakh, home to 6% of the region’s population, is 47% Muslim. (Jammu and Kashmir Official Portal, 2001). Most Muslim would prefer to reside within Pakistan as opposed to India. There has been unrest and violence in the Indian-administered side of Jammu and Kashmir for 30 years due to Muslims desire for political change and India’s repression of their efforts. That said, both countries have committed atrocities and human rights abuses against people living within their areas of control.
Since partition, three wars have been fought over the territory: the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947-1948, 1965 and 1971. Additionally, in 1989, 2010, 2016 and 2019 the region has been rocked by protest movements. Largely these have been driven by Muslim Kashmiri separatists calling for the right to self-determination.
Indus River and its Tributaries
In addition to ethnic discord, water insecurity is also driving the Kashmiri conflict. The Indus River is the only River system providing water to Pakistan; otherwise 92% of Pakistani land is arid or semi-arid. In India, the Indus is one of two river systems supporting India’s Northwest including the regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, all of which have inadequate water supplies. Punjab produces more than 20% of India’s wheat, and is considered one of India’s bread baskets.
Indus River – Kharmang District, Pakistan
The Indus originates on the Tibetan plateau and then courses 3,200 km southward through India, into Pakistan where it travels the entire length of the country before emptying into the Arabian Sea. India and Pakistan have both extensively dammed the Indus to generate hydroelectricity and irrigation.
The Indus has five important tributaries: the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Sutlej, and the Beas all of which either originate in Indian controlled territory or flow through India’s state of Himachal. Based on the current de facto Line of Control, India is currently the upper riparian country of the Indus and all its tributaries. This makes Pakistan vulnerable if India decides to increase its usage of or restrict the water supplies of the river system. In 1948, for a short period, India purportedly cut off Pakistani water supplies although India vociferously denies this.
Map of the Indus River Tributaries
In 1960, The Indus Water Treaty was agreed between the two countries, allowing Pakistan to have exclusive rights over the three western tributaries of the Indus – Jhelum, Chenab and Indus while India was given control over the three eastern tributaries Sutlej, Ravi, and Beas. For several decades thereafter, the water sharing agreements seemed to satisfactorily meet the water needs of each country. However, the subsequent significant increase in both the Pakistani and the Indian populations has meant that these shared water resources are seeing growing stress. Tensions caused by these diminishing per capita water resources are further aggravated by the distrust between the two countries, by the fact that India is not always forthcoming with its upstream water data, and by India’s construction of a cascade of dams on the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. The Indus Water Treaty allows India to build run-of-the-river dams to generate hydropower on these Pakistani-controlled tributaries if India does not impound water or impede its downward flow. While it would be extremely difficult for India to violate the terms of the Indus Water Treaty, having Pakistan’s water lifeline under India’s control is a strategic vulnerability that Pakistan would prefer not to tolerate.
China’s Part in the Kashmir Conflict
Insofar as Pakistan has been an enemy of India, it has been an ally of China. After the People’s Republic of China was formed, Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognize its status. China’s early diplomatic shift to Pakistan was driven to some extent by the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and the Dalai Lama’s asylum in India. India’s decision to grant refuge to the Dalai Lama has greatly affected the Sino-India relationship as did China’s perception that India supported the Lhasa uprising. Pakistan was quick to take advantage of the schism, including by leveraging its relationship with China to further its objectives in Kashmir.
Nanga Parbat Peak In Kashmir, Ninth Highest Mountain on Earth
For its part, China has not advocated a concrete policy on Kashmir. Instead, it shifts its position to benefit its own objectives. That said, China’s policy has historically been tilted toward Pakistan. China and Pakistan’s 1963 treaty, for instance, put China on record disputing that India had sovereignty over the entire disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. Pakistan rewarded China for this position by ceding to China land that China considers strategically important. China has since helped Pakistan translate Pakistani claims of sovereignty over its occupied portions of Kashmir into facts on the ground through China’s participation in the construction of the Sino-Pakistani Karakoram Highway that weaves through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Karakoram Highway, Passu, Pakistan
The highway has both strategic and military importance to both China and Pakistan. Now, as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor Agreement, the two countries are rebuilding and upgrading the highway so that it can provide for three times the traffic, can accommodate heavily-laden vehicles, and it can better operate under extreme weather conditions. China and Pakistan are also planning to link the upgraded highway to the southern port of Gwadar. China views Gwadar as having key commercial and military strategic advantages, particularly as China expands its naval presence into the Indian Ocean.
In addition to the construction of the highway, China has also indicated interest in constructing railway lines, oil and gas pipelines and additional road networks throughout Pakistan occupied Kashmir. To defend these investments, China has been gradually expanding its military presence in Pakistan both by having some troops on the ground, and by satellite and other technological monitoring. This expanded Chinese military presence in Pakistan also better positions China to respond to any Pakistani-based Uyghur agitations that might attempt to disturb China’s current clampdown on its Uighur population in Xinjiang. China’s involvement in Kashmir has also served as a means for China to frustrate India’s ambitions.
In 2019, India increased the stakes in Kashmir by abolishing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which had provided Kashmir with semi-autonomy. While the autonomy protected by Article 370 in many ways has been more illusory than actual, it has been important point of fact for Kashmiri Muslims. Article 370 afforded Kashmiris their own constitution, a separate flag, and freedom to make laws including those regarding permanent residency and ownership of property. By abolishing Article 370, Kashmiris can no longer prohibit Indians from outside the state to settle there or purchase property. As China has done in Tibet and in Xinjiang, many Kashmiris fear that the Indian government will use the new property laws to change the demographic character of the Muslim-majority region.
The constitutional bill abolishing Article 370 also divided the Indian controlled territory into two, smaller, federally administered territories. One state will combine Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu- majority Jammu; the other states creates a Buddhist-majority Ladakh, which shares cultural ties to Tibet. India hopes that creating these two new states will help it further tighten its hold on the territory. However, it will also likely diminish the effectiveness of the two states as buffer zone between Pakistan and India.
India’s abolition of Article 370 is likely to also engage China further in the issue. From the outset, China has supported Pakistan’s protestations of India’s unilateral move for diplomatic reasons. Not only is Pakistan one of China’s closest allies but supporting the Muslim state of Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir helps to divert attention away from China’s crackdown on Muslims in its own territory. Additionally, China has strategic issues at stake. India’s new state of Ladakh’s includes land that Pakistan turned over to China in their 1963 agreement.
China, Pakistan, and Geopolitics
A common refrain shared between China and Pakistan to describe their alliance is “Pakistan-China friendship is higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel.” For Pakistan, China has proven a highly beneficial partner. Like Pakistan, China also considers India a strategic rival and is motivated by actions that contain India’s rise. China is Pakistan’s largest source of foreign direct investment. Chinese investment in Pakistan totals more than any other Belt and Road country, exceeding an estimated $32 billion from 2014-2018. In 2020, China committed an additional $11 billion to the construction of two hydropower generator projects in Kashmir and another $7.2 billion to upgrade Pakistan’s railways in their entirety. China also provides Pakistan with a steady stream of military technologies and equipment. Pakistan and China intend to use this military technology to partly fill the security vacuum being created as the West completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Karakoram Highway connecting China and Pakistan
Additionally, the Pakistani military benefits from the steady stream of military material. Pakistan’s military has played an important role within the Pakistani political system since Pakistan’s inception in 1947. Since its founding, Pakistan has experienced three military coups, and has been under military rule for more than half the time. Even when a democratically elected government is in place, the military remains firmly behind the scenes. Pakistani military leaders believe the civil government provides the military with political legitimacy, while still allowing the military to play an important role in the Pakistani polity and economy. Elected leaders and the civil government balances the power of the Pakistani military. That said, politicians also nurture their own military relationships to facilitate their efforts to remain in power.
The JF-17 Thunder is a joint Pakistan-China project.
The Pakistan military benefits significantly from its position within Pakistan. The military receives an abundant budget that does not receive any oversight. Among other line items, this budget provides the Pakistani military with its own system of schools, healthcare, housing, and pensions. It also provides the military with the funds to invest in economic activities. In 2005, for instance, it was estimated that the military held over $130 billion of assets in listed companies.
The Pakistan military has profited from strong ties with China. Firstly, China sells Pakistan a wide arrange of military technology and equipment, often at deep discounts. Pakistani officers have been known to benefit personally from these defense deals by taking a cut for themselves. Secondly, Pakistan’s generals know that authoritarian China will not criticize the military when it acts upon democratic institutions. On the contrary, China has been providing the Pakistani military with technology including facial recognition, monitoring, smart alert systems and other surveillance technology. For instance, China has offered Pakistan the option to use Beidou – China’s GPS equivalent. Beidou would provide Pakistan with the ability to track its citizens with the same rigorousness employed by China. As a result, Pakistan has been trending toward greater political repression with Chinese technology and media content expediting this trend.
A new, Chinese-built, fiber-optic network now links the two countries, including a connection to newly installed undersea cables at Gwadar. Among other benefits, this network will facilitate Pakistani control over television and programming content and its distribution, improving its ability to frame political narratives. As a side benefit to China, the network enables China to distribute pro-China programming more effectively.
Gwadar Port
The Pakistani military also benefits from its relationship with China through its military construction unit, the Frontier Works Organization (FWO). Specifically, FWO gets first look at all China-Pakistan projects. FWO’s ties to China are strong and long-standing. In 1966, for instance, FWO worked with China to build the original Karakoram Highway. Currently, the FWO is benefiting from China-Pakistan construction contracts in the infrastructure, power, oil, real estate, mining, and railway sectors. For instance, the FWO has been constructing roads that link the Gwadar Port to the rest of Pakistan’s highway network. These construction contracts may provide further opportunities for military self-enrichment.
For China, Pakistan is one of its most trusted geostrategic alliances. Functionally, Pakistan provides China with many benefits. Firstly, Pakistan provides China with one way to bog India down at its borders. Regional land skirmishes mean India must divert resources away from power projection into the Indian Ocean just as China is trying to sail into it. The skirmishes keep India off balance, sidetracked, depleting energy that could otherwise be focused on China or abroad. The Sino-Pakistani alliance also helps China balance against the tightening US-India relationship. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor also acts as a political tool to frustrate any attempts either India or Pakistan might make to improve their relationship by making Pakistan reliant on China for technology and financing.
Pakistan benefits China secondly by providing it with an important Belt and Road network branch, enabling China and its western region to gain additional access to global centers of energy production, natural resources, and economic markets. This branch links China’s western interior regions to Gwadar Port and the Indian Ocean. Overland westward expansion provides China with an ability to escape the confines of East Asia while minimizing outright confrontation with the United States and its Asian allies.
Current linkages between Pakistan and China include roads, dams, and fiber optics. Future Sino-Pakistani linkages projected include rail, other technology networks, and energy pipelines. These pipelines will create a second route for Middle Eastern and African oil and gas to travel to China.
The Pakistani Belt and Road branch also helps to showcase the benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to the global community.
Thirdly, Pakistan provides China with two naval bases in the Indian Ocean, the Karachi and the Gwadar Ports. China is seeking to project naval power into the Indian Ocean, through the Persian Gulf, into Mediterranean Sea, out into the Atlantic, and back to home bases in the Pacific. To do this, China needs a network of ports.
Finally, Pakistan’s intelligence services provide China with intelligence on global jihadist networks. This is an asset as China navigates its own Muslim separatist movements and its deepening involvement in the Islamic world.
China’s strategic sea lanes
Despite the benefits, the Sino-Pakistani alliance has its problems, and each country has its concerns about the other. For instance, while it is a purported Pakistani military strategy to back terrorist attacks against India, China worries about the risks that come when the state-sponsored terrorism blurs lines of responsibility. In the case of the Mumbai attack, for instance, where Pakistani terrorists instigated the attack and displayed military training, China shied away from publicly taking Pakistan’s side. From Pakistan’s perspective, there is concern about exactly how much involvement that Pakistan wants China to have in its economy, military, and politics.
China, Pakistan, and the Nuclear Bomb
After India tested its first nuclear bomb in May 1974, Pakistan accelerated its own nuclear program. By the early 1980s, Pakistan was running a secret uranium enrichment facility, and is believed to have developed the ability to build a first-generation nuclear device. Shortly after India conducted its second nuclear test in 1998, on May 28, 1998 Pakistan discharged five nuclear devices causing it to become the ninth country to possess nuclear weapons in addition to the United States, Russia, France, the UK, Israel, India, China and North Korea. It is believed that Pakistan now possesses between 150 and 160 nuclear weapons, and that its arsenal is still growing. Pakistan is not a signatory to either the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It is currently the sole country impeding negotiations of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.
Nuclear Fusion
In its journey to acquire nuclear weapons, Pakistan obtained aid from several other states, including China. As early as the late 1970s, China provided Pakistan various levels of nuclear and missile-related technologies. After 1980, Pakistan’s illicit nuclear sourcing network expanded to include Iran, North Korea, and Libya. As Pakistan acquired additional nuclear technology, it shared that technology with China for reverse engineering. In this way, the Sino-Pakistani nuclear collaboration provided technological benefits for both countries.
By assisting Pakistan to develop the bomb, China effectively provided for Pakistan’s security without ever needing to promise to intervene militarily on Pakistan’s behalf. Instead, China gave Pakistan the ultimate way for Pakistan to defend itself. If military ties are at the core of the Sino-Pakistani relationship, China’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear program has been at the core of the Sino-Pakistani military alliance. The nuclear program has created a real level of trust between the Pakistani and Chinese militaries that may not have been achieved if the two countries had a more conventional security partnership. From China’s point of view, both Pakistan and China share a common strategic concern about India’s economic and military rise.
By keeping Pakistan militarily strong, China is also benefiting by making it more difficult for India to project military power abroad, instead keeping it bogged down closer to home. China also benefits economically by being one of Pakistan’s most important arms suppliers. For instance, in addition to nuclear technology, China has also sold Pakistan a wide array of missile technology. Recently, China has been supplying Pakistan with smaller, tactical missile prototypes designed to attack Indian targets in a more limited way, making the idea of a targeted use of a nuclear weapon more credible. These short-range weapons were specifically designed to make it difficult for India to inflict rapid, punitive strikes against Pakistan in retaliation for incidents such as the Mumbai bombing, which was carried out by Pakistani-based terrorists.
Pakistan has not made explicit its formal nuclear doctrine. This means there is ambiguity regarding the circumstances which Pakistan would deem it necessary to deploy its nuclear weapons. Pakistan has stated, however, that its nuclear weapons are meant solely as an anti-Indian deterrent and would be employed only if Pakistan faced an existential threat from India. Pakistan has subsequently clarified that it considered existential threats to include India’s conquest of Pakistan’s territory or military, efforts by India to strangle Pakistan’s economy or attempts by India to destabilize Pakistan domestically.
Pakistan’s missiles on display in Karachi
Of key concern to the international community is Pakistan’s ability to keep its nuclear weapons secure from terrorist groups or other militants. Pakistan maintains that it has complete control over its nuclear weapons, and that it has taken steps to prevent radicalized individuals from infiltrating its nuclear program.
Pakistan has remained critical of the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2008. This deal has also caused China to be wary of India’s closer relations with the United States. In response, China has increased its civilian nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. Specifically, China has agreed to supply Pakistan with two, 340-megawatt power reactors. These reactors are additional to the two nuclear power reactors that China has already helped Pakistan build. China has justified this additional nuclear cooperation stating that additional reactors were grandfathered in its 2003 Sino-Pakistan treaty. This treaty was in place before China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004.
Sino-Pakistan Economic Relations and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
The foundation of the Sino-Pakistani relations has always been more about geostrategy than it has been about economic exchange. Close political and security ties were never going to be an assurance of close economic ones, but there has been an expectation that the political and security alliance could be transitioned into a mutually beneficial economic alliance. Everything from geography to cultural preferences have been cited to explain the weak economic relationship between China and Pakistan. One issue has certainly been that the economies lack complementarity. For instance, China competes with Pakistan in textiles, which is Pakistan’s largest manufacturing sector, accounting for 8.5% of Pakistan’s GDP, employing approximately 45% of the total labor force, and 38% of its manufacturing workers.
That said, China is an important trading partner for Pakistan. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan’s exports to China were $1.9 billion in 2019, representing 8% of total Pakistani total exports. Major export items include cotton yarn, rice, other agricultural products, alcohol and other spirits, copper and related products and chromium ores.
Pakistan’s exports to China
To strengthen their alliance by strengthening their economic relationship, China and Pakistan signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in November 2006, which came in effect in July 2007. Since the FTA agreement went into effect, Pakistani producers have found that, in many instances, the FTA has brought greater advantage to China than it has been to Pakistan. The experience of Pakistani producers has been supported by trade data: since the free trade agreement went into effect, Pakistan’s trade deficit with China has increased from approximately $2.9 billion in 2008 to $12 billion in 2016. Additionally, the FTA has had a negative impact on many of Pakistan’s small and medium enterprises.
China exports to Pakistan
Following on from the FTA, in 2015 China and Pakistan announced the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which China considers to be an essential part of its One Belt One Road Initiative. As of 2017, CPEC projects – both current and future – have been valued at $62 billion. That said, there is a significant gap between the total level of financial assistance pledged and the amount China has actually been provided. (Small, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, 2015)
The CPEC will connect China’s Kashgar and its western interior regions to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, which is being operated by the China Overseas Port Holding Company, a state-owned Chinese company. The CPEC connections include a series of infrastructure and other projects. These projects comprise everything from upgrading Pakistan’s road and rail transportation systems, to enlarging its hydro-engineering networks, to laying fiber-optic cable systems, to increasing Pakistan’s access to technology, to expanding its energy networks. The CPEC also envisages creating a network of Pakistani industries and industrial parks, as well as potentially creating programs that help diminish poverty, encourage tourism, and enhance education, public health, and Chinese-Pakistani people to people communication.
Chinese-Pakistani trade along the Karakoram Highway
Currently, 60% of China’s oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf through the Malacca Straits to Shanghai, a voyage of more than 16,000 km. One benefit China is hoping to derive from the CPEC is to create alternative distribution networks for bringing oil and natural gas into the country. While Pakistan has little in the way of resources, and has no gas or oil, it does provide China with an excellent geographical position in which to access oil from other parts of the world.
In terms of technology sharing, it is expected that a full system of monitoring and surveillance like those in China in cities will also be installed in important CPEC Pakistani cities from Peshawar to Karachi. The envisioned Pakistani fiber optic network will not only improve Pakistani internet access but will also be effective in disseminating television content that is favorable to China. Disseminating China-friendly content is consistent with China’s larger objective of promoting its image and its messaging internationally through global media. To this effect, Beijing is making investments into all sectors of global media, stated that it plans to grow overseas media staff tenfold by 2016, and plans to invest an additional $6.6 billion globally into the sector.
In addition to expanding its media presence globally, China has also been constructing Confucius Institutes internationally. Confucius Institutes seek to teach Chinese, enable cultural exchange, and improve China’s relations with other countries. With regards to China-Pakistan relations, there has been a significant expansion of Mandarin language schools in Pakistan; Pakistan is seeing Mandarin begin to rival English as the most common foreign language taught in the country. These language academies are financed by both the Chinese and Pakistani governments.
Chinese and Pakistani border guards
The CPEC also envisions China engaging in all aspects of Pakistan’s agricultural sector to promote the Pakistan’s transition from traditional to modern, large-scale agriculture. Chinese companies are expected to provide seeds and fertilizer, to run farms on leased or purchased land, to improve irrigation networks, and to establish transportation and storage systems for agricultural produce. In 2017, agriculture accounted for approximately 26% of Pakistan’s GDP and employed approximately 40% of its labor force. This agriculture is supported by one of the world’s largest irrigation systems. Many Pakistani farms are small, although Pakistan also has bigger farms owned worked by tenant farmers who could be at risk of displacement if Pakistan’s agriculture become more commercialized. Given the importantance of agricultural to Pakistan’s economy and employment base, China’s proposed involvement in the sector has been controversial.
While the CPEC will undoubtedly bring significant benefits to Pakistan including upgrading its transportation system, expanding its electrical grid, and improving its hydro-engineering systems, it is likely that China will benefit most from the agreement. Chinese companies such as Haier, China Mobile, Huawei and China Metallurgical Group Corporation view the CPEC as an opportunity to expand their presence in the Pakistani market, while new Chinese companies plan to leverage the corridor to get a foothold into the Pakistani market.
Huawei, for instance, is becoming Pakistan’s most important telecoms infrastructure operator and ZTE, Huawei’s state-owned counterpart, is one of Pakistan’s largest telecoms vendors. It is part of China’s strategy to install information and telecommunication networks along with their corresponding hardware, software and standards throughout Belt and Road Initiative countries to wield more political clout. Already, in many places in the world, China is becoming a leading provider of such technologies. These technologies allow China to export tools of censorship and surveillance. They also provide China with tools to influence states and to potentially gain access to their national information and data. (Markey, 2020 )
Despite its fanfare and high expectations, the CPEC has not turned out to be as advantageous for Pakistan as originally had been hoped. One issue with the CPEC is that most of the contracts have been concluded without adequate transparency. There is lack of detail on everything from the scale of individual investments, the size of their debts, the impact of these investments on the Pakistani economy, and the level of corruption that each of these investments generate. For instance, the Governor of Pakistan’s Central Bank has stated publicly that he had no clear idea how much of the CPEC projects were being financed by debt, by equity or by in kind; what is certain is Chinese investment terms have been far from concessional. This lack of clarity has been magnified by the fact that Pakistan has been negotiating its CPEC deals from a position of weakness as Pakistan has few other foreign direct investment sources, and many infrastructure and other needs. Poor transparency has also raised concerns that Pakistan might find itself in a debt trap.
Another issue for Pakistan regarding the CPEC is that the economic benefits of the CPEC have not been spread equally throughout Pakistan but have been concentrated in Punjab province. Punjab is Pakistan’s largest, wealthiest, and most stable province, making it the easiest place for CPEC projects to build on existing infrastructure. This lack of geographical distribution is causing opposition to the initiative in the unfavored provinces and territories, particularly in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. For instance, despite the terminus of the CPEC being located Baluchistan’s Gwadar Port, little economic benefit from the CPEC appears to be trickling down to the province. Instead, Baluch groups are experiencing a loss of the land in their traditional tribal area, reduced autonomy, and blocked access to traditional fishing beds.
Karachi – Pakistan’s Financial Center
Another concern is that CPEC projects our being primarily funded by Chinese loans which primarily benefit Chinese companies who earn and often expatriate most of the profits generated by the work. In the best-case scenario, Chinese companies profit by expanding into neighboring markets. If the loans eventually prove untenable or are only partially repaid, then China still benefits as its efforts have served to subsidize its own firms, even if at a loss. Ultimately, China conceived the Belt and Road initiative as much from a position of weakness as from strength. Facing massive overcapacity in many of its basic industries, China is now exporting that capacity abroad.
Many in the Pakistani business community – already been hard-hit by the 2007 Free Trade Agreement – do not want to be disadvantaged again by the CPEC. Pakistani businessman worry that a limited elite will benefit from privilege relationships with Chinese companies, while those on the outside will suffer disproportionately. The Port of Karachi, for instance, sees the Chinese port of Gwadar as a direct competitive challenge; Karachi Port is currently operating far below capacity and would prefer additional infrastructure investments to come its way as opposed to being channeled through the Gwadar Port.
Pakistani business and government officials are also concerned that the CPEC could install a potentially unwelcome Chinese presence in virtually every sector of the Pakistani economy. Pakistani citizens and businessmen have expressed concern about the potential influx of Chinese workers, about their land being appropriated, and about the infiltration of Chinese cultural norms that are inconsistent with Pakistan’s more conservative Islamic culture. Although exact figures are unavailable, it is estimated that approximately 40,000-70,000 Chinese workers are now operating in Pakistan. The Pakistani military has created a special Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor division of over 15,000 troops to provide these workers with additional protection.
Gwadar Port
The Gwadar port is located in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. This port is strategically located a mere 76 nautical miles from Chabahar, an Iranian free port located on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. India has invested significant resources in developing it, in part to counter Chinese presence at Gwadar. To further connect Chabahar with the Middle East, India was planning to invest in a $400 million railway system to link Chabahar to Zahedan, a city in Iran close to the border with Afghanistan (Baptista, 2020). Recently, however, Iran has replaced Indian investment in the railway with Chinese investment, which hinders India’s efforts to restrict Chinese geopolitical maneuvering. China efforts could result in India being encircled by China-friendly countries, hampering India’s efforts to develop influence in the region. (Jafari, 2020)
Chabahar Port
Like the Karakoram Highway, Gwadar Port is not interesting as an economic proposition alone. Instead both the port and highway are most interesting for their geopolitical value. For Pakistan, the Gwadar Port expands Pakistani governmental reach into its frontier regions, consolidating its presence in traditional Baluchistan tribal land. Baloch militants have argued that China is facilitating these efforts by exporting to Pakistan technological tools of repression.
The Gwadar Port also provides it with a second naval base. For China, it gives China’s western regions access to the Indian Ocean and its global trade networks. It will also likely give the Chinese navy a permanent base on one of the world’s largest and most strategic deep-water ports. A permanent base would allow it to resupply and undertake repairs both of its ships and the weapons systems that the ships carry away from the Chinese mainland.
A view of the Gwadar Promontory and Isthmus
Not only is China financing the development of the port, but it is also financing all the infrastructure that the port requires including housing, hotels, warehousing facilities, roads, an airport, a free-trade zone and freshwater treatment and water supply. Creating water infrastructure is particularly important as the area has been plagued by shortages.
The Baluchistan people have been against the project. Besides the port and infrastructure encroaching on traditional tribal lands, the Baluchistan people fear that most of the economic benefits of the port will go to people outside the province. Because of China’s investments, in 2017, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Ports and Fisheries estimated that 91% of the profits from Gwadar Port would stream to China over the next 40 years. The other 9% will likely go to Pakistan’s federal government, leaving provincial and local authorities with little benefit. The port is expected to bring a large influx of people into the region. Once fully developed, Gwadar Port and city may be home to as many as 2 million people. Already, prime real estate near the port has been acquired by private investors in the Pakistani Navy, while traditional fishing communities have been forcibly relocated. So far, most new jobs have gone to non-Baluchistan peoples.
Pakistan, China and the Uighurs
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is China’s only Muslim-majority province. In 2017, it is estimated that the Uyghurs accounted for only 46% of the 22 million population while ethnic Han represent at least 40% of the total. Xinjiang is also China’s largest province, covering more than a sixth of Chinese territory. Xinjiang is resource rich containing substantial deposits of natural gas, oil, and coal. The province is also home to important military sites including the Lop Nur nuclear weapons testing facility.
Uyghur men in Kashgar
As China expands its Belt and Road Initiative through Pakistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East, China has concerns that these connections will make it vulnerable to importing radical Muslim movements into the province that might encourage its ethnic Uyghurs to agitate for separatism. As a result, China has instigated a large-scale reeducation camp system designed to replace Uyghur Muslim proclivities with outlooks that align more closely with Chinese state doctrine. China has overlaid this reeducation policy with systematic technological and police surveillance.
Abroad, China has pressed Central Asia governments and Pakistan to root out terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism. With Pakistan specifically, China is using its influence in the country to eradicate any radical elements that might try to agitate in Xinjiang. The Pakistani military has used its influence, for instance, to dissuade any state-sponsored militant groups from focusing their efforts toward China and has shared intelligence with China regarding militant activities. China has supported Pakistani intelligence efforts by providing funds and small arms to militant groups who do not advocate on behalf of the Uyghurs in a “don’t-poke-us-and-we-won’t-stomp-on-you” arrangement. To date, Chinese efforts have been largely successful at both controlling its Muslims at home and preventing the import of radicalism from abroad.
Independently, China has increased its monitoring of Uyghurs in Pakistan likely numbering no more than 40 for 50 militants. Given the weakened state of the Uyghur remnants in Pakistan, there has been some question as to why the Pakistani Army does not move to eliminate the Pakistani Uyghurs completely. One theory is that their presence on Pakistani soil makes the Pakistani military more useful to China than it would be if all the Pakistani Uighurs were assassinated.
Pakistani soldier
While China is appreciative of the Pakistani military’s efforts to support China’s control of its Muslim population, China is concerned, however, about the growing Islamization of the Pakistani Army. Specifically, China is observing instances where the Pakistani military has become increasingly involved with radical Islamist militant agendas and where the military is more actively using such militants to achieve its own political and other goals. In theory, if not always in practice, these militant proxies offer Pakistan the benefit of plausible deniability. This reduces the cost to Pakistan of militant violence and diminishes the risk of escalation, at least in comparison to conventional military operations. China expects the Pakistani military to keep China off the terrorist target list, and to keep its citizens safe within Pakistani borders. To the extent that Pakistan cannot fulfill this role, China expects to be able to deploy its own military in Pakistan to protect its citizens just as it does in several places in Africa.
Future Trends
China and Pakistan will continue to deepen their military, economic and political alliance in the future. The Sino-Pakistani military relationship is the strongest pillar to their alliance. Going forward, this relationship will continue to deepen through the Chinese failed to Pakistan of weapons and technology, through shared intelligence and through joint military exercises.
Economically, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will drive deeper economic ties between the two countries. That said, both countries have expressed reservations about the CPEC. From China’s perspective, there is concern about Pakistan’s ability to repay China’s investments financing. From Pakistan’s perspective, there is concern about how much Pakistan wants China’s involvement in every aspect of its economy. Many Pakistani businessmen have already seen how the free trade agreement between the two countries flooded Pakistani markets with goods at prices that make Pakistani-produced goods untenable; they also see how many of the profits generated by CPEC are being exported back to China. Pakistani economic leaders also worried that the lack of transparency regarding CPEC deals risks overwhelming the country with debt. Despite these concerns, the benefits of CPEC to both countries will outweigh these risks. While CPEC investments will not roll out as rapidly as originally projected, it is expected that China will continue to heavily invest Pakistan going forward.
Along with its infrastructure investments in Pakistan, China is also expected to export surveillance and other technologies. These technologies are expected to increase the repression of civil society within Pakistan. China will also increasingly export media content to the country in order that Pakistan and China can create a narrative within Pakistan that highlights the benefits of their relationship to the Pakistani populace.
Politically, both countries will continue to support each other’s geopolitical goals. The most important geopolitical goal that both countries share is their desire to mitigate the rise of India. These mitigation efforts will involve everything from jointly working to push back on Indian efforts to extend its control in Kashmir to thwarting India’s efforts to expand its presence in the Indian Ocean and abroad.
References
The China-Pakistan Alliance
/in Economics, Politics, Uncategorized /by socialspeakIntroduction
Pakistan and China have had deep political, military economic ties that date back to the formation of the respective countries. Each country benefits from this alliance. From Pakistan’s perspective, China provides Pakistan with military technology and weapons, infrastructure and other financial investment, access to Chinese markets, and support for its geopolitical objectives. For China, Pakistan provides China with an all-weather ally, with one way to thwart India’s rise, access to the Indian Ocean through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, access to Gwadar Port, which may partly serve as a future Chinese naval base, a place to showcase its Belt and Road Initiative, access to Pakistani markets, and shared intelligence. Given the wide range of benefits that each country derives from their alliance, it is expected that the relationship will continue to be robust.
The Creation of the India and Pakistan
When the British Raj ended, independence was granted to India and Pakistan as two separate states divided along religious lines. The partition resulted in one of the largest mass migrations of history with approximately 10-14 million people crossing the newly formed borders to reach the country of their religious affiliation. A 1951 Pakistani census counted 7,226,600 displaced citizens, the majority of whom were Muslims who crossed the line from India to Pakistan. Similarly, the 1951 Indian census counted 7,295,870 displaced people, the majority of whom were the Hindu and Sikh population that crossed the border from Pakistan to India after partition. Large scale violence accompanied the refugee crisis, with deaths estimated at between several hundred thousand and 2 million people. Most of the violence occurred in the previously British province of Punjab. Punjab, post-partition, was split into West and East Punjab, with the Hindu and Sikh populations migrating to the eastern bloc and the Muslim population moving to the western bloc. There were very few Muslim survivors in East Punjab, or Sikh or Hindu survivors in the Western Punjab region.
Geography of Pakistan
Map of Pakistan
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is the world’s 33rd largest country by area at 881,913 square kilometers. Pakistan is bounded by India in the east, by Iran in the west, by Afghanistan in the northwest, and by China in the northeast. In the northwest, the Afghan’s Wakhan Corridor – measuring between just 13-30 km in width – separates Pakistan and Tajikistan. In the south, Pakistan has a 1,046 km coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman and shares a maritime border with Oman.
Its borders with India and Afghanistan are unsettled. Pakistan has fought multiple wars with India and numerous skirmishes with Afghanistan to resolve these border disagreements. However, these borders are still contested despite the previous conflicts. Pakistan’s land incorporates both the Khyber and Bolan Passes, through which wind traditional migration and trade routes that have historically linked Central Eurasia and South Asia. Pakistan has four provinces – Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh, two autonomous territories – Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and one federal territory – Islamabad Capital Territory. Additionally, Pakistan asserts that the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – controlled by India since 1947 – should be under its sovereignty.
Provinces and Territories of Pakistan
In 2019, Pakistan was the world’s fifth-most populous country, with an estimated 205 million people. This represents over a six-fold increase since partition, when its population was just 33 million. By 2030, Pakistan is targeted to overtake Indonesia as the world’s largest Muslim majority country. In 2010, slightly over half its population was below the age of 30 years. Its fertility rate is currently 2.68.
Overall, Pakistan is considered a subtropical country. About 88% of its land is semiarid to arid, receiving no more than 250 mm annual rainfall. Deserts represent approximately 14% of the total of the arid landscape. Its four most significant deserts include the Thar, the Cholistan, the Thall, and the Kharan.
Deserts of Pakistan
Pakistan is divided into three major geographic areas: the Northern Highlands, the Baluchistan Plateau and the Indus River Plain, with the plain’s two major subdivisions corresponding roughly to the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. The Northern Highlands include parts of the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram, and the Himalayas, and is home to five of the world’s fourteen tallest mountains, including K2, the world’s second highest.
Pakistan’s Baluchistan Plateau has altitudes ranging from 600-3010 meters and covers 347,190 km2. The plateau is subject to frequent seismic activity as the plateau sits atop where the Indian plate collides with the plate under Eurasia. The Indian plate is continuing to move northward, thrusting the Himalayas higher by an estimated 40 cm per century.
Pakistan’s third geographical area is the Indus River plain. The Indus River flows through the heart Indus River plain which was created by river silt deposits laid down over the centuries. All of Pakistan’s major rivers—the Kabul, Jhelum, and Chenab—flow into the Indus River as it travels southward. The plain has a catchment area of almost 1 million square kilometers. This plain has been inhabited by agricultural civilizations for at least 5,000 years, including the Indus Valley civilization or Harappan civilization which dates to as early as 2500 BCE. Today, the Indus River Plain also forms the core of Pakistan’s agricultural land. Overall, less than 20% of Pakistan’s land is suitable for intensive agriculture. Its remaining land is defined geographically by mountains, high plateau, and deserts, all of which yield little food.
Geography of Pakistan
From a geopolitical point of view, Pakistan’s geography presents many challenges. Most of Pakistan’s political borders fail to align with any natural geographical boundaries which would make them easier to defend. Similarly, Pakistan’s borders do not follow any clear ethnic divisions. Instead, its boundaries were drawn to separate as nearly as possible the majority Muslim and the majority Hindu populations of the Indian subcontinent.
Pakistan’s greatest geopolitical rival is India, and it is with India that its borders have the fewest geographical defenses. In disputed Kashmir, India currently holds the geographical advantage, including in the Siachen Glacier which is also contested with China. If Pakistan could gain control over all of Kashmir, it could put in place a more formidable mountain defense line in its northeast. Instead, the mountain defense that Pakistan does control in Pakistan occupied Kashmir is in its northwest, located far from Pakistan’s major population centers. Furthermore, many of Pakistan’s most significant cities (and population centers) are located along the Indus River Valley, leaving them exposed if India were to attack. Pulling populations to the west of the Indus River for defense in time of war would mean that Pakistan would be ceding half its country and much of its arable land to India.
Pakistan’s largest cities
Along its coastline, Pakistan is also vulnerable. It has only a few significant ports, that if blockaded, would effectively transform Pakistan into a landlocked country. Karachi, alone, handles approximately 60% of Pakistan’s cargo, making it a very strategic target.
On its border with Afghanistan, the British drawn Durand border line between Afghanistan and Pakistan is also in dispute. In particular, the line divides historical Pashtun tribal areas. Afghanistan has long dreamed of uniting its 43 million Pashtuns with Pakistan’s 15 million Pashtuns. To this effect, Afghanistan lays claim to a border that extends significantly east of the Durand Line. As recently as 2017, the president of Afghanistan has said that Afghanistan will never accept a border between the two countries that splits the Pashtun tribal area in two. Indeed, when Pakistan applied to join the United Nations in 1947, because of the tribal land dispute, Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan’s membership application.
Kyber Pass – One of several Afghan-Pakistani mountain passes
Therefore, Pakistan faces countries on both sides of its borders that openly claim land to which Pakistan has effective or aspirational sovereignty. This makes Pakistan vulnerable to a two-front war if India and Afghanistan ever formed an alliance. Complicating the border dispute is the fact that part of the border with Afghanistan runs through the very mountainous Pashtun tribal lands. The rugged mountainous geography makes the border very difficult to police for both countries. Drug smugglers, terrorists, traders, and refugees regularly cross the border undetected in both directions. This makes the Pakistani-Afghan border one of the most unstable and violence-prone borders in the region.
Pakistan’s border with Iran cuts through the arid and sparsely populated region of Baluchistan, also dividing the Baluchistan people between the two borders. In general, Iran and Pakistan cooperate to eliminate Baluchistan separatist movements in their respective areas. However, relations between Iran and Pakistan are complicated by the fact that Iran is predominantly Shia Muslim while Pakistan is predominantly Sunni Muslim. (Pisenti, 2020)
The Kashmir Conflict
Besides creating various border disputes, the India-Pakistani partition also created a conflict regarding the ownership and sovereignty of Kashmir that remains unresolved to this day. Kashmir is a 138 km² ethnically diverse region located in the western section of the Himalayan range. It is renowned for its scenic lakes, meadows, and snowcapped mountains. At the time the partition, both India and Pakistan each argued that they had sovereignty over the entire princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Instead, the region was partitioned with India controlling approximately 55% of the area including the Kashmir Valley, most of Ladakh, the Siachen Glacier and 70% of its population. Pakistan has sovereignty over approximately 30% of the land that includes Azad Kashmir and Gilgiyt-Baltistan. In 1963, Pakistan ceded to China about 15% of its recognized territory including Askai Chin (claimed by India) as well as the mostly uninhabited Trans-Karakoram Tract (claimed by India) and part of Demchok sector. The disputed line dividing the Indian and Pakistani regions is called the Line of Control while the line dividing the contested region between India and China is called the Line of Actual Control.
Srinagar, the largest city of Kashmir
Division of Kashmir into Areas of Control: Pakistan-Green; India-Orange; China-Gold
Overall, Kashmir is approximately 67% Muslim, 30% Hindu, 2% Sikh and 1% Buddhist. Kashmir Valley – constrolled by India – is home to approximately 30% of Kashmir’s population; this population is 95% Muslim while Ladakh, home to 6% of the region’s population, is 47% Muslim. (Jammu and Kashmir Official Portal, 2001). Most Muslim would prefer to reside within Pakistan as opposed to India. There has been unrest and violence in the Indian-administered side of Jammu and Kashmir for 30 years due to Muslims desire for political change and India’s repression of their efforts. That said, both countries have committed atrocities and human rights abuses against people living within their areas of control.
Since partition, three wars have been fought over the territory: the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1947-1948, 1965 and 1971. Additionally, in 1989, 2010, 2016 and 2019 the region has been rocked by protest movements. Largely these have been driven by Muslim Kashmiri separatists calling for the right to self-determination.
Indus River and its Tributaries
In addition to ethnic discord, water insecurity is also driving the Kashmiri conflict. The Indus River is the only River system providing water to Pakistan; otherwise 92% of Pakistani land is arid or semi-arid. In India, the Indus is one of two river systems supporting India’s Northwest including the regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, all of which have inadequate water supplies. Punjab produces more than 20% of India’s wheat, and is considered one of India’s bread baskets.
Indus River – Kharmang District, Pakistan
The Indus originates on the Tibetan plateau and then courses 3,200 km southward through India, into Pakistan where it travels the entire length of the country before emptying into the Arabian Sea. India and Pakistan have both extensively dammed the Indus to generate hydroelectricity and irrigation.
The Indus has five important tributaries: the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Sutlej, and the Beas all of which either originate in Indian controlled territory or flow through India’s state of Himachal. Based on the current de facto Line of Control, India is currently the upper riparian country of the Indus and all its tributaries. This makes Pakistan vulnerable if India decides to increase its usage of or restrict the water supplies of the river system. In 1948, for a short period, India purportedly cut off Pakistani water supplies although India vociferously denies this.
Map of the Indus River Tributaries
In 1960, The Indus Water Treaty was agreed between the two countries, allowing Pakistan to have exclusive rights over the three western tributaries of the Indus – Jhelum, Chenab and Indus while India was given control over the three eastern tributaries Sutlej, Ravi, and Beas. For several decades thereafter, the water sharing agreements seemed to satisfactorily meet the water needs of each country. However, the subsequent significant increase in both the Pakistani and the Indian populations has meant that these shared water resources are seeing growing stress. Tensions caused by these diminishing per capita water resources are further aggravated by the distrust between the two countries, by the fact that India is not always forthcoming with its upstream water data, and by India’s construction of a cascade of dams on the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. The Indus Water Treaty allows India to build run-of-the-river dams to generate hydropower on these Pakistani-controlled tributaries if India does not impound water or impede its downward flow. While it would be extremely difficult for India to violate the terms of the Indus Water Treaty, having Pakistan’s water lifeline under India’s control is a strategic vulnerability that Pakistan would prefer not to tolerate.
China’s Part in the Kashmir Conflict
Insofar as Pakistan has been an enemy of India, it has been an ally of China. After the People’s Republic of China was formed, Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognize its status. China’s early diplomatic shift to Pakistan was driven to some extent by the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and the Dalai Lama’s asylum in India. India’s decision to grant refuge to the Dalai Lama has greatly affected the Sino-India relationship as did China’s perception that India supported the Lhasa uprising. Pakistan was quick to take advantage of the schism, including by leveraging its relationship with China to further its objectives in Kashmir.
Nanga Parbat Peak In Kashmir, Ninth Highest Mountain on Earth
For its part, China has not advocated a concrete policy on Kashmir. Instead, it shifts its position to benefit its own objectives. That said, China’s policy has historically been tilted toward Pakistan. China and Pakistan’s 1963 treaty, for instance, put China on record disputing that India had sovereignty over the entire disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. Pakistan rewarded China for this position by ceding to China land that China considers strategically important. China has since helped Pakistan translate Pakistani claims of sovereignty over its occupied portions of Kashmir into facts on the ground through China’s participation in the construction of the Sino-Pakistani Karakoram Highway that weaves through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
Karakoram Highway, Passu, Pakistan
The highway has both strategic and military importance to both China and Pakistan. Now, as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor Agreement, the two countries are rebuilding and upgrading the highway so that it can provide for three times the traffic, can accommodate heavily-laden vehicles, and it can better operate under extreme weather conditions. China and Pakistan are also planning to link the upgraded highway to the southern port of Gwadar. China views Gwadar as having key commercial and military strategic advantages, particularly as China expands its naval presence into the Indian Ocean.
In addition to the construction of the highway, China has also indicated interest in constructing railway lines, oil and gas pipelines and additional road networks throughout Pakistan occupied Kashmir. To defend these investments, China has been gradually expanding its military presence in Pakistan both by having some troops on the ground, and by satellite and other technological monitoring. This expanded Chinese military presence in Pakistan also better positions China to respond to any Pakistani-based Uyghur agitations that might attempt to disturb China’s current clampdown on its Uighur population in Xinjiang. China’s involvement in Kashmir has also served as a means for China to frustrate India’s ambitions.
In 2019, India increased the stakes in Kashmir by abolishing Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which had provided Kashmir with semi-autonomy. While the autonomy protected by Article 370 in many ways has been more illusory than actual, it has been important point of fact for Kashmiri Muslims. Article 370 afforded Kashmiris their own constitution, a separate flag, and freedom to make laws including those regarding permanent residency and ownership of property. By abolishing Article 370, Kashmiris can no longer prohibit Indians from outside the state to settle there or purchase property. As China has done in Tibet and in Xinjiang, many Kashmiris fear that the Indian government will use the new property laws to change the demographic character of the Muslim-majority region.
The constitutional bill abolishing Article 370 also divided the Indian controlled territory into two, smaller, federally administered territories. One state will combine Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu- majority Jammu; the other states creates a Buddhist-majority Ladakh, which shares cultural ties to Tibet. India hopes that creating these two new states will help it further tighten its hold on the territory. However, it will also likely diminish the effectiveness of the two states as buffer zone between Pakistan and India.
India’s abolition of Article 370 is likely to also engage China further in the issue. From the outset, China has supported Pakistan’s protestations of India’s unilateral move for diplomatic reasons. Not only is Pakistan one of China’s closest allies but supporting the Muslim state of Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir helps to divert attention away from China’s crackdown on Muslims in its own territory. Additionally, China has strategic issues at stake. India’s new state of Ladakh’s includes land that Pakistan turned over to China in their 1963 agreement.
China, Pakistan, and Geopolitics
A common refrain shared between China and Pakistan to describe their alliance is “Pakistan-China friendship is higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel.” For Pakistan, China has proven a highly beneficial partner. Like Pakistan, China also considers India a strategic rival and is motivated by actions that contain India’s rise. China is Pakistan’s largest source of foreign direct investment. Chinese investment in Pakistan totals more than any other Belt and Road country, exceeding an estimated $32 billion from 2014-2018. In 2020, China committed an additional $11 billion to the construction of two hydropower generator projects in Kashmir and another $7.2 billion to upgrade Pakistan’s railways in their entirety. China also provides Pakistan with a steady stream of military technologies and equipment. Pakistan and China intend to use this military technology to partly fill the security vacuum being created as the West completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Karakoram Highway connecting China and Pakistan
Additionally, the Pakistani military benefits from the steady stream of military material. Pakistan’s military has played an important role within the Pakistani political system since Pakistan’s inception in 1947. Since its founding, Pakistan has experienced three military coups, and has been under military rule for more than half the time. Even when a democratically elected government is in place, the military remains firmly behind the scenes. Pakistani military leaders believe the civil government provides the military with political legitimacy, while still allowing the military to play an important role in the Pakistani polity and economy. Elected leaders and the civil government balances the power of the Pakistani military. That said, politicians also nurture their own military relationships to facilitate their efforts to remain in power.
The JF-17 Thunder is a joint Pakistan-China project.
The Pakistan military benefits significantly from its position within Pakistan. The military receives an abundant budget that does not receive any oversight. Among other line items, this budget provides the Pakistani military with its own system of schools, healthcare, housing, and pensions. It also provides the military with the funds to invest in economic activities. In 2005, for instance, it was estimated that the military held over $130 billion of assets in listed companies.
The Pakistan military has profited from strong ties with China. Firstly, China sells Pakistan a wide arrange of military technology and equipment, often at deep discounts. Pakistani officers have been known to benefit personally from these defense deals by taking a cut for themselves. Secondly, Pakistan’s generals know that authoritarian China will not criticize the military when it acts upon democratic institutions. On the contrary, China has been providing the Pakistani military with technology including facial recognition, monitoring, smart alert systems and other surveillance technology. For instance, China has offered Pakistan the option to use Beidou – China’s GPS equivalent. Beidou would provide Pakistan with the ability to track its citizens with the same rigorousness employed by China. As a result, Pakistan has been trending toward greater political repression with Chinese technology and media content expediting this trend.
A new, Chinese-built, fiber-optic network now links the two countries, including a connection to newly installed undersea cables at Gwadar. Among other benefits, this network will facilitate Pakistani control over television and programming content and its distribution, improving its ability to frame political narratives. As a side benefit to China, the network enables China to distribute pro-China programming more effectively.
Gwadar Port
The Pakistani military also benefits from its relationship with China through its military construction unit, the Frontier Works Organization (FWO). Specifically, FWO gets first look at all China-Pakistan projects. FWO’s ties to China are strong and long-standing. In 1966, for instance, FWO worked with China to build the original Karakoram Highway. Currently, the FWO is benefiting from China-Pakistan construction contracts in the infrastructure, power, oil, real estate, mining, and railway sectors. For instance, the FWO has been constructing roads that link the Gwadar Port to the rest of Pakistan’s highway network. These construction contracts may provide further opportunities for military self-enrichment.
For China, Pakistan is one of its most trusted geostrategic alliances. Functionally, Pakistan provides China with many benefits. Firstly, Pakistan provides China with one way to bog India down at its borders. Regional land skirmishes mean India must divert resources away from power projection into the Indian Ocean just as China is trying to sail into it. The skirmishes keep India off balance, sidetracked, depleting energy that could otherwise be focused on China or abroad. The Sino-Pakistani alliance also helps China balance against the tightening US-India relationship. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor also acts as a political tool to frustrate any attempts either India or Pakistan might make to improve their relationship by making Pakistan reliant on China for technology and financing.
Pakistan benefits China secondly by providing it with an important Belt and Road network branch, enabling China and its western region to gain additional access to global centers of energy production, natural resources, and economic markets. This branch links China’s western interior regions to Gwadar Port and the Indian Ocean. Overland westward expansion provides China with an ability to escape the confines of East Asia while minimizing outright confrontation with the United States and its Asian allies.
Current linkages between Pakistan and China include roads, dams, and fiber optics. Future Sino-Pakistani linkages projected include rail, other technology networks, and energy pipelines. These pipelines will create a second route for Middle Eastern and African oil and gas to travel to China.
The Pakistani Belt and Road branch also helps to showcase the benefits of China’s Belt and Road Initiative to the global community.
Thirdly, Pakistan provides China with two naval bases in the Indian Ocean, the Karachi and the Gwadar Ports. China is seeking to project naval power into the Indian Ocean, through the Persian Gulf, into Mediterranean Sea, out into the Atlantic, and back to home bases in the Pacific. To do this, China needs a network of ports.
Finally, Pakistan’s intelligence services provide China with intelligence on global jihadist networks. This is an asset as China navigates its own Muslim separatist movements and its deepening involvement in the Islamic world.
China’s strategic sea lanes
Despite the benefits, the Sino-Pakistani alliance has its problems, and each country has its concerns about the other. For instance, while it is a purported Pakistani military strategy to back terrorist attacks against India, China worries about the risks that come when the state-sponsored terrorism blurs lines of responsibility. In the case of the Mumbai attack, for instance, where Pakistani terrorists instigated the attack and displayed military training, China shied away from publicly taking Pakistan’s side. From Pakistan’s perspective, there is concern about exactly how much involvement that Pakistan wants China to have in its economy, military, and politics.
China, Pakistan, and the Nuclear Bomb
After India tested its first nuclear bomb in May 1974, Pakistan accelerated its own nuclear program. By the early 1980s, Pakistan was running a secret uranium enrichment facility, and is believed to have developed the ability to build a first-generation nuclear device. Shortly after India conducted its second nuclear test in 1998, on May 28, 1998 Pakistan discharged five nuclear devices causing it to become the ninth country to possess nuclear weapons in addition to the United States, Russia, France, the UK, Israel, India, China and North Korea. It is believed that Pakistan now possesses between 150 and 160 nuclear weapons, and that its arsenal is still growing. Pakistan is not a signatory to either the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It is currently the sole country impeding negotiations of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.
Nuclear Fusion
In its journey to acquire nuclear weapons, Pakistan obtained aid from several other states, including China. As early as the late 1970s, China provided Pakistan various levels of nuclear and missile-related technologies. After 1980, Pakistan’s illicit nuclear sourcing network expanded to include Iran, North Korea, and Libya. As Pakistan acquired additional nuclear technology, it shared that technology with China for reverse engineering. In this way, the Sino-Pakistani nuclear collaboration provided technological benefits for both countries.
By assisting Pakistan to develop the bomb, China effectively provided for Pakistan’s security without ever needing to promise to intervene militarily on Pakistan’s behalf. Instead, China gave Pakistan the ultimate way for Pakistan to defend itself. If military ties are at the core of the Sino-Pakistani relationship, China’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear program has been at the core of the Sino-Pakistani military alliance. The nuclear program has created a real level of trust between the Pakistani and Chinese militaries that may not have been achieved if the two countries had a more conventional security partnership. From China’s point of view, both Pakistan and China share a common strategic concern about India’s economic and military rise.
By keeping Pakistan militarily strong, China is also benefiting by making it more difficult for India to project military power abroad, instead keeping it bogged down closer to home. China also benefits economically by being one of Pakistan’s most important arms suppliers. For instance, in addition to nuclear technology, China has also sold Pakistan a wide array of missile technology. Recently, China has been supplying Pakistan with smaller, tactical missile prototypes designed to attack Indian targets in a more limited way, making the idea of a targeted use of a nuclear weapon more credible. These short-range weapons were specifically designed to make it difficult for India to inflict rapid, punitive strikes against Pakistan in retaliation for incidents such as the Mumbai bombing, which was carried out by Pakistani-based terrorists.
Pakistan has not made explicit its formal nuclear doctrine. This means there is ambiguity regarding the circumstances which Pakistan would deem it necessary to deploy its nuclear weapons. Pakistan has stated, however, that its nuclear weapons are meant solely as an anti-Indian deterrent and would be employed only if Pakistan faced an existential threat from India. Pakistan has subsequently clarified that it considered existential threats to include India’s conquest of Pakistan’s territory or military, efforts by India to strangle Pakistan’s economy or attempts by India to destabilize Pakistan domestically.
Pakistan’s missiles on display in Karachi
Of key concern to the international community is Pakistan’s ability to keep its nuclear weapons secure from terrorist groups or other militants. Pakistan maintains that it has complete control over its nuclear weapons, and that it has taken steps to prevent radicalized individuals from infiltrating its nuclear program.
Pakistan has remained critical of the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2008. This deal has also caused China to be wary of India’s closer relations with the United States. In response, China has increased its civilian nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. Specifically, China has agreed to supply Pakistan with two, 340-megawatt power reactors. These reactors are additional to the two nuclear power reactors that China has already helped Pakistan build. China has justified this additional nuclear cooperation stating that additional reactors were grandfathered in its 2003 Sino-Pakistan treaty. This treaty was in place before China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004.
Sino-Pakistan Economic Relations and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
The foundation of the Sino-Pakistani relations has always been more about geostrategy than it has been about economic exchange. Close political and security ties were never going to be an assurance of close economic ones, but there has been an expectation that the political and security alliance could be transitioned into a mutually beneficial economic alliance. Everything from geography to cultural preferences have been cited to explain the weak economic relationship between China and Pakistan. One issue has certainly been that the economies lack complementarity. For instance, China competes with Pakistan in textiles, which is Pakistan’s largest manufacturing sector, accounting for 8.5% of Pakistan’s GDP, employing approximately 45% of the total labor force, and 38% of its manufacturing workers.
That said, China is an important trading partner for Pakistan. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, Pakistan’s exports to China were $1.9 billion in 2019, representing 8% of total Pakistani total exports. Major export items include cotton yarn, rice, other agricultural products, alcohol and other spirits, copper and related products and chromium ores.
Pakistan’s exports to China
To strengthen their alliance by strengthening their economic relationship, China and Pakistan signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in November 2006, which came in effect in July 2007. Since the FTA agreement went into effect, Pakistani producers have found that, in many instances, the FTA has brought greater advantage to China than it has been to Pakistan. The experience of Pakistani producers has been supported by trade data: since the free trade agreement went into effect, Pakistan’s trade deficit with China has increased from approximately $2.9 billion in 2008 to $12 billion in 2016. Additionally, the FTA has had a negative impact on many of Pakistan’s small and medium enterprises.
China exports to Pakistan
Following on from the FTA, in 2015 China and Pakistan announced the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which China considers to be an essential part of its One Belt One Road Initiative. As of 2017, CPEC projects – both current and future – have been valued at $62 billion. That said, there is a significant gap between the total level of financial assistance pledged and the amount China has actually been provided. (Small, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, 2015)
The CPEC will connect China’s Kashgar and its western interior regions to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, which is being operated by the China Overseas Port Holding Company, a state-owned Chinese company. The CPEC connections include a series of infrastructure and other projects. These projects comprise everything from upgrading Pakistan’s road and rail transportation systems, to enlarging its hydro-engineering networks, to laying fiber-optic cable systems, to increasing Pakistan’s access to technology, to expanding its energy networks. The CPEC also envisages creating a network of Pakistani industries and industrial parks, as well as potentially creating programs that help diminish poverty, encourage tourism, and enhance education, public health, and Chinese-Pakistani people to people communication.
Chinese-Pakistani trade along the Karakoram Highway
Currently, 60% of China’s oil is shipped from the Persian Gulf through the Malacca Straits to Shanghai, a voyage of more than 16,000 km. One benefit China is hoping to derive from the CPEC is to create alternative distribution networks for bringing oil and natural gas into the country. While Pakistan has little in the way of resources, and has no gas or oil, it does provide China with an excellent geographical position in which to access oil from other parts of the world.
In terms of technology sharing, it is expected that a full system of monitoring and surveillance like those in China in cities will also be installed in important CPEC Pakistani cities from Peshawar to Karachi. The envisioned Pakistani fiber optic network will not only improve Pakistani internet access but will also be effective in disseminating television content that is favorable to China. Disseminating China-friendly content is consistent with China’s larger objective of promoting its image and its messaging internationally through global media. To this effect, Beijing is making investments into all sectors of global media, stated that it plans to grow overseas media staff tenfold by 2016, and plans to invest an additional $6.6 billion globally into the sector.
In addition to expanding its media presence globally, China has also been constructing Confucius Institutes internationally. Confucius Institutes seek to teach Chinese, enable cultural exchange, and improve China’s relations with other countries. With regards to China-Pakistan relations, there has been a significant expansion of Mandarin language schools in Pakistan; Pakistan is seeing Mandarin begin to rival English as the most common foreign language taught in the country. These language academies are financed by both the Chinese and Pakistani governments.
Chinese and Pakistani border guards
The CPEC also envisions China engaging in all aspects of Pakistan’s agricultural sector to promote the Pakistan’s transition from traditional to modern, large-scale agriculture. Chinese companies are expected to provide seeds and fertilizer, to run farms on leased or purchased land, to improve irrigation networks, and to establish transportation and storage systems for agricultural produce. In 2017, agriculture accounted for approximately 26% of Pakistan’s GDP and employed approximately 40% of its labor force. This agriculture is supported by one of the world’s largest irrigation systems. Many Pakistani farms are small, although Pakistan also has bigger farms owned worked by tenant farmers who could be at risk of displacement if Pakistan’s agriculture become more commercialized. Given the importantance of agricultural to Pakistan’s economy and employment base, China’s proposed involvement in the sector has been controversial.
While the CPEC will undoubtedly bring significant benefits to Pakistan including upgrading its transportation system, expanding its electrical grid, and improving its hydro-engineering systems, it is likely that China will benefit most from the agreement. Chinese companies such as Haier, China Mobile, Huawei and China Metallurgical Group Corporation view the CPEC as an opportunity to expand their presence in the Pakistani market, while new Chinese companies plan to leverage the corridor to get a foothold into the Pakistani market.
Huawei, for instance, is becoming Pakistan’s most important telecoms infrastructure operator and ZTE, Huawei’s state-owned counterpart, is one of Pakistan’s largest telecoms vendors. It is part of China’s strategy to install information and telecommunication networks along with their corresponding hardware, software and standards throughout Belt and Road Initiative countries to wield more political clout. Already, in many places in the world, China is becoming a leading provider of such technologies. These technologies allow China to export tools of censorship and surveillance. They also provide China with tools to influence states and to potentially gain access to their national information and data. (Markey, 2020 )
Despite its fanfare and high expectations, the CPEC has not turned out to be as advantageous for Pakistan as originally had been hoped. One issue with the CPEC is that most of the contracts have been concluded without adequate transparency. There is lack of detail on everything from the scale of individual investments, the size of their debts, the impact of these investments on the Pakistani economy, and the level of corruption that each of these investments generate. For instance, the Governor of Pakistan’s Central Bank has stated publicly that he had no clear idea how much of the CPEC projects were being financed by debt, by equity or by in kind; what is certain is Chinese investment terms have been far from concessional. This lack of clarity has been magnified by the fact that Pakistan has been negotiating its CPEC deals from a position of weakness as Pakistan has few other foreign direct investment sources, and many infrastructure and other needs. Poor transparency has also raised concerns that Pakistan might find itself in a debt trap.
Another issue for Pakistan regarding the CPEC is that the economic benefits of the CPEC have not been spread equally throughout Pakistan but have been concentrated in Punjab province. Punjab is Pakistan’s largest, wealthiest, and most stable province, making it the easiest place for CPEC projects to build on existing infrastructure. This lack of geographical distribution is causing opposition to the initiative in the unfavored provinces and territories, particularly in Baluchistan and Gilgit-Baltistan. For instance, despite the terminus of the CPEC being located Baluchistan’s Gwadar Port, little economic benefit from the CPEC appears to be trickling down to the province. Instead, Baluch groups are experiencing a loss of the land in their traditional tribal area, reduced autonomy, and blocked access to traditional fishing beds.
Karachi – Pakistan’s Financial Center
Another concern is that CPEC projects our being primarily funded by Chinese loans which primarily benefit Chinese companies who earn and often expatriate most of the profits generated by the work. In the best-case scenario, Chinese companies profit by expanding into neighboring markets. If the loans eventually prove untenable or are only partially repaid, then China still benefits as its efforts have served to subsidize its own firms, even if at a loss. Ultimately, China conceived the Belt and Road initiative as much from a position of weakness as from strength. Facing massive overcapacity in many of its basic industries, China is now exporting that capacity abroad.
Many in the Pakistani business community – already been hard-hit by the 2007 Free Trade Agreement – do not want to be disadvantaged again by the CPEC. Pakistani businessman worry that a limited elite will benefit from privilege relationships with Chinese companies, while those on the outside will suffer disproportionately. The Port of Karachi, for instance, sees the Chinese port of Gwadar as a direct competitive challenge; Karachi Port is currently operating far below capacity and would prefer additional infrastructure investments to come its way as opposed to being channeled through the Gwadar Port.
Pakistani business and government officials are also concerned that the CPEC could install a potentially unwelcome Chinese presence in virtually every sector of the Pakistani economy. Pakistani citizens and businessmen have expressed concern about the potential influx of Chinese workers, about their land being appropriated, and about the infiltration of Chinese cultural norms that are inconsistent with Pakistan’s more conservative Islamic culture. Although exact figures are unavailable, it is estimated that approximately 40,000-70,000 Chinese workers are now operating in Pakistan. The Pakistani military has created a special Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor division of over 15,000 troops to provide these workers with additional protection.
Gwadar Port
The Gwadar port is located in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. This port is strategically located a mere 76 nautical miles from Chabahar, an Iranian free port located on the coast of the Gulf of Oman. India has invested significant resources in developing it, in part to counter Chinese presence at Gwadar. To further connect Chabahar with the Middle East, India was planning to invest in a $400 million railway system to link Chabahar to Zahedan, a city in Iran close to the border with Afghanistan (Baptista, 2020). Recently, however, Iran has replaced Indian investment in the railway with Chinese investment, which hinders India’s efforts to restrict Chinese geopolitical maneuvering. China efforts could result in India being encircled by China-friendly countries, hampering India’s efforts to develop influence in the region. (Jafari, 2020)
Chabahar Port
Like the Karakoram Highway, Gwadar Port is not interesting as an economic proposition alone. Instead both the port and highway are most interesting for their geopolitical value. For Pakistan, the Gwadar Port expands Pakistani governmental reach into its frontier regions, consolidating its presence in traditional Baluchistan tribal land. Baloch militants have argued that China is facilitating these efforts by exporting to Pakistan technological tools of repression.
The Gwadar Port also provides it with a second naval base. For China, it gives China’s western regions access to the Indian Ocean and its global trade networks. It will also likely give the Chinese navy a permanent base on one of the world’s largest and most strategic deep-water ports. A permanent base would allow it to resupply and undertake repairs both of its ships and the weapons systems that the ships carry away from the Chinese mainland.
A view of the Gwadar Promontory and Isthmus
Not only is China financing the development of the port, but it is also financing all the infrastructure that the port requires including housing, hotels, warehousing facilities, roads, an airport, a free-trade zone and freshwater treatment and water supply. Creating water infrastructure is particularly important as the area has been plagued by shortages.
The Baluchistan people have been against the project. Besides the port and infrastructure encroaching on traditional tribal lands, the Baluchistan people fear that most of the economic benefits of the port will go to people outside the province. Because of China’s investments, in 2017, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Ports and Fisheries estimated that 91% of the profits from Gwadar Port would stream to China over the next 40 years. The other 9% will likely go to Pakistan’s federal government, leaving provincial and local authorities with little benefit. The port is expected to bring a large influx of people into the region. Once fully developed, Gwadar Port and city may be home to as many as 2 million people. Already, prime real estate near the port has been acquired by private investors in the Pakistani Navy, while traditional fishing communities have been forcibly relocated. So far, most new jobs have gone to non-Baluchistan peoples.
Pakistan, China and the Uighurs
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is China’s only Muslim-majority province. In 2017, it is estimated that the Uyghurs accounted for only 46% of the 22 million population while ethnic Han represent at least 40% of the total. Xinjiang is also China’s largest province, covering more than a sixth of Chinese territory. Xinjiang is resource rich containing substantial deposits of natural gas, oil, and coal. The province is also home to important military sites including the Lop Nur nuclear weapons testing facility.
Uyghur men in Kashgar
As China expands its Belt and Road Initiative through Pakistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East, China has concerns that these connections will make it vulnerable to importing radical Muslim movements into the province that might encourage its ethnic Uyghurs to agitate for separatism. As a result, China has instigated a large-scale reeducation camp system designed to replace Uyghur Muslim proclivities with outlooks that align more closely with Chinese state doctrine. China has overlaid this reeducation policy with systematic technological and police surveillance.
Abroad, China has pressed Central Asia governments and Pakistan to root out terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism. With Pakistan specifically, China is using its influence in the country to eradicate any radical elements that might try to agitate in Xinjiang. The Pakistani military has used its influence, for instance, to dissuade any state-sponsored militant groups from focusing their efforts toward China and has shared intelligence with China regarding militant activities. China has supported Pakistani intelligence efforts by providing funds and small arms to militant groups who do not advocate on behalf of the Uyghurs in a “don’t-poke-us-and-we-won’t-stomp-on-you” arrangement. To date, Chinese efforts have been largely successful at both controlling its Muslims at home and preventing the import of radicalism from abroad.
Independently, China has increased its monitoring of Uyghurs in Pakistan likely numbering no more than 40 for 50 militants. Given the weakened state of the Uyghur remnants in Pakistan, there has been some question as to why the Pakistani Army does not move to eliminate the Pakistani Uyghurs completely. One theory is that their presence on Pakistani soil makes the Pakistani military more useful to China than it would be if all the Pakistani Uighurs were assassinated.
Pakistani soldier
While China is appreciative of the Pakistani military’s efforts to support China’s control of its Muslim population, China is concerned, however, about the growing Islamization of the Pakistani Army. Specifically, China is observing instances where the Pakistani military has become increasingly involved with radical Islamist militant agendas and where the military is more actively using such militants to achieve its own political and other goals. In theory, if not always in practice, these militant proxies offer Pakistan the benefit of plausible deniability. This reduces the cost to Pakistan of militant violence and diminishes the risk of escalation, at least in comparison to conventional military operations. China expects the Pakistani military to keep China off the terrorist target list, and to keep its citizens safe within Pakistani borders. To the extent that Pakistan cannot fulfill this role, China expects to be able to deploy its own military in Pakistan to protect its citizens just as it does in several places in Africa.
Future Trends
China and Pakistan will continue to deepen their military, economic and political alliance in the future. The Sino-Pakistani military relationship is the strongest pillar to their alliance. Going forward, this relationship will continue to deepen through the Chinese failed to Pakistan of weapons and technology, through shared intelligence and through joint military exercises.
Along with its infrastructure investments in Pakistan, China is also expected to export surveillance and other technologies. These technologies are expected to increase the repression of civil society within Pakistan. China will also increasingly export media content to the country in order that Pakistan and China can create a narrative within Pakistan that highlights the benefits of their relationship to the Pakistani populace.
Politically, both countries will continue to support each other’s geopolitical goals. The most important geopolitical goal that both countries share is their desire to mitigate the rise of India. These mitigation efforts will involve everything from jointly working to push back on Indian efforts to extend its control in Kashmir to thwarting India’s efforts to expand its presence in the Indian Ocean and abroad.
References
China’s Military – Growing Assertiveness
/in Politics /by ChinaFolioIntroduction
People’s Liberation Army
Over the last two decades, China has been steadily modernizing its military. This push to modernize reflects China’s desire to have military power commensurate with its growing economic and political status. It also reflects the fact that, from the Chinese perspective, the international realm gives rise to as many strategic uncertainties for China as a rising China does for other nations. In particular, many in China view the US as a strategic rival who wants to prevent China from becoming an equal leader on the global stage. The US’s “pivot to Asia” is viewed by many Chinese as example of the US’s containment effort. China is also unsettled by the US’s efforts to provide US allies and friendly states with weapons systems aimed to counter China’s growing military capability, and by the US’s continued arm sales to Taiwan.
Additionally, China considers Japan’s growing nationalism and Japan’s efforts to overhaul its military and security policies as a mounting threat. Its current alliances with North Korea and Russia notwithstanding, China views North Korea as a politically unstable nuclear power on its border, and Russia as a strategic competitor as well as an ally. China is also engaged in territorial disputes with Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan in the South and East China Seas and with India on its western border. Additionally, China considers Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang to be its sovereign territory, and will fight their any move toward independence.
Other objectives of its military modernization program include improving China’s ability to fight piracy, to protect its shipping lanes and its access to energy and resources abroad, to help ensure the security of its international assets and to safeguard its growing numbers of citizens working and living overseas. From the Chinese perspective, protecting its economic trade and investments is critical to achieving Xi Jinping’s China dream – “achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”. Indeed, China’s 2015 Military Strategy Document states: “the Dream is to make the country strong. Making the Chinese military strong is part of the Chinese Dream. Without a strong military, a country can be neither safe nor strong.” China sees the global trends toward “multi-polarity and economic globalization intensifying” which it believes will increase “international competition for the redistribution of power, rights and interests”. China sees a strong military as a competitive advantage as it vies for influence in this changing global landscape.
China continues to emphasize its military modernization is defensive in nature. China states that it will strike militarily only if it has been attacked first. Overall, China tries to play a long game when working to achieve its political, economic and military objectives. For example, while it will quell unrest in Xinjiang by force when necessary, ideally China hopes to overcome Uyghur opposition to Chinese rule through economic development and continued cultural integration. Similarly, before the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea issues a ruling on Sino-Phillippines territorial disputes in the South China Sea – despite China refusing to participate in the arbitration – China is trying to maximize its facts in the water through the building of islands on contested reefs. By playing this long game in its strategic, multifaceted way, China is working to create a position of power so advantageous that it can accomplish its goals without ever having to use force. That said, China says that a first strike against the country need be military. China has stated that political, economic and strategic attacks could justify Chinese military action even if it means that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fires the first weapon.
Levels of Military Spending
China’s J-10 airforce jet
According to the well-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China’s annual defense spending has grown from approximately $33 billion in 2000 to $130 billion in 2011 compared to the US’s $690 billion in 2011. As a percentage of total GDP, China’s annual military expenditure has remained fairly constant at 2.1% while the US has grown its military spending from 3% to 4.8% of GDP from 2000 to 2011. Applying these percentages to 2014 GDP figures, it is estimated that China spent approximately $217 billion on its military compared to the US’s $836 billion. At current trends, some project China to become the world’s largest military spender between 2025 and 2035.
In fact, SIPRI believes that China’s actual defense spending could be as much as 50% higher than Beijing states since China keeps many of its defense expenditures off book or accounts for them at below market costs. Indeed, according to Transparency International, China has one of the least transparent military budgets in the world. Items that may be omitted from its official defense numbers include military research and development, paramilitary expenses, weapons purchased from abroad, expenses for strategic and nuclear forces, subsidies given to state owned industries engaged in defense manufacturing, contributions from regional and local governments, spending on the military-relevant part of China’s space program and PLA-driven fund raising.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
PLA fighting the Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was officially founded on August 1st 1927, more than two decades before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China that it now defends. It was founded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as they fought to win control of the country. The PLA is an umbrella organization overseeing the PLA’s Army (PLAA), the PLA Navy (PLAN), the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) and the PLA Second Artillery Force (PLASAF). The PLA is unorthodox in that does not actually answer to the State, but to the Chinese Communist Party itself. Thus, whereas the President of the United States is always Commander-in-Chief of the military, it is theoretically possible – although unlikely as long as the Communists remain in power – for the President of the PRC to not command the military. This makes the Head of the Central Military Commission (CMC) both important and powerful. Currently, Xi Jinping is both President of China and Head of the CMC and there has not been a discrepancy between the two posts since Jiang Zemin held onto the post of Head of the CMC for a year after handing the presidency over Hu Jintao. Chinese 2015 Military Strategy Document reaffirms the Chinese Communist Party’s absolute control of the military, “China’s armed forces will unswervingly adhere to the principle of the Communist Party of China’s absolute leadership” and “will work to build themselves into the People’s military that follows the CCP’s commands.”
Chinese Military Goals and Strategies
Map of China and its Neighbors
China believes that increased military power will give it the respect and power commensurate with its growing economic and political clout, will deter rivals from threatening its sovereign territory and national interests, and will allow it to influence international affairs in its favor. In the short term, China considers that its most immediate military threats are likely to occur along its periphery or in its near seas, and much of its recent military investment has been made with these threats in mind. Termed by China as “Local Wars under Conditions of Informatization” China sees any military conflict arising from these regional threats to be limited in scope and duration, and to be typified by the pursuit of political goals through relatively constrained use of rapid force. From a Chinese perspective, ideally these short conflicts will result in a quick return to the negotiating table with China in dominant position. In these “informatized” wars, China expects that the effective use of advanced computer systems, information technology and communication networks to provide China with key operational advantages.
Informatization for China has many facets. Of highest priority is its Computer Network Defense (CND) which it monitors vigilantly even in peacetime. In the event of war, China intends to quickly establish information operations (IO) dominance including controlling the electromagnetic spectrum which would allow it to suppress or deceive enemy electronic equipment. China’s electromagnetic warfare (EW) strategies focus on controlling radar, radio, optical, infrared, and microwave frequencies as well as disrupting adversarial computer and information systems. If necessary, China will use IO warfare preemptively, particularly when confronting information-dependent adversaries such as United States.
As part of this strategy, China foresees calling on millions of civilian Chinese programmers to work with the Chinese military to disrupt enemy technologies. The Chinese military also envisions that Chinese civilians will provide logistical and other support during war. This strategy of mobilizing all Chinese citizens in the case of conflict was reaffirmed in China’s 2015 Military Strategy Document “bring into full play the concept of the People’s war, and persist in employing it as an ace weapon to triumph over the enemy”.
China views improving its anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities as integral to its Local Wars strategy. A2/AD capabilities are intended to thwart third party intervention – particularly by the United States – into its territory or what it considers to be its spheres of influence which increasingly include the water and land within the South China, Yellow and East China Seas. These capabilities will also be key to preventing the US and other allies coming to Taiwan’s assistance if it moves toward independence.
Other military objectives include an improved ability to protect it economic shipping lanes and its rapidly growing number of citizens working abroad, to offer humanitarian assistance during times of natural and other disasters, and to project greater military authority in the Asia Pacific region and in regions further afield.
Cyberwarefare
Map of China and its Neighbors
Cyberwarfare is a major aspect of China’s informatization strategy. Since 2008, all major Chinese military exercises have had significant cyber information operations components which are both offensive and defensive in nature. Additionally, China runs an on-going cyber warfare program to steal intellectual property, trade secrets and technology from defense contractors, government agencies and research institutions valued at billions of dollars annually. The US government in particular has estimated that 90% of cyberespionage against the United States originates in China.
In 2013, the US computer security firm Mandiant noted that Chinese hackers breached US energy and other critical infrastructure, leaving in place software tools that could be activated to destroy infrastructure components. Mandiant also detailed methodical data theft from at least 141 US organizations over seven years; Mandiant tracked this theft back to a Chinese military unit code named 61398 which is staffed by a large cohort of proficient English speakers with advanced computer security and networking skills. Most of the Chinese targets were US companies operating in aerospace, satellites and telecommunications, public administration, information technology and scientific research fields or in industries identified as strategically important under its Five Year Plans. Unit 61398 also attacked a dozen smaller US local, state and federal government agencies as well as international governmental agencies. On average, the hackers operating within breached computer system for about a year stealing pricing documents, negotiation strategies, manufacturing processes, clinical trial results, technology blueprints and other proprietary information.
China is also the leading suspect in a June 5, 2015 hacking of the US Office of Personnel Management in which over 20 million employees, retirees, contractors and job applicants had their personal data compromised.
Space
Launch of China’s Long March Rocket
China considers the ability to utilize space and to deny adversaries access to space as key to effectively implementing its Local Wars, A2/AD and other military strategies. To this effect, China is procuring a range of technologies to advance China’s space and counter space capabilities. China has developed and continues to develop imaging and remote sensing satellites with dual military and commercial missions, and currently has approximately 100 satellites in orbit. China controls satellites programmed in communications, navigation, Earth resources, weather, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Even the more commercially oriented satellites can assist the military by delivering situational awareness of foreign forces, critical infrastructure, and political targets. China also has demonstrated direct ascent kinetic kill anti-satellite capability to low Earth orbit. In 2007, for instance, China shot down a defunct weather satellite. Developing dual purpose satellites through commercial platforms has enabled China to access foreign technology through commercial means which it then uses to advance its military defense systems.
China believes that having high proficiency in counter space activities is critical to its being able to establish dominance in informatized warfare as satellites are significant to the communications, navigation and reconnaissance on modern day battlefields. By being able to take out enemy satellites, China aims to “blind and deafen its enemies” and to impede their ability to effectively use their precision guided weapons. As part of this effort, China is investing in a multidimensional program to advance its ability to limit or prevent the use of hostile space-based assets by developing jammers and directed energy weapons for direct ascent anti-satellite weapons used against China. Technologies advanced under China’s manned and lunar programs as well as technologies developed to detect and track space debris have significantly improved China’s ability to track and identify satellites, a prerequisite for ascent anti-satellite weapons attack. China is also continuing its development of the Long March 5 rocket, a next-generation heavy lift launch system designed to carry a load of up to 25,000 kg to low Earth orbits and 14,000 kg to geostationary transfer orbit. The first Long March 5 rocket is expected to be tested in 2016.
As part of China’s space effort, China is developing an independent human spaceflight program, and has a stated goal to construct a 60 ton space station. China’s growing space capabilities provide it with advanced skills which improve all aspects of conventional and nuclear targeting, ground air sea operations, precision conventional strike capacity and missile defense.
The PLA Army (PLAA) and the Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin Disputes
Map of Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin
Owing to its 9000 mile temperate coastline with many good natural harbors, China is both a land and sea power. For millennia, however, China’s greatest military threat came from the land, particularly from the northern steppes with its fierce Mongol hordes. The large size of the PLAA compared to China’s other service branches reflects this historic land orientation. The PLAA has approximately 70% of total PLA servicemen under its command or 1.6 million ground force personnel, roughly 400,000 of whom are based in the three Chinese Military Regions opposite Taiwan. This personnel is organized into 18 Armies, with 15 infantry division and 16 brigades. The PLAA has an estimated 7000 and 8000 artillery pieces.
Since the 1980s, China has gradually decreased the size of its army while concurrently developing modern capabilities and systems. In particular, the PLAA is investing in heavy armor, long-range strike artillery, increased-range air defense weapons, and attack and transport helicopters. Its battle tanks, armored infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, and air defense weaponry have all enjoyed significant upgrades in the last decades. Today, for instance, approximately 45% of its armored infantry fighting vehicle and armored personnel carriers are modern, 31% of its main battle tanks are third-generation, and 15% of all the artillery is self-propelled compared with 0%, 0.1%, and 9% respectively in 2000.
The PLAA has focused on its armored fleet to improve its ability to move forces quickly within China and to its borders. In the Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin areas, for instance, China is currently in dispute with India over ten separate territories at the Western End of the Tibetan Plateau, although several of the pieces of land are tiny. The two most significant areas of dispute are the 60,000 km² Arunachal Pradesh located in what India and most of the rest of the world consider to be the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and the 37,000 km² Chinese administered Aksai Chin located to the west of Nepal, but claimed by India to be part of Kashmir. China and India have skirmished over these territories in 1962, 1967 and 1987. In 2009, China tried to prevent a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank arguing that part of the funds would be employed to develop water projects in Arunachal Pradesh.
As well as aiding in border defense, improved military transport allows China to effectively quell domestic unrest particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang, and to have the army assist during natural disasters as it did in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
People’s Liberation Army’s Navy (PLAN)
Chinese Naval Ship
Since 1990, PLAN has undergone significant modernization and expansion. As China reaffirmed in its 2015 Military Strategy Document, its “traditional mentality that land outweighs the sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be placed on managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests.” Going forward, it can be expected that China will project hard power abroad primarily by means of its navy and its missile systems.
Today China has the largest naval force in Asia. In 2013, PLAN employed an estimated 255,000 sailors, soldiers, pilots and logistical personnel. Its fleet includes approximately 65 submarines, one aircraft carrier, 14 guided missile destroyers, 62 frigates, 211 patrol and coastal combatants, 238 amphibious boats and 205 logistics and support ships broken into three fleets: North, East and South fleets. PLAN also has an array of increasingly sophisticated aircraft from bombers and fighters to helicopters and transport aircraft. Over the next decades, China’s navy will continue to grow in both numbers and technological capability. Additionally, more of its fleet and fleet technology will be Chinese-built. For instance, the first Chinese-built aircraft carrier is slated to go to sea near 2020. Its current aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, is a refurbished vessel purchased from Ukraine in 1998.
Similarly, China is stepping up the production of its submarines, one of PLAN’s core strengths. Indeed, some predict that China’s submarine force could grow larger than that of the US within 15 years. As part of this submarine expansion program, China is upgrading missile systems and quieting technologies. It JIN-class sub, for instance, now carries ballistic missiles with an estimated range of more than 4000 nautical miles, giving China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent. Future submarines will have guided missile attack competence, giving China a submarine-based land-attack capability. Since 1990, China has brought to water six new classes of indigenously built destroyers and four new classes of frigates. These new ships have more up-to-date hull designs, propulsion systems, sensors, weapons and electronics.
China is also rapidly expanding its small combatants such as its JIANGDAO-class corvettes – the first six of which entered service in 2012; China is expected to build 20 to 30 corvettes in total. In 2004, China also introduced its Houbei-class wave-piercing, stealth catamaran missile patrol boats. Both these boats improve China’s operational ability in coastal and near waters. Being able to successfully engage in high intensity conflicts within the South China, East China and Yellow Seas remains China’s highest priority. As part of this effort, China is developing unmanned underwater vehicles and is continuing to upgrade its inventory of an estimated 50,000 naval mines.
Working in conjunction with PLAN, China operates other paramilitary maritime law enforcement agencies including the China Marine Surveillance, The Fisheries Law Enforcement, the China Coast Guard, the Maritime Safety Administration, and the Customs Anti-Smuggling Bureau.
People’s Liberation Army’s Naval Strategy and the Nine First and Second Island Chains
Map of First and Second Island Chains
In 1982, the architect of China’s modern naval strategy, Chinese Admiral Liu Huaqing, set as a goal for China to control the first island chain by 2010, the second island 2020, and for China to curtail US naval dominance in the Pacific and Indian Oceans between 2020 and 2040. An analysis of current Chinese military expansion, rhetoric and activities reveals that China is making strong efforts to implement this maritime strategy. Specifically, China is stepping up its efforts to exert control within the first island chain. The first island chain is defined as the chain of islands extending out from the East Asian continental mainland coast. In its broadest definition, the first island chain encompasses the Bering, Okhotsk, Japan, Yellow, East China and South China Seas including the Aleutian and Kuril Islands, parts of the Japanese Archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the northern Philippines and Borneo ending at the Malay Peninsula.
By demarcating the first and second island chains, PLAN hopes to engage foreign navies in waters as far as possible from China in order to defend its territory and its territorial waters. Other naval military goals include traditional missions such as protecting and evacuating Chinese nationals in foreign countries, providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, protecting sea trade from terrorism, maritime piracy and foreign interdiction, prohibiting foreign surveillance and reconnaissance activities near its coast and conducting independent and joint naval sea exercises. China is also using PLAN as a force to discourage Taiwan independence and to defend what it considers to be its land, fish, oil and gas rights in the East and South China Seas.
China also wants to regulate military activities in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). An EEZ is the sea zone extending 200 nautical miles from a nation’s coast over which it has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources. While the US and most other nations do not regard it as unlawful to be active in foreign EEZs, China maintains that it is unlawful for a foreign navy to penetrate China’s EEZ despite its activities to the contrary. Indeed on several occasions in 2001, 2002 and twice in 2009, Chinese aircraft confronted US Naval ships as they conducted ocean surveillance operations in the South China Sea. China is also creating coastal economic belts and marine economic zones within the first island chain area and is engaging in marine research and development.
The second island chain is a series of island groups that is generally defined to run north to south from the Kuril Islands, through the Japanese archipelago, the Bonin Islands, the Marianas Islands and Palou to the Indonesian archipelago. Over time, China hopes to extend its first island goals into this larger geographic sphere. China’s assertion into the second island chain is made difficult due to the strong presence of the US and its allies including Japan and South Korea who not only have their own significant military forces, but also provide air, naval, logistic and supply bases to the US Additionally, the US Navy dominates in the La Perouse, Tsugaru and Tsushima Straits, allowing it to move quickly to the Korean peninsula and to defend Guam, its main air and naval base in the Western Pacific.
To date, China’s sea experience beyond the second island chain has centered on its counter-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden where it keeps an on-going, three ship naval presence to defend Chinese mercantile ships from pirate attacks. This is China’s first sustained naval operation outside of Asia. China has also begun to engage in some naval activities in the EEZs of other nations, particularly around Guam and Hawaii. China is also making long-distance deployments a more constant part of its naval training cycle. In 2012, for instance, it sent naval tasks groups beyond the first island chain seven times. Limited logistical support hampers China’s ability to operate its navy more widely. In the coming years, China will work with its allies to create welcoming logistical ports in the Indian Ocean and farther afield. An example would be its assistance in helping Pakistan to construct the deep water port Gwadar. China would also like to develop the capability to project power across the globe for sustained, high-intensity operations similar to those that the United Kingdom engaged in when retaking the Falkland Islands in early 1980. China would also like to displace US influence in littoral and more distant waters.
The Nine Dashed Line and China’s Territorial Disputes within the South China Sea
China’s Nine-Dashed Line
Within the first island chain, China has drawn the nine-dashed line by which it asserts that the majority of the South China Sea falls within its traditional maritime boundary line despite the boundary being more than a thousand miles from China’s mainland in several instances. Since November 2012, China has added a map with this line into all its passports in order to reinforce the validity of its nine-dashed claim, and makes increasing reference to the area in its government documents. Not only are islands, reefs and banks within the nine dashed line contested by many neighbouring countries, but there are also competing claims on the area’s fishing, oil and gas resources. Moreover, the South China Sea is a vital shipping lane for North East Asia. 80% of oil shipped to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan travels through South China Sea waters.
Within the East and South China Seas, China claims sovereignty to many islands also claimed by its neighbours. For instance, the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea are also claimed by Vietnam. The Spratly Islands, wholly claimed by China, are partly claimed by Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, and Vietnam, with Indonesia also claiming maritime rights in the area without actually staking a claim to any territory. Additionally, there are disputes with the over the Macclesfield Bank, and the Philippines and Taiwan over the Scarborough Shoal. The Macclesfield Bank, also known as the Zhongsha Qundao, is a completely submerged chain of reefs that does not qualify as territory under international law since it cannot be inhabited by human beings. The Scarborough Shoal, known in Chinese as the Nanyan Dao, is a group of small islets or rocks and thus subject to international jurisdiction. One motivation for China to claim these islands is that it will allow it to expand its EEZ throughout the area.
Disputed Territory in the East China Sea within the First Island Chain
Map of the Senkaku and Diaoyu Islands
In the East China Sea, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands are also claimed by Japan and Taiwan. At stake in these contested areas vast amounts of natural gas and oil beneath the sea beds as well as rich fishing resources. The East China Sea alone, for instance, is believed to hold approximately 7 trillion ft.³ of natural gas and up to 100 billion barrels of oil. Japan has suggested that the East China Sea be divided into separate EEZ with a line equidistant from each country allowing each to share the offshore oil and gas deposits. Instead, China claims an extended continental shelf reaching almost to Okinawa, giving it effectively exclusive rights to almost all the East China Sea oil and gas. In an effort to create a precedent for its claim and in part to intimidate, China has increased its naval, paramilitary and its joint naval/air force training activities in the sea/air area surrounding Japan.
PLA Air Force (PLAAF)
Chinese Airforce Jet
The PLAAF is in control of China’s territorial air security. It currently commands 398,000 officers and men divided between its seven military area commands in Shenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu. The PLAAF is composed of aviation, ground air defense, radar, airborne and electronic countermeasures arms. As of 2013, it commands approximately 1700 Fighters, 600 Bombers/Attack and 475 transport aircraft. While China increasingly flies modern fourth-generation and early fifth generation aircraft, about 68% of Chinese air fleet are still second and third generation aircraft or upgraded models of these aircraft.
That said, in 2013 China was considered to have over 500 modern fourth generation aircraft, outnumbering most air forces in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s fourth-generation fighters include the J-10, J-11, Su-27, Su-30, JH-7, J-15, J-20 and J-31 aircraft. China is also developing its fifth generation fighter force, slated to take flight around 2020. These new fighters will have significant maneuverability, stealth, internal weapons bays, modern avionics and sensors that offer better situational awareness for network-centric combat theaters, radars with high-level targeting capabilities and protection against electronic countermeasures, and integrated electronic warfare systems with advanced communication and GPS navigation functions.
As it modernizes, the PLAAF is emphasizing the development of new generation aircraft which will be effective in its Local Wars strategy and which can support the other PLA branches along the entire periphery of China and increasingly in the East, Yellow and South China Seas. China is also upgrading it H-6 bomber fleet to achieve greater range and to be armed with long-range cruise missiles. China is also developing a large aircraft likely to be called the Y-20 which will work in conjunction with its smaller fleet of strategic airlift aircraft.
China’s commercial and military aviation industries work together to advance China’s overall aeronautics standards, and share technology and systems. China’s military aviation has benefited from business partnerships with Western aviation and aerospace firms where technology shared for commercial purposes has then been employed to improve China’s military aircraft.
China is also building a state-of-the-art national integrated air defense system. The air defense system is multidimensional, employing weapon systems, radar and C4ISR- Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance – platforms to counter multiple types of aircraft at various ranges and altitudes. A further goal of the air defense system is to protect China from precision strike ballistic and cruise missiles, particularly those fired from long distances. China is also upgrading its early warning, command and communication networks, and it is improving its long distance airstrike capabilities.
Drones
Chinese Drone
China is also developing unmanned aerial vehicles or drones which currently seem to be largely founded upon reverse engineering of foreign technologies. Research indicates that China plans to build as many as 40,000 land- and sea-based unmanned systems between 2014 in 2023. By way of comparison, the Pentagon only operates approximately 7000 aerial drones. In 2013 alone, the Chinese unveiled four drone models – the Xianglong, Yilong, Sky Saber, and Lijian. The Pentagon believes that the Yilong, Sky Saber, and Lijian are all precision-strike weapons, and the Lijian drone has some stealth capability. To date, most of China’s drone fleet has been employed in surveillance of China’s domestic population. For instance, China has been flying drones in Xinjiang in order to counter unrest in the province.
In June 2015, China released pictures of its new Divine Eagle, one of the world’s largest twin fuselage drones. Influenced by the Russian designs – there’s speculation that China stole critical design features from Russia – the Divine Eagle is a high-altitude, long-endurance multi-mission platform with both long-range surveillance as well as strike capabilities with some stealth capability. It is reported to carry multiple Active Electronically Scanned Array radars as well as Airborne Moving Target Indicators that are designed to track airborne targets such as enemy fighters and cruise missiles. This large drone platform is ultimately expected to act as an effective satellites to aid in the targeting of missiles and other tactical platforms well beyond the first island chain. When fully operational, it will be harder for the United States and its allies to operate undetected close to Chinese shores.
China has also been progressing its ability to electronically jam US drone flights, especially those flying over the South and East China Seas which are conducting surveillance on China’s island construction and other activities in disputed waters and territories.
PLA Missile Forces – the Second Artillery Force (PLASAF)
Map of range of Chinese Missiles
China’s Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) controls China’s nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles. The PLASAF runs missile bases, training bases, specialized support units, academic and research institutions. It has approximately 100,000 men under its command. China has one of the largest, most diverse and rapidly growing missile development programs in the world. It is currently estimated that the PLASAF has command over approximately 1000-2000 short-range ballistic missiles, 50-75 intercontinental ballistic missiles, 75-100 medium range ballistic missiles, 5-20 intermediate range ballistic missiles, 200-500 ground launched cruise missiles. In 2015, it was also confirmed that China now has nuclear missile technology with multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV) – or the capability to place multiple warheads on a single missile and deliver the individual warheads to separate targets.
The development of China’s missile force has been impressively quick. Even just ten years back, China had a very limited ability to attack targets within or beyond the first island chain. China has modernized its missile force under a strategy of dual deterrence and dual operations. The basic idea behind dual deterrence and dual operations is that both conventional and nuclear missile capabilities will most effectively deter China’s adversaries from starting a war and defend China during wartime. Today, the SAF has the ability to credibly deter adversaries at intercontinental ranges; its DF-3, B-6 and LACM missiles, for instance, can strike targets 3300 km away. It has been a priority for China to extend its strike warfare further from its borders. Other objectives of the PLASAF program include effecting A2/AD operations, and deterring any move by Taiwan toward independence. Indeed, China has an estimated 1100 short range ballistic missiles currently targeted at Taiwan.
China is also developing a missile defense system involving the use of kinetic energy intercept at exo-atmospheric altitudes as well as intercepts of ballistic missiles and other aerospace vehicles within the upper atmosphere. China has already demonstrated an ability to intercept ballistic missiles at midcourse using ground-based missiles. To protect its missile systems, China has developed a 5000 km long network to mitigate the risk that its missile network could be materially weakened by a preemptive strike. For each missile launcher, China also has a large inventory of reserve missiles to ensure its ability to engage in sustained conflict if China were to come under attack.
Nuclear Weapons
An early Chinese nuclear bomb
China launched its nuclear weapons program in 1955 and detonated its first nuclear bomb in 1964. China is in a unique geo-strategic situation in that it shares land borders with four nuclear powers – Russia, North Korea, India and Pakistan – and faces the consideration that of the other four nuclear powers, three – the US, France and the UK – all have the ability to reach China with their nuclear weapons. China therefore believes that the maintenance of a nuclear arsenal is of existential importance. It also believes that its risk of being attacked by nuclear weapons declines significantly if an adversary’s initial nuclear strike does not eliminate China’s ability to retaliate. China therefore values secrecy over transparency in regards to its nuclear program.
It is estimated that China has approximately 130-195 deployed nuclear-capable weapons ready to be deployed on a variety of short- and long-range ballistic land- and sub-based missiles systems, although some US experts believe that China is hiding a much larger nuclear arsenal. Improving the range and numbers of its submarine-launched nuclear arsenal is a priority. In total, China’s has a nuclear inventory of approximately 250- 300 nuclear weapons. Additionally, it is also believed that China has a stockpile of about 16 tons of highly enriched uranium and 2 tons of plutonium. China also operates reprocessing spent plutonium fuel plants. These facilities isolate plutonium that is created from the reactor from spent fuel. China also runs an experimental fast breeder reactor and has been is considering purchasing two further fast reactors from Russia. If so compelled, China may be able to use plutonium created in these facilities for military use.
China has conducted 45 nuclear tests. In the 1990s, China accelerated the pace of its nuclear testing in order to complete a series of tests on smaller warhead designs before becoming a signatory of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty created to prevent all nuclear explosions in all environments for both military and civilian purposes. China is also a signatory to the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. In 2002, China ratified the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Additional Protocol IAEA which allows the IAEA to conduct extended inspections of nuclear facilities to verify records maintained by State authorities on the whereabouts of nuclear material under their control, to check IAEA-installed instruments and surveillance equipment, and to confirm physical inventories of nuclear material. China also has a “no first use” policy and a policy to not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.
China’s Reserve Forces, Militia and Paramilitary Forces
Ministry of State Security
In addition to the PLA’s armed forces, China also has approximately 510,000 military Reserve Forces, and an estimated 8 million Militia Members. Reserve officers are recruited from China’s pools of retired servicemen, civil officials, cadre of the people’s armed forces department, cadre of militia and civilian technicians. The Reserve Forces are designed to buttress regular PLA units during times of conflict in areas such as logistics and information warfare. The PLA Militia Forces are under the command of local military district governments, and are dedicated to logistics and technical support, air defense, internal security and stability, counterterrorism, disaster relief and emergency rescue. Each year, approximately 90,000 militia guard the country’s bridges, tunnels and railway, 200,000 join in military-police-civilian defense patrols, 900,000 in emergency response, rescue and relief operation following major natural disasters, and nearly 2,000,000 help to maintain social order in rural and urban areas. Increasingly the militia is being organized into specialized technical units including anti-aircraft artillery, ground artillery, missile, communication, engineering, anti-chemical, reconnaissance and information units. Other units are being developed to serve separately the Navy, Air Force and Second Artillery Force. The Militia is trained to help during natural and other emergencies and to maintain domestic stability. Most Militia hold regular jobs as well as being Militia members.
China’s other security and paramilitary forces include the Ministry of State Security which engages in foreign and domestic intelligence and counter-intelligence collection, and the Ministry of Public Security which is responsible for internal security and oversees the 1.9 million police personnel which in turn provide domestic patrol, traffic control, detective investigations, anti-riot and anti-terrorism services. China’s 660,000 strong People’s Armed Police Force acts as an internal security force, operates as a rapid response force for public emergencies, guards critical infrastructure and resources including gold mines, hydroelectric projects and transportation facilities, combats terrorism and supports national economic development. The People’s Armed Police Force is divided between the Internal Security Forces and the Border Defense Force including the Coast Guard, the China Marine Survey Agency, the Maritime Safety Administration and Fisheries Enforcement.
Upgrading all PLA force
Training Chinese troops
As it reduces the overall troop numbers, China is increasingly recruiting personnel with higher levels of education. The PLA gives bonuses of up to $3500 to college graduates who volunteer for the Armed Forces and tuition allowances to college student deferring university education for PLA service. In 2009, for instance, the PLA recruited 100,000 college graduates. The PLA also grants civilians with particular technical skills NCO rank when they join up. It also supports veterans seeking advanced degrees and provides them with advanced employment opportunities and exemptions from postgraduate entrance exams. China’s 2015 Military Strategy Document China is also placing more emphasis on training it forces in military theory- “to bring it into place a system of advanced military theory commensurate with the requirements of future wars.”
As part of its training, the 2015 Military Strategy Document reaffirms that all forces in the PLA “always treat ideological and political building as the first priority” so that the PLA will carry forward “the Core Socialist Values, cultivate the Core Values of Contemporary Revolutionary Service Personnel” and will uphold “the Communist Party of China absolute leadership over the military” and “the Armed Forces will resolutely follow the commands of the CPC Central committee at all times and under all conditions.”
Military Alliances and Cooperation
Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
China’s 2015 Military Strategy Document states that it is China’s objective to “actively expanded military and security cooperation, deepen its military relations with major powers, neighboring countries and other developing countries, and promote the establishment of the regional framework for security and cooperation.” China participates in a myriad of military alliances, multilateral dialogue and cooperation mechanism such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting plus, ASEAN Regional Forum, Shangri-La Dialogue, Jakarta International Defense Dialogue, in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium.
Arguably China’s most important current military relationship is with Russia. The US rebalance to Asia and Russia’s involvement in Crimea and Ukraine – sanctioned by the West -have led to an improved relationship between China and Russia. President Xi Jinping’s made his first official state visit to Moscow in 2013 while Putin made his first foreign trip to China after re-assuming the Russian presidency in 2012. Concurrently, the two countries signed agreements on cooperation in military exchanges, technology, energy and trade. China and Russia also ratified the 2013-2016 implementation guidelines of the China-Russia Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. Additionally, in July 2013, Russia and China’s Navies staged their largest ever joint naval drill, the Joint Sea – 2013 exercises, and the two countries are also conducting anti-terrorism drills together. Bilateral trade between the two countries is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015 and $200 billion by 2020, driven in part by a 2013 $270 billion deal in which Russia will double its oil exports to China.
China is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprised of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. The key objective of the SCO is enhanced regional security focused on combating the “three evils” of terrorism, extremism and separatism; in the case of separatism, the SCO cooperates to ensure that “color revolutions” do not threaten the stability of the region. Annual joint practice operations in various fields of conflict have increased to include a total of more than 5000 participants from all six member states. The majority of these participants come from the China and Russia; closer military and strategic ties between these two states is one of the most significant outcomes of the SCO’s development. In 2015, for instance, China and Russia conducted joint naval exercises in the Mediterranean.
The promotion of closer economic ties is also an objective of the SCO. China has proposed, for instance, that the Russian led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) – a trading blocking comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia – connect with China’s rapidly developing Silk Road Economic Belt – a series of economic initiatives that follow the Old Silk Roads across Eurasia and South Asia. China sees closer economic ties including everything from the increased trade of oil to the expansion of transportation, infrastructure and cultural ties across the region.
Importantly, the SCO is expanding its members to include two of its three observers – India and Pakistan; the third observer Iran is not currently eligible due to international sanctions, although this may change if the Iranian nuclear deal is ratified. Pakistan believes membership in the SCO will provide it with enhanced tools to combat extremism within its borders, will enhance its international prestige, will potentially help improve its relations with India and may help it resolve its dispute with India over Kashmir. India sees the SCO as a mechanism to improve its relations with Pakistan as well as Russia, China and the countries in Central Asia. From China’s perspective, expanding SCO membership increases the prestige of an organization in which it has a leading position.
Since 2001, when China first became involved in UN backed peacekeeping operations (PKOs), it has rapidly increased its level of commitment. At the beginning of 2012, China had more than 1800 troops involved in PKOs, slightly down from a high of 2100 in 2008, but still more than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council. In 2014, China had over 3000 Chinese soldiers serving with the UN.
Future Trends
Chinese soldiers
China’s 2015 Military Strategy Document sees the world becoming increasingly multi-polar and globally interconnected with “historic changes in the balance of power, global governance structure, Asia-Pacific geostrategic landscape.” It sees increased international competition “in the economic, scientific and technological and military fields” and “for the redistribution of power, rights and interests”. Against this changing landscape, it is China’s goal to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation … by 2049 when the People’s Republic of China marks its centenary”. China sees its military buildup as key to allowing China to benefit from this shifting landscape and as key to reclaiming its positioning as a global world leader.
Given this, it can be expected that China’s military build-up will continue apace. Indeed, it is China’s goal to develop a world-class military in all branches over the coming decades. Thus, as its economic growth rate natural slows from historic blistering rates, it is possible that China’s military spending as a percentage of GDP may increase above its 2% level.
In terms of emphasis, China will continue to prioritize space and other technologies that will give it an edge in “informatized” warfare; China views technology as key to offsetting its deficits in military strength and experience. Continued naval and missile build-up will be prioritize; it sees these arms as being particularly critical to diminishing US military hegemony. Specifically, its paramilitary naval forces are expected to increase by 25% over the next decade; China sees its paramilitary as a way to assert its near seas claims in way that is less confrontational than if the same actions were taken by its navy. China will also prioritize the development of air force and drone stealth technology as part of its A2/AD strategy. China will also invest heavily in underground facilities to safeguard all branches of its military.
Such upgrades on technology will continue to reduce the need for raw manpower – in line with most modern militaries around the world. To this end, Xi Jinping announced a further reduction in troop numbers of 300,000 during his speech in China’s large military parade on September 3rd 2015. Though significant, this will still leave the PLA as the largest military force in the world.
China will continue to use non-military tools to achieve its objectives. These include everything from increasing its international media presence to pushing ahead with its build-up of land masses on atolls in the South China Sea to continuing its massive lending, investment and aid programs.
Going forward, China will also place increased emphasis on the quality of its military training with more emphasis being placed on training in difficult weather, terrain and electromagnetic conditions. China will also continue to improve troop skills with its new technologies and weaponry. China will also engage in more joint training between its military branches. Prior to 2000, joint training across branches was very infrequent. China will also continue to participate in joint training organizations with its allies.
Overtime, China will also increasingly develop its own indigenous military equipment and weapons systems so that it can limit its dependence on foreign weapons systems, particularly those of Russia. It will also work to expand its global port and base access so that it can project its forces farther from its shores.
As China develops indigenous weapons, it can be expected that its military exports will continue to grow. From 2009 to 2013, Chinese arms exports totaled approximately $14 billion. To date, these weapons have been less sophisticated than Western and Russian exports. Pakistan is China’s largest arms customer; the two countries also co-develop weapons system such as the JF-17 fighter aircraft and the F-22P frigate. China uses its weapons sales as part of a multi-pronged strategy to promote trade, access natural resources and expand its global influence. From its customers point of view, Chinese arms come with fewer political strings attached which appeals to those who might otherwise have little access to Western weaponry.
China can also be expected to more aggressively assert its claims over contested territory and resources in its near seas, actions which come in conflict with its assertion of a peaceful rise. Interfering with resupply missions to the Philippine outpost on the Thomas Shoal and the deployment of oil rigs to what Vietnam considers its EEZ are recent examples of this greater assertion.
Modern Chinese History I: The Republic of China 1911-1925
/in Modern Chinese History /by chinafolioIntroduction
Delegations during signing of the Treaty of Versailles
The Qing Imperial Monarchy was ultimately toppled by a decentralized revolution. Once it had been overthrown, it proved hard to find a new governmental structure that was satisfactory to all the regional economic and political interests which had worked to depose the Manchus. All agreed that China should be unified, that foreign imperialism must be halted and that Chssets. However, revolutionaries wanted to achieve these goals through the wholesale restructure of government and society while conservatives wanted a new political and societal structure that preserved the influence they had acquired during the Qing Dynasty.
The first decade of the Republic of China passed without it being able to install an effective central government. As regional warlords became more powerful and as China became disillusioned with the West following the Versailles Treaty’s transfer of Germany’s Chinese concessions to Japan, many educated Chinese increasingly feared that their country would be sliced up by colonial powers.
In response, intellectuals renewed their search through every kind of political organizational theory in the hope of finding the best governmental structure for China. For instance, the merits of organizing China’s social fabric around Confucianism were hotly debated. As part parcel of this debate, many began to argue for the use of vernacular Chinese in writing and education in order to improve literacy and the accessibility of information. The advantages of Marxist socialism were explored. In 1921, the Chinese Communist Party was founded in Shanghai with 53 members. Its founding corresponded with a rise of urban labor activism and of a merchant class that was increasingly nationalistic. All the while, western scientific knowledge was sought in order to advance China’s modernization. China’s border regions took advantage of this upheaval to gain greater economic and political independence.
Yuan Shikai, the Kuomintang, the Second Revolution, Failed Dynastic Restoration
General Yuan Shikai, President of the Republic of China
In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was deposed. On 12th February 1912, the Republic of China was founded. For his help in overthrowing the dynasty, Sun Yat-sen agreed that Yuan Shikai would become the first president of the new Republic. Meanwhile, Sun Yat-sen and his followers founded the Kuomintang (KMT) or the Nationalist Party, also referred to as the Guomindang. The KMT was a loyal opposition party designed to compete in electoral politics with Yuan Shikai and his followers. During the first assembly elections held in December 1912, the KMT won approximately 43% of the vote. Yuan Shikai was not pleased with these electoral results, nor with the KMT’s constant criticism of his policies.
The KMT was particularly censorious of Yuan’s management of national finances. By 1913, ineffective taxation meant that the government was running an approximately 13 million yuan monthly deficit. National cash flow was further hampered by foreign control over many of China’s economic assets. The foreign-controlled Imperial Maritime Customs, for instance, directly deposited China’s custom revenue in foreign banks which was then used to pay the interest on China’s rapidly accumulating foreign debt. Even salt taxes were under foreign supervision. Yet, instead of addressing tax and revenue collection directly, Yuan organized an additional loan of £25 million from a five-power foreign banking consortium. Yuan felt the loan necessary to give him the resources he needed to defend his power. Sun Yat-sen and his followers argued that the loan would further increase foreign control over China’s economy.
Song Jiaoren
In 1913, the KMT campaign manager and a potential-prime minister, Song Jiaoren, was assassinated. Many assumed that his death was the result of orders given by Yuan Shikai. The KMT responded to the murder by calling for Yuan Shikai’s resignation. When he refused, they launched what has been called the Second Revolution. Yuan Shikai crushed the revolt easily, forcing Sun Yat-sen to flee to Japan. Yuan’s quick victory against the KMT fueled his already growing dreams of grandeur. While Yuan supported a strong, modern, industrialized Chinese state, he now envisioned that this state would be ruled by a dynasty with himself as emperor.
Foreign powers observed changing events in China closely. Their main priority was to protect their Chinese investments. These totaled almost $788 million in 1912 and reached $1.61 billion by 1914. They also wished to safeguard their nationals in the event of any recurrence of a Boxer-like, anti-foreign outbreak.
To obtain foreign support for his imperial ambitions, Yuan signed agreements with Russia and Britain giving them special privileges in Outer Mongolia and Tibet respectively. Yuan also agreed to the bulk of Japan’s infamous Twenty-One Demands presented to China by the Japanese ambassador in January 1915. The Twenty-One Demands effectively allowed Japan to take significant jurisdiction over Shandong, South Manchuria, Eastern Mongolia and China’s coastline. It also gave Japan the right to extract revenue from railway and mining concessions and placed in joint Sino-Japanese administration the huge Han-Ye-Ping Iron and Coal works in central China. Yuan’s American advisor, Frank Goodwin, contended that China might be better suited to a constitutional monarchy than it was to a republic, and thus also did not object to Yuan’s move to assume imperial power.
Zhang Xun, Qing-loyalist who attempted to restore Emperor Puyi
With foreign support in place, Yuan’s monarchical movement went public. In December 1915, Yuan accepted “petitions” by provisional representatives which asked that he become emperor. His reign, to be called Hong Xian, or the Glorious Constitution, was to start on 1st January 1916. Yet he badly misread the Chinese public. The Chinese were particularly angry about Yuan’s signing of the humiliating Twenty-One Demands. On 23 December 1915, an ultimatum was delivered to Yuan to stand down or face civil war. Thwarted, Yuan Shikai died in June 1916 of kidney failure, leaving a power vacuum and no national consensus about how China should move forward politically.
Warlord General Zhang Xun, a zealous supporter of the Qing imperial family, led his army into Beijing in mid-June 1917 to restore the abdicated Qing Emperor Puyi, now a boy of 11. His efforts were foiled by rival generals, and once-again the emperor was deposed. Instead of being punished, it was decided that Puyi was to be given a modern Western education under European tutors. General Zhang’s failed insurrection destroyed the pretense that China’s central government had any significant power. Instead, power devolved to the provinces into the hands of warlords.
Warlordism 1916-1927
Chinese Warlord-era General Wu Peifu on Time Cover
During the Warlord Era, a nominal government continued to claim authority in Beijing, but its power was almost entirely restricted to the capital and to relations with foreigners. In actuality, the political structure of China was completely fragmented. Generals and regional landlords vied with each other for power and formed constantly shifting alliances in a manner reminiscent of the Warring States Period.
The nature of the warlords was as varied as the provinces over which they ruled. Some were ruthless despots and thugs while others were educated and worked to instill in their men their own ideas of morality. Some subjugated whole provinces, financing their armies through local taxes gathered by their own officials. Others ruled only a few towns, raising money from theft. Some warlords supported the Republic, preferring that their territory be reintegrated into a valid constitutional state. A number choose to work with foreign powers, whether they were the British in Shanghai, the Japanese in Manchuria or the French in the southwest. Some grew opium in order to generate revenues.
World War I and the May 4th Movement
Japanese Troops in Manchuria
When World War I broke out, to strengthen its claims on Chinese territories, Japan entered into a series of secret treaties with Britain, Russia, the United States and the acting Chinese government. The February 1917 Anglo-Japanese agreement required Britain to support Japanese claims in Shandong and agreed that Germany’s Pacific possessions north of the equator were to go to Japan while those in the south could be claimed by Britain. The February 1917 Russo-Japanese agreement acknowledged Japan’s Twenty-One Demands and Russia’s territorial gains in Outer Mongolia. The November 1917 American-Japanese Lansing-Ishii Agreement concluded that: “geographical propinquity created special relations between nations”. In other words, the US recognized that Japan, by virtue of its geography, had a special position in China. Finally, in a September 1918 secret pact, the Japanese were granted the right to build two railways in Shandong and to station Japanese troops there for a ¥20 million payment to Beijing.
Although there was no historical precedent of China engaging in global events far from its shores, China entered World War I on the side of the Allies in 1917. China believed that if it fought to defeat Germany, then it would be able to reclaim Germany’s Chinese concessions. While China could not offer the Allies combat troops, it could provide manpower which would free up French and British males to go to the front. By 1918, an estimated 140,000 Chinese were laboring in France. Ultimately, 2000 Chinese workers died in France and a further 543 lost their lives at sea.
Chinese Labor Corps load sacks of oats at Boulogne during World War I
After World War I ended, the Chinese delegation went to the Versailles peace negotiations believing they would benefit from the principles of democracy and self-determination which Woodrow Wilson espoused. Specifically, they hoped to recover Shandong and to abolish the so-called ‘Unequal Treaties’, under which foreign powers maintained privileged statuses in China. Instead, they were informed that the peace conference would deal only with those problems arising from the conclusion of the war. Only Shandong, therefore, qualified to be discussed. Moreover, the secret treaties that Japan had concluded, including the secret pact with the acting Beijing’s government, meant that China’s claims to Shandong had been effectively forfeited.
Beijing students protesting the Treaty of Versailles on May 4, 1919
The inability of China to achieve any of their objectives, despite having fought with the Allies, humiliated and angered China. Its sting felt all the sharper as it came on top of the disgrace of Japan’s Twenty-One Demands. In protest, on May 4th, 1919, 3000 students from 13 universities began to peacefully march through Beijing. They handed out leaflets written in Chinese vernacular which explained how the loss of Shandong was equivalent to the end of China’s territorial integrity. They called on all Chinese to protest. The march turned violent at the house of Cao Rulin, the Minister of Communications. Cao had backed the pro-Japanese Anfu group and was considered by many of the protestors to be one of China’s worst traitors. Inside, although Cao was absent, the students found Zhang Zongxiang the Chinese ambassador to Japan. They severely beat Zhang and set Cao’s house on fire. Thirty-two students were arrested, but they were set free three days later.
Further protests erupted throughout China. The student protests generated nation-wide sympathy. In Shanghai alone, as many as 60,000 workers staged some form of work stoppage in solidarity. These strikes marked a new development in Chinese history. Thereafter, protesters frequently made good use of strikes to fight injustice, despite the risks of unemployment, beatings and even death. The demonstrations, strikes and boycotts that followed became known as the May 4th Movement. The May 4th Movement is seen by many to mark the beginning of modern Chinese nationalism. Today, May 4th continues to be marked as an important commemoration with the date carrying huge political significance. The immediate result of the students’ actions was that the Chinese delegation left France without signing the Versailles Treaty.
Intellectual Awakening
Yan Fu translated Darwin’s works into Chinese
The failure of the Republic, the rise of the warlords, the betrayal of Versailles and the increasing encroachment of imperial powers into Chinese territory heightened a Chinese fear present since the time of the Opium Wars: that China was at risk of being dismembered. This fear caused Chinese intellectuals and leaders to search for tools and philosophies that would allow China to become a modern, unified nation free from imperialism. Many continued to try to adapt western philosophies and science to the Chinese situation.
In 1896, for instance, Yan Fu translated into Chinese the writings of Huxley and Spencer which applied Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” theories to human society: just as animals struggle for survival, Huxley and Spencer argued that people – and eventually their societies – also struggle, with the weak becoming prey to the strong. To prevent extinction, Yan argued that China and the Han Chinese people must evolve new strength. Early twentieth century Chinese thinkers applied the idea of strength broadly. Indeed, in his 1917 essay, A Study of Physical Education, Mao Zedong criticized the Chinese’s traditional aversion to physical exercise, arguing that physical prowess strengthened a people’s determination as well as making them more effective combatants.
Confucianism and traditionalism were also attacked. Except for friend-friend, the remaining four relationships of Confucianism – ruler-ruled, father-son, elder brother-younger brother, and husband-wife – were hierarchical in nature. Many intellectuals argued that this rigid social structure prevented China from modernizing, as it encouraged subservience and discouraged independent thinking. It also completely subjugated women. In a series of 1919 articles, Mao advocated the importance of granting women greater rights, arguing that empowered women would allow China to face the world with the full strength of its 400 million people.
Young Mao Zedong in 1919 advocated women’s rights and physical exercise
Increasingly, these views were expressed in magazines and publications such as the New Tide, The Weekly Critic and The New Youth. These magazines helped expand the intellectual debate both geographically and throughout society. Often their articles were written in a simple vernacular style that could be understood by those with little education.
Debate about China’s national language began soon after the Republic was founded. By 1913 it was agreed that Mandarin would be the national language. Pronunciation was standardized and phonetic symbols were introduced to represent this pronunciation. By 1917 intellectuals began to argue that this standardized Mandarin should be written in a vernacular which was closely aligned to spoken language as opposed to the difficult classical language of Confucian scholars.
Other Chinese intellectuals lost faith in the West after Versailles and found it difficult to accept the West as both teacher and oppressor. Intellectuals such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu began studying Marxist socialism and the Bolshevik Revolution. Socialism was appealing because it offered a way to reject both the constraints of Chinese tradition and Western domination. It also represented a goal yet unrealized in Western Europe and America. Its success in China would put China ideologically ahead of the capitalist states.
The Russian Revolution also brought home to many educated Chinese that the outside world was changing in radical ways. Seeing these changes caused many Chinese intellectuals to believe in China’s own ability for radical change. The intellectual and psychological appeal of Marxism was further strengthened in 1919 by the Soviet readiness to renounce the old Tsarist special rights and privileges in China. Even though the Soviets later backtracked from some aspects of their offer – specifically regarding returning Chinese railways without compensation – the Chinese remained appreciative of their gesture, particularly in contrast to Western and Japanese imperialist policies.
Pictured in Red Square in 1919, Soviet revolutionary leaders inspired Chinese thinkers
Increasingly debates within China centered on the relative advantages of gradual social reforms versus rapid radical change. In contrast to radical thinkers advocating a complete overthrow of Chinese societal norms, pragmatists such as Hu Shu argued for steady change in Chinese society that would be driven by scientific and methodical solutions to specific practical problems. This pragmatic, evolutionary method was partially adapted by the KMT. Communists, on the other hand, agreed with thinkers such as John Dewey who visited China from 1919 to 1921. Dewey argued that China’s 1911 Revolution was failing because it was externally imposed and did not alter the norms of Chinese life which were still largely governed by Confucianism. Chinese communists interpreted this to mean that China required a complete overhaul of Chinese society and industry.
Yet, regardless of their approach, most Chinese thinkers of the era recognized the need to adapt foreign ideas creatively to the Chinese experience. This was especially true for the Marxists. Li Dazhao argued, for instance, that China was being subjugated by foreign imperialists that exploited the Chinese people just as capitalists exploited workers in more developed countries. In China, it was often the imperialists who owned the means of production and took the workers’ surplus value. Perhaps most critically, if Marxism was to be applied to China, somehow the central role Marxist theory gave to the urban proletariat in revolution would have to evolve. China was a country of peasants despite its growing number of urban workers.
As Li, and his colleagues grappled with how to adapt Marxism to China, he encouraged his students to work in the Chinese countryside around Peking. By the early 1920s, under Li’s guidance, Peking University students had founded the Mass Education Speech Corps and were traveling to villages. Those students learned firsthand about the desperation and the poverty of the Chinese countryside. This poverty was often further aggravated by droughts and floods bringing famine and plague.
The Birth of the Chinese Communist Party 1921 – Li Dazhao and Mao Zedong
Li Dazhao, one of China’s first Marxists
Increasingly, the National University in Beijing became a hotbed of radicalism. As early as 1918 Li Dazhao, then a librarian, had declared himself a Marxist. He founded the New Tide Society followed by the Marxist Research Society which eventually became the Society for the Study of Socialism. By March 1920 the various Marxist groups in Beijing united to form the Beijing Society for the study of Marxism. Li’s library assistant was Mao Zedong. Born to a wealthy farmer in Shaoshan, Hunan, Mao took up a Chinese nationalist and anti-imperialist outlook early in life after having been profoundly influenced by events such as the May 4th Movement. He too was an early adopter of Marxism-Leninism.
In April 1920, Russian Gregory Voitinsky met with Li and other radical academics and students. In Shanghai he held meetings with Chen Duxiu, an extremist from the May 4th generation. It was during these meetings that it was decided to create the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The first secret Congress of the CCP took place on July 23, 1921 on the premises of a girls’ school in Shanghai, but was eventually relocated to a boat on the South Lake near Jiaxing in Zhejiang province for greater secrecy. 13 delegates attended representing the 53 members of the local Chinese communist groups in existence. Mao Zedong was said to be among these delegates, though this has been questioned by some academics. Early CCP objectives included the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, the rule of the proletariat and an alliance with the Third International, the Comintern. Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, the Comintern’s goal was to foster world communist revolution. Additionally, the CCP planned to establish more labor unions, publish magazines and exploit other avenues to organize and educate the working class. During the Second Congress in July 1922, it was decided that the CCP would create a temporary alliance with the KMT led by Sun Yat-sen in order to advance its revolutionary objectives.
Li Dazhao meeting with Russian Voitinsky
However, while the early Congresses were able to agree overall objectives for the fledgling Communist Party, the means to achieve these objectives continued to be debated. In Shanghai, Chen subscribed to the general European Marxist view that industrial workers were the key to revolution. In Beijing, Li continued to argue that as the peasantry constituted more than 90% of the population and as agriculture was still the basis of the national economy, the peasants must lead the Chinese Communist revolution. This argument strongly influenced the thinking of Mao Zedong. After Li was executed on the orders of a Beijing-based warlord in 1927, it was Mao who carried on the push to make the peasant central to the Chinese Communist Revolution, putting his mentor’s ideas eventually into practice.
The Rise of the Chinese Workers Movement
Early railway car factory in northern China
At the same time that Marxist ideas were beginning to be seriously explored in China, China was seeing the emergence of a politically conscious merchant class and urban labor force numbering between two and three million by 1919. Western and Japanese imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had spurred urbanization and industrialization in northeast China and the Treaty Ports. This industrialization was driven by the coupling of foreign capital with abundant, cheap labor. When the World War I erupted, Europeans powers recalled all nationals from China, allowing a new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs and managers to fill their void. This gave the new Chinese entrepreneurs invaluable business experience and allowed them to make large fortunes. Japan, too, competed to take advantage of the European absence.
Working conditions in these factories were often horrific. Conflict between workers and managers grew progressively more frequent. Indeed, by the 1920s, there was already a history of trade labor unions and strikes as was seen during the May 4th protests. As CCP power grew, it would increasingly exploit this labor movement to its advantage.
Nanjing Road, Shanghai in the 1920s
A pinnacle of this labor protest occurred on May 30th, 1925. The crisis started when Chinese workers, angry at being locked out of a Japanese-owned Shanghai textile mill during a strike, broke into the factory and damaged machinery. Japanese guards reacted by firing into the crowd, killing one worker. His death ignited public anger, student demonstrations, further strikes and arrests. On the May 30th thousands of workers and students gathered at the Nanjing Road Police Station, insisting on the release of six arrested Chinese students and protesting foreign imperialism. As the numbers of protesters increased and as they began to chant “kill the foreigners”, the commanding British inspector ordered the group to disband and then fired before the protesters could obey, killing 11 and wounding 20.
Chinese anger over the slaughter spread nationally. At least 28 other cities held rallies in solidarity with the May 30th victims and a general strike was called in Shanghai. Foreign powers brought in troops to protect their international settlements. The tension from the May 30th incident was escalated in June when a major strike was launched in Hong Kong targeting the British. During a strike rally, British troops shot at protesters, killing 52 Chinese and wounding 100. Chinese fury boiled over and the strike in Hong Kong – which eventually lasted 16 months – was coupled by a boycott of British goods. Not until December, when the British police inspector and his lieutenants were fired and when an indemnity of 75,000 Chinese dollars was paid to the deceased families did public outrage quiet.
Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang
Map of the People’s Republic of Mongolia
Although Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang were explicitly stated in the provisional constitution of March 1912 to be included in the territory of the Republic of China, this was never realized in actuality. The Qing’s collapse allowed local political forces to make a bid for independence from China. This aspect of Chinese history is keenly contested as are the border regions themselves. The CCP argues that these territories have always remained under Chinese control, apart from Outer Mongolia which has been recognized as an independent country since 1945 (Inner Mongolia has remained as part of China). In contrast, many Mongols, Tibetans and Uyghurs believed that the degree of independence experienced in the years following the Qing’s fall set a precedent which should allow them to negotiate more independence now.
After the 1911 Revolution Inner Mongolia slipped into the hands of local warlords while Outer Mongolia sought help from Czarist Russia in their bid to create an independent state. Chinese control over Outer Mongolia had always been less direct than it had been in Inner Mongolia. After having defended their independence against the Chinese, Mongolia became part of the People’s Republic in 1924, closely tied economically and militarily to the USSR. Of all the frontier regions, Outer Mongolia was the only one to achieve independence from Chinese control, and this was because of its alliance with the Soviet Union.
Palace of the Old King of Tibet taken in 1905
By the mid-19th century Manchu and Chinese influence in Tibet was more symbolic than real. The Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906 effectively repudiated Tibet’s efforts to remain independent by reaffirming China’s suzerainty over Tibet. When news of the 1911 Revolution reached Tibet, Tibetans rose against the Chinese, forcing the remaining Chinese out of the country. By January 1913, the exiled Dali Llama returned to Tibet and insisted that he was now Tibet’s sole spiritual and temporal authority. This separation lasted until 1951 when Chinese troops again invaded the region. This period of separation has been one factor fueling current aspirations for Tibetan independence.
Yang Zengxin, Chinese governor of Xinjiang 1911-1928
Xinjiang was formally annexed into the Chinese Empire as a province in 1884. Yang Zengxin became the governor of Xinjiang from 1911 until he was assassinated in 1928. Yang largely retained the framework of civil administration that had been used by the Qing Imperial Court to rule its most distant subjects. He succeeded in keeping the region reasonably free from civil strife by isolating it from the turmoil of China proper. Yang’s replacement lacked his authority. Under his control, tensions between the Chinese and the native Uyghur rose. In 1931 a local uprising against the Chinese authorities shifted power into the hands of the local warlords. Thereafter, Xinjiang was to remain separate from China and politically unstable throughout Chinese Republican era.
What happened next
Young Chiang Kai-shek
Despite having only 53 members in 1921, CCP membership consistently expanded through 1928 by giving voice to the plight of the working class and peasants. That said, during this time the KMT continued to enjoy greater prestige and numbers. Yet, despite their widely differing objectives, both the communists and the KMT agreed that China should be reunited under one government and that the foreign imperialism must end. With these objectives in mind, the two parties joined forces to retake the provinces from the warlords during the 1924 Northern Expedition.
Yet as communist power and membership grew during the Northern Campaign, KMT’s new leader, Chiang Kai-shek, felt increasingly threatened. In 1927 Chiang launched a coup against the communists in Shanghai. Driven out of the cities, the communists reorganized in rural areas. It was during this time that Mao Zedong, among others, began arguing that the Chinese peasants were to be the key to social change in China. Meanwhile, Chang Kai-shek’s KMT advanced northward. Under his leadership, China was finally re-taken from the warlords in 1928.
References
Modern Chinese History II: Kuomintang and Communists – An Uneasy Alliance 1921-28
/in History, Modern Chinese History /by chinafolioIntroduction
Troops fighting during the Northern Expedition
Despite having only 53 members in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership consistently expanded through 1928 by giving voice to workers and peasants. That said, during this time Sun Yat-sen’s Kuomintang Party (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang or Nationalist Party, continued to enjoy greater prestige and numbers. Despite their widely differing objectives and conflicting aims, both the fledgling communists and the stronger KMT agreed that China must be reunited under one government and that foreign imperialism must end. With these common objectives in mind, the two parties joined forces to retake the fragmented provinces from the warlords during the 1924 Northern Expedition.
Yet as communist membership grew during the Northern Campaign, KMT’s new leader, Chiang Kai-shek, felt increasingly threatened by the CCP’s growing power. In 1927 Chiang launched a coup against the communists in Shanghai. From then forward, he became consumed with wiping out the communists often at the expense of defending China itself.
Driven out of the cities after the coup, the communists reorganized in rural areas. A series of devastating floods and droughts throughout the 1920s made the countryside ripe for communist influence, as did the harsh rural working conditions that most peasants experienced. It was during this time that Mao Zedong, among others, began arguing that the Chinese peasants were to be the key to social change in China. Meanwhile, Chang Kai-shek’s KMT advanced northward. Under his leadership, China was finally re-taken from the warlords in 1928.
Sun Yat-sen and the Rebirth of the KMT
Article in which Sun Yat-sen first put forward his Three People’s Principles
Sun Yat-sen had escaped to Japan after the failed 1913 Second Revolution. By 1918, Sun returned to Shanghai where he began to reorganize his revolutionary political movement on a national basis. Sun laid out a three-stage revolutionary plan for China: first, China would be conquered militarily; second, a period of political tutelage would ensue, overseen by a benign dictatorship whose job would be to prepare China for democracy; third, China would establish a constitutional government. In 1921, Sun Yat-sen launched a military expedition which was the forerunner to the 1924 Northern Expedition against the warlords. The military expedition failed during conflict with the warlords of the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong. In 1923 Sun struck again and this time was able to re-establish his power in Guangzhou under a nationalist military government.
By 1922, Sun restructured his party in order to improve both unity and discipline. The new KMT Party – now called the Chinese Revolutionary Party – was structured on a political platform based on Sun’s “Three People’s Principles”- national self-determination, people’s rights and people’s livelihood. The revised organization also gave Sun control of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA).
The KMT, Soviet support and Chinese Communist Party Alliance
Early Chinese Communist Party leaders Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu
While Sun had been restructuring the KMT, he had also been watching the rise of the CCP which was rapidly developing close ties to labor and agrarian organizations. In the spring of 1921, the Dutch Comintern agent H. Maring met with Sun. Maring left impressed with Sun’s ideas of revolution and nationalism. Maring was soon arguing to the Soviet Comintern that the CCP should expand their influence initially through the KMT instead of trying to make a go of it completely independently. As reunifying China was a goal shared by both the CCP and the KMT, Maring argued that the CCP should first join with the KMT to achieve reunification. The CCP could then proceed with its next objectives: the eradication of foreign imperialism, the organization of the urban proletariat for socialist revolution and the elimination of worker and peasant exploitation.
For his part, Sun was willing to accept the Communists for several reasons. Idealistically, he believed all Chinese, including Communists, should be given a chance to participate in his national revolution. Practically, he saw advantage in exploiting CCP labor and agrarian ties. He also thought accepting CCP members might give him access to Soviet aid; such assistance had not been forthcoming from the West. Furthermore, he realistically feared that independent growth of the CCP under Soviet aegis might undermine KMT authority. It might therefore be better to assimilate them within the KMT before they grew too strong.
Sun Yat-sen
Early CCP leadership only reluctantly agreed to the Soviet’s proposal. They feared KMT influence would corrupt their worker and peasant members. Eventually it was agreed that members of the CCP would join the KMT as individuals rather than as a group. This way they could also would retain their CCP membership. The CCP’s hidden plan was to eventually assume control of the KMT and then “squeeze out the rightists like lemons”.
In 1923 Sun sent his protégé, Chang Kai-shek, to Moscow to meet further with Soviet leaders. Chang Kai-shek was impressed both by the organization of the Soviet military and by the discipline of the Soviet Communist Party. Chiang encouraged Sun to employ some Soviet organizational methods to strengthen the effectiveness of the KMT. To this effect the Comintern agent Mikhail Borodin, was set to Guangzhou to advise the new KMT Central Executive Committee. While there, Borodin encouraged Sun to adopt a more radical agenda. He argued that workers and peasants would flock to the KMT if it promoted an eight hour workday, a fair minimum wage and the redistribution of landholders’ holdings to the impoverished peasantry. Sun demurred as he felt that he could not risk alienating key industrial and financial allies by supporting such bold social initiatives.
Chiang Kai-shek
During January 1924, the first Congress of the reconstructed KMT was held. Sun’s stature and prestige were decisive factors in holding the CCP and KMT parties together, despite their often conflicting ambitions. Even today Sun remains revered in both parties.
USSR support for the new KMT was evidenced by a congratulatory telegram sent by the Soviet ambassador, Karakhan. Motivation underlying Soviet support was two-pronged. Not only did the USSR believe that the KMT would be useful to their goal of spreading revolution worldwide, but they also believed that building Chinese strength, regardless of the means, would help safeguard its borders.
In Asia, Russia’s most significant threat was Japan, a staunchly anti-communist country. Japan had already routed Russia during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War. Japan was now becoming a dominant force in Manchuria, on Russia’s southern frontier. It was thus in Russia’s interest for China to be strong enough to balance against Japan’s rise. As the CCP had only 300 members in 1923, CCP’s alliance with the KMT would help Russia to more quickly expand its influence in China.
The Washington Conference
John Hay oversaw adoption of the 1905 Open Door Policy in China
These domestic political developments took place against the backdrop of two international conferences. The Washington Conference, held between November 1921 and February 1922, was attended by the nine powers which had interest in the Far East and the Pacific: the US, Italy, Great Britain, France, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and China. A key American objective was to undercut the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The Americans viewed the Alliance as contrary to their Open Door Policy which allowed all nations to have equal access to commercial and diplomatic relations, particularly with China. The Americans succeeded in getting the 1921 Four Power Treaty – signed by the United States, Britain, France and Japan – to replaced the Alliance. The new treaty stated that the four powers would resolve conflicts within their Pacific areas of influence by mutual agreement and not by force.
Sir Robert Hart, Inspector General, Chinese Maritime Customs 1863-1908
For their part, the Chinese delegation entered the Conference requesting participants to honor Chinese territorial integrity and political independence, to stop signing treaties between themselves which impacted on China, to respect China’s neutrality in future wars, to eliminate any foreign limitations imposed on its political, jurisdictional and administrative freedoms and to review foreign special rights and concessions in China. The proposal was sympathetically supported by the American and Europeans. In response the Nine Power Treaty was signed, which was to theoretically secure China’s territorial integrity and to restore Chinese sovereignty over parts of the eastern province of Shangdong.
Yet the Treaty lacked any enforcement provision, nor did it invalidate existing foreign privileges. To the ceaseless humiliation of the Chinese, foreigners continued to have significant control over Chinese Maritime Customs, the Salt Revenue and the Postal Service. The Chinese were also taxed without representation in the Shanghai International Settlement. Japan still controlled the Southern Manchurian Railway and used it to advance their objectives within Manchuria while the British dominated South China trade with Hong Kong.
That said, China concluded a 1922 treaty in which Japan agreed to return Jiaozhou and its surrounding region to China within six months, withdraw troops from the area and transfer the Qingdao-Jinan railway to China in exchange for 53 million gold marks. Great Britain also agreed to give up its British Weihai (also known as Weihaiwei) concession on the northern Shandong coast.
Congress of the Toilers of the Far East
The Congress of the Toilers of the Far East was held in Moscow in early 1922 as the USSR alternative to the Washington Conference from which it had been excluded. The Congress argued that the Four Power Treaty was just another means by which Western and Japanese imperialists planned to expand their power outside their own countries. It called for an indissoluble union of the workers of the Far East under the flag of the Communist International (Comintern). It was attended by representatives from China, Korea, Japan and Mongolia who all gave accounts of the conditions in their respective countries.
The First United Front 1923-1927 and the Huangpu (Whampo) Military Academy
Cadet dormitory, Whampoa Military Academy
The 1923-1927 First United Front marked the first period of cooperation between the CCP and the KMT. This included an interlude of preparation and training needed by both CCP and KMT members in order to ready them to launch what would be called the Northern Expedition. During the Northern Expedition, the CCP and KMT would fight together to retake China from the Chinese warlords.
Founded in 1924, the Whampo Military Academy was created to train the leadership of the United Revolutionary Army. Fresh from Moscow where he had been studying Soviet military methods and trying to obtain Soviet arms, Chiang Kai-shek was placed at the head of the new Academy. The Academy initially received 3000 applications and accepted 500, with a further 400 soon after.
Zhou Enlai in National Revolutionary Army uniform 1924
CCP members who were also KMT members were also eligible to apply. About 80 of the first 500 cohort were communists including Zhou Enlai who would eventually become the Premier of the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong. Indeed, just as it was for the KMT, the Academy proved to be an ideal platform to recruit and train future CCP elite.
Northern Expedition
Funeral of Sun Yat-sen
On March 12, 1925 Sun Yat-sen died from liver cancer. Chiang Kai-shek rushed into the vacuum, quickly working to take control of both the KMT and the NRA. In what has been called the Zhongshan Incident, Chiang seized the Zhongshan gunboat as it sailed into Guangzhou on March 20th and arrested its CCP Captain. Chiang also arrested many CCP political leaders and their Russian communist advisors. He also disarmed the CCP-controlled Workers Guard Militia. He then took full control of the Whampo Military Academy and consolidated his own power in the KMT.
Going forward,Chiang issued a series of decrees designed to strengthen KMT leadership under his rule: no CCP members could head KMT or government bureaus; no CCP criticism of Sun’s Three People’s Principles would be tolerated; no KMT members could become members of the CCP; the Soviet Comintern was to communicate its orders to the KMT as well as the CCP; and names of CCP members were to be relayed to the KMT Executive Committee. He also made the KMT leadership swear an oath of loyalty to Sun’s Three People’s Principles, in effect cementing the Northern Expedition as a continuation of the vision of Sun Yat-sen.
Borodin and Chiang Kai-shek at the Whampoa Military Academy 1924
Russian representative Borodin encouraged the CCP to accept these terms because Lenin’s death in 1924 had initiated a power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin could not afford to look bad because the CCP and his Soviet advisers had been evicted from the KMT. The strategic policies the two Russian rivals were advocating for the burgeoning Chinese revolution were central to each man’s jockeying as he fought for power within the Russian Soviet bureaucratic arena.
Having consolidated his power over the KMT, in 1924 Chiang Kai-shek pushed ahead with Sun’s Northern Expedition. The Northern Expedition’s aim was to retake China from the warlords and to unify the country under KMT leadership. The Northern Expedition was initially fought along three lines: a western route to the city of Changsha in Hunan; a middle route along the Gan River into Jiangxi; and an eastern route into Fujian. The NRA formed alliances with amenable warlords as they fought north, absorbing their militias when possible. Smaller groups of primarily CCP members worked ahead of the army, organizing peasant and urban worker strikes to create disruption and chaos in areas into which the NRA advanced. Thousands of laborers were also organized to move military supplies over the large areas where rail, road and river made mechanized shipment impossible.
Warlord coalitions 1925
The NRA met light resistance as it moved north. This was partially because northern warlords, despite their superior forces, were too preoccupied fighting themselves to coordinate an attack against the NRA. Growing peasant and workers movements also significantly aided the NRA’s advance, as too did the defection to their side of naval units which blocked enemy retreat along the eastern prong of the NRA’s attack. By mid-December 1926, the nationalists had conquered Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Fujian, and had negotiated control over Guangxi and Guizhou. This gave them effective control over territory inhabited by over 170 million people.
On January 11, 1927 Chiang Kai-shek traveled from his Nanchang base to Wuhan to meet the Western NRA arm. Disagreement had broken out between different NRA factions about the best way to continue the northern advance. The troops most closely associated with Chiang Kai-shek had fought along the eastern seaboard of the country while the branch of the army making its base in Wuhan was more heavily influenced by the more leftward leaning commissars and politicians. Chiang wanted to drive to Nanjing – which symbolized the short-lived republican government under Sun Yat-sen – and Shanghai – the industrial and economic heartland of China. In contrast, the more left-leaning Wuhan-based KMT leaders agreed with Soviet agent Borodin that the NRA should march northward toward Manchuria to take Beijing. Ultimately, Chiang won the debate. Chiang not only controlled more troops than the Wuhan NRA arm, but Stalin also insisted that CCP leaders in China must continue to cooperate with Chiang and the KMT.
National Revolutionary Army troops, Northern Expedition
As the NRA progressed northward during the first phase of the Northern Expedition, the relationship between the Communist and non-Communist members of the KMT remained fraught. Conflicting KMT and CCP orders often led to friction between the two groups. Also, although the CCP and the KMT shared the short term goal of uniting the country, it was clear from the beginning that each group had its own agenda while pursuing this goal. Chiang continued to exploit communist organizational skills and local knowledge to foment unrest in advance of the NRA while remaining deeply suspicious of growing communist influence. Similarly, many members of the CCP were still discontented about allying with the KMT despite Comintern directives. That said, their alliance and the Northern Expedition provided the communists with an unparalleled opportunity to organize and recruit new members for both the party and its affiliated trade unions.
Indeed during this time, due in large part to communist efforts, an All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU or Zhonghua Quanguo Zonggonghui) was formed which was to coordinate worker actions throughout China. ACFTU remains China’s sole legal trade union today and is the world’s largest with more than 130 million members. By late 1926 73 unions were listed under its umbrella. The ACFTU not only helped the NRA advance, but within NRA-controlled areas, new trade unions were often quickly formed under its umbrella and urban residents were radicalized. For instance, in advance of Chiang’s February 1927 march toward Shanghai, Shanghai labor leaders and ACFTU organizers called a general strike which brought Shanghai to a halt for two days. The strike was eventually disrupted by warlord forces that ultimately killed 20 strikers and arrested 300 strike leaders. Yet Shanghai worker morale remained high and a second major strike was planned for when Chiang Kai-shek marched into the city.
Shanghai at the time of the Northern Expedition
Shanghai factory owners and financiers, however, risked heavy losses if the waves of strikes continued. Some of these leaders had links to underground organizations such as the Green and Red Gangs. At the end of 1926 the head of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce met with Chiang Kai-shek in Nanchang to offer the NRA the Chamber’s financial support. Chiang also met with Huang, the patriarch of the Qing Bang, (the Green Gang, a notorious criminal group) who reportedly offered his services to break up labor unions and attack insubordinate workers in return for freedom to expand his opium, prostitution, gambling and labor racketeering businesses. There is no record of Chiang Kai-shek’s response, but subsequent events suggest that Chiang had struck some sort of bargain.
Song Meiling
While in Nanjing, Chiang also met with Song Ailing, the oldest daughter of the late Shanghai tycoon Charlie Song, sister of Sun Yat-sen’s widow Song Qingling and wife of H.H. Hong. Both the Songs and the Hongs were Christian and thoroughly Westernized. Song Ailing told Chiang Kai-shek that he was at risk of being ousted by the left unless he secured the support of the Shanghai business world which her family could deliver. In return, she asked Chiang to appoint T.V. Soong and H.H. Hong as finance and prime ministers and to marry her youngest sister Song Meiling. Song Ailing was maneuvering her family into a position of significant influence over the KMT army and government. Chiang Kai-shek was keen as he found the idea of entering the Soong-Song-Sun circle alluring. One stumbling block to the plan, however, was that he was already married. Discarding his first wife, Chiang eventually married Song Meiling on December 31, 1927.
Foreigners in Shanghai, who had links with Chinese industrialists and financiers, were also getting nervous about worker agitation and the NRA advance. They feared both financial loss and for their own physical safety if fighting were to break out in the city. Increasingly, they amassed troops and police in Shanghai, and by the time Chiang Kai-shek entered the city, 42 foreign warships were at anchor in Shanghai’s port, backed by an additional 129 warships in other Chinese waters.
The Shanghai Coup also called the White Terror or the Shanghai Massacre
The NRA marched into Shanghai on the 22 March 22, 1927 without having to fire a shot. This lack of resistance was in large part due to another massive general strike and series of demonstrations that were called in support of the NRA and in support of the Workers’ Government that Shanghai workers believed would soon be established. Stalin told the CCP to cooperate with Chiang Kai-shek in Shanghai. Chiang Kai-shek issued strict orders to the labor unions, the communists and the NRA to leave foreigners and their property untouched. Once inside the city, Chiang Kai-shek issued reassuring statements to the foreign community. He also praised the unions for their contribution to the NRA’s success in taking Shanghai.
Roundup of Communists during the Shanghai Coup
Yet, at the same time as celebrating Northern Expedition victories, Chiang Kai-shek was making plans to purge the Communists from the KMT. Having taken Shanghai, he now felt that he was strong enough to decimate their movement and to abandon the United Front. Indeed, Chiang Kai-shek felt that if he failed to act at this juncture, he risked losing control over both the Northern Expedition and over the type of country China would become once it was fully unified.
On April 12, 1927 a bugle call from Chiang Kai-shek’s headquarters was sounded, followed by a loud siren emitted from a gunboat anchored in the river. This signaled the start of the Communist purge. Wearing blue clothes and white armbands, armed members of the Shanghai’s Green Gang attacked the offices of trade unions affiliated with the communists. Li Dazhao, China’s leading Marxist theorist, was executed during the purge along with hundreds of pro-labor and communist supporters. Zhou Enlai narrowly escaped. The ACFTU was paralyzed by unclear orders – including inadequate directions sent by Stalin – and thus put up a weak defense. When Shanghai workers and students held a rally protesting against Green Gang and the KMT’s action the following day, they were fired on by KMT forces.
Pro-Communist citizen executed during the Shanghai Coup
Although the ACFTU and the CCP organizations remained in existence after the purge, their links with the local community had been severed and their influence had been all but eliminated. The CCP alliance with the KMT nominally continued until 15 July when the CCP members of the KMT were ordered to renounce their Communist Party membership. At that point the Communist Party withdrew from the alliance.
In the wake of Chiang Kai-shek’s success, Trotsky faulted Stalin’s flawed leadership in China, arguing that he had contravened the fundamental Leninist principle that any alliance with bourgeois elements, no matter how temporary, was permitted only if the communists maintained organizational independence and freedom of action. To vindicate his China policy, Stalin issued an order encouraging the communists to raise a separate army and to transform Wuhan into a communist regime. The order was unrealistic. Instead, under widespread attack, the communists retreated from Wuhan. Borodin fled China for Russia via Mongolia in July 1927.
After the Shanghai Coup, Chiang Kai-shek resumed the Northern Expedition
Yet in an ironic twist that Stalin could well appreciate, in the months after the Shanghai coup, Chiang Kai-shek launched a reign of extortion against the financiers, industrialists and the wealthy of the city. The purpose of Chiang Kai-shek shake down was to raise the millions of yuan he needed to finance the rest of the Northern Expedition. Chiang Kai-shek demanded, for example, that the chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce provide him with a multi-million yuan loan. When he refused, Chiang Kai-shek confiscated his property and drove him into exile. Wealthy businessman were browbeaten into purchasing a combined total of 30 million yuan of short-term government bonds, with larger businesses being required to buy as many as 500,000 yuan or more.
Kidnapping was rife. Children of rich residents were arrested as counterrevolutionaries and released only upon receipt of donations to the KMT. Green Gang agents facilitated KMT extortion. Through KMT’s newly created Opium Suppression Bureau, for instance, the KMT and the Green Gang divided profits from the sale of the drug and from the registration of known addicts. The appointment in January 1928 of his new brother-in-law T.V. Soong to run the government finances finally freed Chiang Kai-shek to continue the Northern Expedition as T.V. Soong took responsibility for guaranteeing that Chiang Kai-shek would receive the approximately 1.6 million yuan he needed every five days in order to finance his expedition. Chiang resumed the Northern Expedition in February 1928. By January 1929, the greater part of China was united under KMT leadership.
Rural China in the 1920s
Women in rice fields 1920
For centuries, peasant uprisings had overthrown Chinese dynasties. Once again in the 20th century, it was eventually the peasants who would decide play an important role in determining who would rule China. Despite the expanding industrialization that China had been experiencing since the late 19th century and the growing urban movement, in 1928 approximately 75% of the roughly 450 million Chinese citizens tilled the soil. Life for the average Chinese peasant varied greatly, depending on the quality of soil that he worked and whether or not he owned the land. Land was more fertile and therefore life was better in the southern rice paddies than it was in the poorer soils of the west and north. Yet for all farmers, life was incredibly difficult. Almost all farming was done by hand and by beast. Produce that wasn’t consumed by the farmer was sold in village and regional markets along with handmade handicrafts, tools and processed foods.
Social and ritual life was hugely conservative and was based on both Confucian traditions and those of the local Buddhist or Daoist temples. Other societies or social organizations were organized between women, within villages or within regional areas. During the Warlord Era, some villages formed self-defense organizations such as the Red, White and Yellow Spears which were active mainly in the northern Chinese plains. Eventually, the CCP would try to recruit the Red Spears and other such secret societies as allies in their fight against the KMT.
Rural China also frequently suffered drought and flood. This was particularly true throughout the 1920s. In 1920 and 1921, for instance, a severe drought in northern China brought famine. The famine not only killed approximately half a half million people but it also destroyed the regional economy. Like many of the droughts that have plagued China even up to the present day, the effects of little rain were exacerbated by overpopulation and by soil erosion due to extensive logging and overgrazing of livestock. In 1923 further drought and flooding caused the deaths of an additional 100,000 people. In 1925 another devastating drought killed almost 3 million people in the Sichuan area. In 1926 the Yangtze and Gan rivers flooded. From 1928 to 1930, drought and famine devastated the whole of northern China affecting more than 20 million people. This ruinous plague of drought and famine throughout the 1920s left much of rural China in crisis. Eventually, the communists were able to exploit this crisis by promising the Chinese peasant a better, more prosperous and fairer way of life.
Flooding in China was frequent during the 1920s
Early on, key Chinese Marxists theorists such as Li Dazhao and Peng Pai recognized the need to adapt Russian Marxism to Chinese reality. In other words, there could be no communist revolution without engaging the peasants as they represented the majority of the Chinese population. In the early 1920s, Peng Pai created a system of peasant associations in Guangdong province which campaigned against high rents, rural social injustice and landlord abuse, demonstrating to early CCP activists that an alliance between peasants and communists was possible. Mao Zedong, who had studied under Li Dazhao, traveled through his native Hunan in 1927 and his experiences there helped shape his belief that, for China, the peasants would be the key to the Communist communist revolution. From then on, he became a strong advocate of shifting Chinese Communist strategy from a focus on organizing the urban worker to mobilizing the poor and discontent farmers.
What Happened Next
The period between 1927 and 1937 is often referred to as the Nanjing Decade. The new KMT Nanjing-based government was recognized by the international community, most of southern China, and a large part of northern China, although it did not control Manchuria nor did it have perfect control over many former warlords. Chiang Kai-shek tried to consolidate his power by eliminating warlord rivals. As a result, by 1929, civil strife once again broke out as warlords maneuvered to retain influence. Dealing with this power struggle meant that the much needed and long promised social reforms were slow in coming. For most Chinese life improved little. This created discontent that the Communists would eventually exploit.
Japanese invading Manchuria
The CCP in the meantime regrouped in rural southern Jiangxi. There they experimented with social policies that were to prove the forerunners of their ultimate governing practices. Repeated KMT attacks eventually forced the CCP on the epic retreat now known as the Long March.
As a backdrop to the KMT-CCP struggle was Japan’s increasing expansion into Manchuria and northern China. It was Chiang Kai-shek’s strategy to placate the Japanese while focusing on Communist eradication. However, rival KMT leaders finally forced Chiang to abandon war against the Communists and to fight growing Japanese aggression which culminated in Japan’s full-scale invasion of the China in 1937.
References
Modern Chinese History III: The Nanjing Decade 1927-1937
/in History, Modern Chinese History /by chinafolioIntroduction
Chiang Kai-shek’s Presidential Palace in Nanjing
The period between 1927 and 1937 is often referred to as the Nanjing decade. The Kuomintang (KMT) established its new government in Nanjing after it had dispelled the Communists from the United Front and it had defeated the warlords to unite the country during the Northern Expedition. The new KMT government was recognized by the international community, most of southern China, and a large part of northern China, although it did not control Manchuria nor did it have perfect control over many of its former warlords.
Instead, Chiang Kai-shek had achieved national unification often by negotiating with these warlords– in effect allowing them semi-independent regional status – in return for their recognition of the new KMT government. Once in government, Chiang Kai-shek tried to consolidate his power by eliminating these warlord rivals where possible. As a result, by 1929, civil strife once again broke out as warlords maneuvered to retain their influence. Dealing with this power struggle meant that the much needed and long promised social reforms were slow in coming. For most Chinese life improved little. This created discontent that the communists would eventually exploit.
The establishment of the Chinese Soviet in Ruijin, November 7, 1931 with Mao Zedong, Zhu De
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), forced out of the cities after the Shanghai Coup, retreated into the countryside. It was in these rural areas that the CCP began to develop their ideas for peasant mobilization, championed in large part by Mao Zedong. The communists most important rural base became the Jiangxi Soviet, headquartered in Ruijin in the south of Jiangxi province. There they experimented with governing and with the implementation of new social policies that were to prove the forerunners of practices they assumed once they won control of the country in 1949. However, repeated KMT attacks finally forced the CCP from Jiangxi. In order to evade being encircled and annihilated, the communists began the Long March, retreating through some of the most difficult terrain in western China by traveling west and then north to Yan’an in Shaanxi Province.
As a backdrop to the KMT-CCP struggle was Japan’s increasing expansion into Manchuria and northern China. It was Chiang Kai-shek’s strategy to placate the Japanese while focusing on communist eradication. However, rival KMT leaders finally went to the extreme measure of kidnapping Chiang until he agreed to abandon war against the communists. Instead, the kidnappers forced Chiang to join forces with the CCP in a Second United Front formed to fight growing Japanese aggression. This aggression culminated in Japan’s full-scale invasion of China in 1937.
Division within the New KMT Leadership and Warlord Challenges
National Revolutionary Army Generals at a ceremony held to Sun Yat-sen to report completion of the Northern Expedition to Dr. Sun’s soul
The new Nanjing government of the KMT was to be based on the ideas of Sun Yat-sen and his Three People’s Principles: national self-determination, people’s rights, and people’s livelihood. Confronted with a need to integrate China into an international system based on nation-states, Sun’s principle of national self-determination was an effort to get the Chinese see themselves not just as a culture but as a state. During the dynastic era, what it meant to be Chinese had been defined not so much by race or by geographic area, but by an overall cultural cohesiveness. This Chinese culturalism was based primarily on Confucianism, but also on Buddhist and Daoist teachings. This cultural heritage was imparted to the Chinese through the teachings of their families and through their rich recorded history and literature. It was also passed on through the arduous government examinations which meant that all the ruling elite all largely learned the same values. This cultural tradition underpinned the Chinese people’s self- understanding and also shaped its foreign policy until its increasingly difficult encounters with the western world beginning in the 1800’s.
Confucian values pervaded the Republic of China
Yet despite Sun’s, and later Chiang’s, efforts, during the first half of the twentieth century the majority of Chinese still considered their loyalties to be to their family, to their clan and to their patron-client relationships rather than to their nation. They were slow to look to the government for support and to feel obliged to defend it. Sun’s principle of People’s Rights – democracy – was linked to this idea of nationalism. If the first step of the 1911 Republican Revolution had been to overthrow the imperial governmental system, the next step would be to establish a government which would be seen by the Chinese as one of their own making to which they would then feel committed. Sun anticipated the establishment of this government as a multi-phased process. While the final government of the Republic of China would be based on a form of western constitutional democracy, Sun believed that the transition to constitutional rule would be preceded by a six-year tutelage period during which the gradual creation of local self-government would teach the Chinese people democratic values, habits and practices.
As a first step toward realizing this government, the KMT enacted the Organic Law of the National Government of the Republic of China on October 10, 1928. This law broke the government into five branches, known as Yuan: the Executive Yuan was to be the highest executive branch of the country. It would be led by a chairman and cabinet whose functions would include the direction of the central ministries, economic planning, general supervision of the military, relations with the provinces, and appointment of local government officials. The Legislative Yuan was to debate and vote on new legislation, budgets, and treaties. The Judicial Yuan was to run the court and supervise the legal system. The Examination Yuan – based on China’s Imperial examination system – was to supervise public service examinations which would qualify Chinese as civil servants. Finally the Control Yuan – based on China’s imperial censorate – would supervise the conduct of officials. This five Yuan government system is still in use by Republic of China in Taiwan today.
Chiang Kai-shek’s Office in the Nanjing Presidential Palace
After passage of the law, Chiang Kai-shek was formally installed as Chairman of the new Nationalist Government as well as the chief of China’s armed forces. One of Chiang Kai-shek’s first acts as chairman was to establish the KMT Central Political Institute and cadre training schools, a main purpose of which was to create a new generation of cadets as fiercely loyal to Chiang Kai-shek as those that had graduated from the Whampoa Academy. The training philosophy was based on anti-communist, anti-imperialist nationalism combined with an emphasis on the Confucian virtues of order, harmony, discipline and hierarchy.
The Chinese people initially greeted their new Nanjing government with goodwill, but these favorable feelings were not to last. Sun’s prescribed period of “tutelage” largely freed Chiang from the need to demonstrate any effort toward creating a true democracy. Instead, Chiang quickly began excluding rivals from positions of authority within the new government. Chiang also soon ran into conflict with many former warlords. Chiang had achieved national unification during the Northern Expedition in part by negotiating with regional chieftains – in effect allowing them semi-independent regional status in return for recognition of the Nanjing government. In 1930, for instance, Chiang Kai-shek’s government directly controlled only 8% of the geographical area of China and 25% of its population. By as late as 1936, the KMT still governed primarily by alliance with provincial military governors whose cooperation was constantly subject to renegotiation. Many of these warlords still controlled large armies. In March 1929, the KMT called for the incorporation of these local militias into one national command under the control of Chiang Kai-shek.
Chiang Kai-shek wanted to consolidate all independent militia into the National Revolutionary Army
The KMT also made efforts to prevent the provinces from siphoning off tax and other financial receipts that it felt rightfully belonged to the central government. The warlords resisted these efforts to reduce their power and argued that Nanjing should reduce the size of its army before they demilitarized; Chiang Kai-shek countered that his army was to be the backbone of the new national army. Yet many of these warlords did not see Chiang’s claim to power to be any better than their own. Moreover, rival civilian and political groups were also concerned about his growing monopoly of military and political power.
By 1929, civil strife had again broken out in Guangxi, Hunan, Beijing, Manchuria and Guangdong. Chiang Kai-shek did not deal with the strife by creating a more inclusive government in which these factional warlords would be brought in and given a voice. Instead, where he could, Chiang had rivals arrested. Many also objected to his policy of appeasing foreigners and his failure to counter increased Japanese aggression in Manchuria in order to direct scarce resources toward wiping out the regrouped Communists. Opposition parties and organizations such as the Nationalist Socialist Party, the People’s Front, The Workers’ and Peasants Party, The Chinese League for the Protection of Civil Rights, the National Salvation Association began forming. Although fundamentally powerless, they did undercut loyalty to Chiang’s government and impacted public opinion with their calls for a multi-party government, protection of civil rights, and the need for China to defend itself against Japanese and foreign expansion.
Warlord Long Yun and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek- managing warlord ambitions was a constant struggle for Chiang
Dealing with this internal strife meant that the much needed and long promised social reforms were slow in coming. For most, life in the countryside had remained unchanged since the time of the Qing Dynasty. Regional administrators were often corrupt and more concerned with protecting landlords than the peasants who mostly lived in poverty underneath them. Local officials collected taxes and rent even in times of flood, drought and famine. Infant mortality was high and life expectancy low. Many girls still had their feet bound and marriages were frequently arranged. Education was minimal where it existed at all.
The KMT recognized the need to address these problems by measures such as better crop diversification, fair land distribution, agricultural price support, greater availability of agricultural credit, and improved access to education. That said, funds were always short and the KMT was always distracted by foreign pressures and internal dissension. The harsh rural living conditions seemed all the more stark when compared with the growing opulence of the cities where modern medical care, new schools, electricity, better boat, road and air transport, cinemas and western clothes were growing increasingly prevalent.
Chiang Kai-shek oversaw the expansion of the rail network
Finances were also a problem. The new governmentn suffered from consistent annual budget deficits. On the one hand, in 1928 China succeeded in negotiating with foreign powers to obtain full tariff autonomy, increasing its custom revenues from 120 million yuan in 1928 to 244 million yuan in 1929 and 385 million yuan in 1931. On the other hand, there was no income tax until 1936. Furthermore, land taxes went straight to the provincial governments. Additionally, the amount that foreign corporations could be taxed was limited. In contrast, heavy taxes on Chinese entrepreneurs drove most near to bankruptcy, defeating their purpose. Foreign debt service was also heavy. Debt servicing represented 35% of the 1930-31 budget, for instance, forcing the KMT to borrow even more in order to meet its existing financial obligations.
These financial challenges were compounded by the severe 1931-1935 deflation triggered by the 1929 Depression which drove down the value of silver. The US government tried to shore up the silver market by purchasing silver in large quantities. In response, silver poured out of China and the country was depleted of currency. As a result, prices plunged, imports poured in, banks were drained of reserves and industrial firms faced bankruptcy due to lack of working capital.
That said, despite growing Japanese aggression, worldwide depression, internal strife and the Communist challenge, the KMT did achieve some real successes before full-scale war broke out with Japan in 1937. By 1937, China had in place most branches of basic industry including the ability to design, construct and operate its own railways. By 1937, improvements in agriculture virtually eliminated the need to import rice, wheat and cotton. Many modern banking methods were instituted. The foreign power monopoly of foreign-exchange dealings was stopped. Due in large part to foreign philanthropy, western medical practices were introduced.
Japanese Expansion in China
Japanese experts inspect ‘railway sabotage’ on South Manchurian Railway, leading to the Mukden Incident
Japan’s conciliatory position toward China during the Washington Conference hardened in 1928. This was due in part to a fear that the unification of China might cause Manchuria to be re-integrated into the country, limiting Japanese military and economic presence in the region. In 1928, Japan’s interests in Manchuria were protected by the Kwantung Army which operated on a semi-autonomous basis from the main Japanese military. It was the Kwantung Army’s objective to take Manchuria for Japan. Manchuria was considered by many Japanese and by many Japanese soldiers to be theirs by right, given the tens of thousands of Japanese troops which had died in the area during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. Japanese military leadership also viewed Manchuria as a useful buffer zone between it and Russia.
Many Japanese also believed that Manchuria’s vast territory, fertile agricultural land and abundant natural resources could provide Japan with much needed mineral resources, create new business opportunities for Japanese industrialists, and help solve the high unemployment levels caused by the ill effects of overproduction and worldwide Depression. By 1931, Kwantung military leaders decided to take independent action. It believed that growing economic pressures at home would help sway domestic opinion in its favor. As approximately 75% of foreign investment in Manchuria was of Japanese origin, Japanese industrialists specifically favored Manchurian expansion, although they preferred peaceful annexation if possible. It also saw that the new KMT government was bogged down with internal strife while the international community was enmeshed in the Great Depression. Moreover, key Kwantung military leaders were due for routine transfer and they wanted to seize Manchuria before being shipped elsewhere.
Japanese Forces in Manchuria
A September 1931 bomb explosion on the Southern Manchurian Railway in Shenyang (often referred to by its Manchu name of Mukden) was staged by the Japanese military as a pretext for invasion. Meeting little Chinese resistance, the Kwantung Army overran Manchuria – an area larger than modern-day Turkey – in just five months. Chang Kai-shek sought help from the League of Nations (a forerunner of the UN) and other western powers, including the United States, but received no meaningful assistance. The League of Nations agreed only to dispatch a mission to investigate Japanese actions in Manchuria, which it did on December 10, 1931. Chiang also marshaled popular outrage and trade boycotts to undercut the Japanese position. In January 1932, the Japanese invaded Shanghai in order to avert attention from their Manchurian conquest. In this instance, the KMT did fight, but Shanghai eventually fell to Japanese forces after a month of intense battle, and the KMT was forced to retreat to Luoyang in central China. International mediation eventually forced the Japanese to evacuate Shanghai in May 1932.
Emperor Puyi
In order to legitimize their Manchurian annexation, on March 9th 1932 the Japanese installed the last Qing Emperor, Puyi, on the throne of its puppet Manchurian regime, which it called Manchukuo. The League of Nations mission spent six weeks in this new “Manchurian State”. Its eventual report sided with China. It determined that Japan had been an unprovoked aggressor, rejected Japan’s claim that Manchukuo was the result of the spontaneous uprising of the Manchu people and repudiated its argument that its military operations in Manchuria were in self- defense in response to the September 1931 bombing. Japan reacted to the report by withdrawing from the League of Nations while consolidating control of Manchuria through its puppet government.
Communist Insurrection – Disease of the Heart; Disease of the Skin
Russian agent Borodin in Nanchang at Stalin’s behest
While the Japanese army was busy invading Manchuria, Chiang Kai-shek remained preoccupied with eliminating the communists. He believed that ‘the Japanese were a disease of the skin, while the communists were a disease of the heart’ meaning that skin disease – the Japanese – was not deadly, whereas heart disease – the communists – could prove fatal. In other words, Chiang was more concerned with the enemy within than the enemy without.
The Shanghai Coup and subsequent attacks had badly weakened the CCP, with party membership dropping from an estimated 58,000 to less than 10,000. CCP influence within cities and within the urban labor movement had also been significantly diminished. Spurred on by Stalin, who was trying to save face after the Shanghai Coup, the remaining communists tried to achieve victory by launching a series of uprisings, all of which were failures. For instance, on August 1, 1927 in Nanchang, Jiangxi, the communists succeeded in taking the city in the name of the newly created Workers and Peasants Red Army for four days. Although the uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, it has since been mythologized by CCP historians as the Nanchang Uprising. It is also marked by the CCP as the birth of the People’s Liberation Army, and August 1st is still celebrated as Military Day in China today.
1927 Autumn Harvest Riot participants
Mao Zedong also led an Autumn Harvest Uprising, briefly holding the town of Liling before being forced to retreat to Jinggangshan, a remote mountain area of the borders of Hunan and Jiangxi in October 1927. Just as it was during the Qing Dynasty, the safest places for fugitives in China in the 1920s and the 1930s were the border regions between provinces where different administrative zones met, making it more difficult for the KMT and its warlord allies to coordinate counterattacks. Mao learned from this failed insurgency that no uprising could be successful without the support of the peasant masses.
A third insurrection was launched in Guangzhou in December 1927. Worried about their waning influence in Guangzhou’s trade unions, CCP leaders fighting under Communist International representative Heinz Neumann seized control of the city. They immediately announced a revolutionary government intent on the nationalization of land, factories and bourgeois property. They lost the city in two days, with some union members actually fighting against the communists.
Retreat to Ruijin
Mao Zedong and Zhu De inspecting the Red Army 1931
In January 1929 the CCP faction led by Mao retreated from their Jinggangshan base to Ruijin, southern Jiangxi. From Ruijin, the CCP began to govern the surrounding region. While the Jiangxi Soviet was the CCP’s main base, as many as 15 smaller soviets or administrative committees were established in the area. These soviets operated hierarchically although communication between the different soviets was often difficult. The Jiangxi Soviet period enabled the CCP to experiment with governing. The policies developed at this time were to significantly impact CCP governing theories going forward.
The move to Ruijin also provided the communists with a greater flow of supplies, revenues and recruits. Indeed, between 1929 and 1930, the Red Army expanded from 2,000 to almost 70,000 soldiers. As the Communists regrouped in the countryside, influence over their policies by Russian Communist International waned. Partly this was due to the difficulty of communication caused by their remote location. Additionally, Soviet interest in the Chinese Communist movement also diminished generally once the CCP left the cities.
Group photo taken after the 1931 founding Chinese soviet with Mao Zedong, Zhu De
During the spring 1930, Mao Zedong undertook a detailed survey of the Jiangxi county of Xunwu. He researched the variety of businesses prevalent in the county’s small towns and the income they generated. He tried to determine levels of exploitation in order to quantify class tensions more accurately. For instance, he spoke with peasants who had been forced to sell their children to pay their debts. He studied the plight of women. This research allowed the CCP to hone criteria that could be used as a basis for land redistribution. It also allowed the CCP to more effectively respond to the causes of peasant frustration including high and often arbitrary taxes, conscription without sufficient compensation and lost land due to public work projects. Ultimately, the CCP was able to turn the peasant’s economic discontent into class warfare.
This research also confirmed for Mao that agrarian revolution was the way forward for China. That said, at the November 1931 founding conference of the Jiangxi Soviet, this continued to be a minority opinion. At the conference, Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the Central Executive Council. Continuing differences of opinion between CCP leaders led to much infighting at this time. In the coming years, Mao was to prove effective at exploiting these disagreements to facilitate his ultimate rise to power.
Mao Zedong in Jiangxi
At the conference it was confirmed that two of the most significant social issues that the CCP confronted were the subjugation of women and the inequality of land ownership. The CCP encouraged greater freedom of marriage and divorce and began to give voice to the rights of women. This earned the party much popular support despite the conservative undertones of rural society. Its land policies were to prove even more well-liked. During the 1931-1932 Land Investigation Movement Mao oversaw the redistribution of rich peasants land to the poor, leaving the rich peasant as much land as he could farm himself.
Land held by the more numerous middle income farmers was left untouched. This allowed the CCP to maintain middle income farmer support and to prevent disruptions in food production. This land redistribution became the basis for the CCP’s broader rural class struggles, and was a key to the CCP’s rise to power in the 1940s. The CCP also declared war on Japan at this time. While this amounted to nothing more than a symbolic gesture, it boosted their popularity among the many Chinese who believed that the Japanese threat should be China’s first priority.
KMT Encirclement and Suppression of Communist Campaigns
While the CCP was experimenting with government and social policy, the KMT was stepping up pressure on the Jiangxi Soviet combining economic blockade with military attack. On November 1930, the KMT began a campaign of Encirclement and Suppression designed to surround and eliminate the communist bases. During one KMT attack, in what came to be known as the battle of Dongshao, the CCP captured KMT radio equipment which allowed them to listen into KMT’s news military transmissions, improving significantly their intelligence on KMT military plans and troops. This radio information was a key to enabling the Red Army to fend off the first KMT attack.
Chinese Red Army during the First Encirclement and Suppression Campaign
Chiang Kai-shek launched the second Encirclement and Suppression Campaign against the Communists at the end of February 1931. This time the Jiangxi Soviet defeated a 200,000 strong KMT force during major battles in May, expanding the territory under their control. Expanded radio capability became fundamental to Red Army success, allowing them not only to gather intelligence on KMT forces, but also to more effectively communicate between different Red Army factions. Growing communist sophistication in code-breaking enabled the CCP to continue to collect information even after the KMT finally realized that the communists were listening to their communications. The success of the communists against the KMT was also the result of Mao’s guerilla campaign of “luring the enemy in deep”. In most battles against the KMT, the Red Army was significantly outnumbered and possessed no air cover and little artillery. Instead, the Red Army retreated, forcing the KMT into unfamiliar and hostile territory where the communists could launch ambushes on one division at a time.
The Third Encirclement and Suppression Campaign was scheduled to be launched in July 1931, but Japanese expansion into Manchuria forced Chiang Kai-shek to abort the military mission. The Fourth was launched in June 1932, but was again repulsed by November 1932. The Fifth Campaign, in October 1933, was led by Chiang Kai-shek himself. Not only did he commit significant troops to the battle, but at each point of advance he created blockhouses and roads which allowed him to reinforce taken ground. By April 1934, the central Jiangxi Soviet was completely surrounded. It was decided that the communists had no choice but to break through the encirclement at the weakest point in the southwest corner. This strategic withdrawal was to be the beginning of what has been mythologized in CCP history as the Long March.
The Long March and the Yan’an Communist Base
Map, the Long March
Between October 16th 1934 and October 20th 1935, the Chinese Workers and Peasants’ Red Army retreated 6000 miles through some of the toughest terrain in western China- including mountains, barren plateaus and lethal swamps. Throughout this time they were constantly harassed and attacked by KMT forces. Approximately 85,000 communists men and soldiers began the trek westward while most women, children and approximately 20,000 wounded communists were left behind. At the end, only about 8,000 of the original 85,000 remained living. Most perished at the hands of KMT forces. Others died from illness and from the harsh conditions which prevailed throughout the retreat.
The march was not one single maneuver, but rather the withdrawal from Jiangxi of different Red Army units which often independently fought their way west and north. The CCP was quite divided at this time, with different factions not only arguing about different military strategies, but also disagreeing as to where new revolutionary base should be ultimately reestablished.
Mao Zedong on the Long March
In December 1936 the CCP finally established its headquarters in the province of Shaanxi, in Yan’an. This base had the advantage of both safeguarding the communists from the 1937 Japanese invasion of China and helping isolate it from further KMT attack. By this time Mao was firmly established as the leader of the CCP, although division remained within the party. From separate marches and from recruitment efforts as the communists passed through territory, eventually around 30,000 eventually joined Mao at his new base. The CCP’s courage in the face of unimaginable hardship and the communists ultimate victory despite their decimated ranks played an important role in the process of legitimizing the CCP rule.
Mao Zedong 1935
The Long March was also important in helping to create the CCP’s founding mythology. The period has since been portrayed romantically in fiction, drama, film and in museum exhibits. Many of the most important leaders of the People’s Republic of China founded in 1949 were survivors of the Long March. The March has become one of the most celebrated periods of the CCP’s history and is now an integral part of the national myth that underpins Chinese perceptions of themselves as a people and as a nation.
The Zunyi Conference
During the Long March, several crucial party meetings took place. One of the most important of these occurred in the town of Zunyi in northern Guizhou in January 1935. It was attended by 18 key Communist leaders, including the Comintern representative Otto Braun. They discussed the reasons for their defeat in the Jiangxi region, concluding that the CCP should have pursued a more offensive mobile, guerilla war as Mao had been arguing. The vindication of his military policies was an important step in his rise toward control of the Communist Party. At the conference, he was appointed as a full member of the ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo. He was also appointed chief assistant to Zhou Enlai for military planning, from whom he would gradually assume full military leadership.
KMT Struggles and Responses
Cavalry parade of the Manchukuo Imperial Army
Despite growing Japanese aggression in Manchuria in northern China, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government continued to prioritize eradication of the communists over fighting the Japanese. This policy created great internal conflict within the KMT and within its warlord allies ranks. Tensions were most acute with warlords in areas most vulnerable to Japanese expansion. It also motivated Chinese student nationalism. Chiang tried to quell student discontent by increasing the number of compulsory subjects and examinations at university, hoping to keep the students so busy they would be unable to protest. Those students that did protest were dealt with harshly.
Additionally, by early 1934, Chiang Kai-shek also began developing a new unifying ideology, based on Sun Yat-sen doctrines as well as on some central tenets of Confucianism, particularly those relating to the formation of a loyal and moral human character. A key objective of this ‘New Life Movement’ was to create within the Chinese citizens an instinct for unified behavior which would make them willing to sacrifice for the nation at all times. The movement succeeded mostly in attacking antisocial behavior such as spitting, urinating in public and casual sex. Women in particular were harassed if they behaved or dressed in an immodest manner. They were urged to cultivate traditional virtues such as chastity and to focus on life inside the home and family.
Nanjing’s University, scene of student protests
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek also encouraged the formation of the Blueshirts – an organization run by Whampoa cadets, so named because they wore shirts of course blue cotton – designed to bring patriotic resolve to the military and civil leadership of China. Fiercely loyal to Chiang Kai-shek, the Blueshirts committed themselves to moral rectitude, eschewing gambling, whoring and gluttony of food and drink. The Blueshirts admired Europe’s rising Fascism, particularly Italy’s Mussolini. They ultimately were transformed into an elite Secret Service arm employed to investigate subversive forces within society, assassinate political rivals and dissidents, infiltrate labor organizations and gather general intelligence.
The Xi’an Kidnapping and the Second United Front
Zhang Xueliang
In December 1936, Chiang Kai-shek traveled to the Shaanxi provincial capital of Xi’an to discuss plans to launch a Sixth Encirclement and Suppression Campaign, which he hoped would finally bring an end to CCP resistance. At this meeting Zhang Xueliang, a northern warlord serving the KMT, took the lead in trying to convince Chiang to fight the Japanese instead of the communists. However, Chiang could not be diverted from his determination to wipe out the communists once and for all. On December 9th 1936 – the one-year anniversary of a student protest that had been crushed by Chiang – 10,000 students marched in Xi’an. They called for an end to China’s civil war and for a unified resistance to Japan who had now launched a full-scale invasion of the northern province of Suiyuan (now a part of Inner Mongolia) in late October and November 1936.
Chiang Kai-shek ordered Zhang Xueliang to put an end to the student demonstrations or he would command his troops to fire. However, instead of forcing the students to disperse, Zhang agreed to argue their case with Chiang. Furious, Chiang told Zhang to choose between that KMT and the students while at the same time issuing orders to launch the Sixth Encirclement Campaign. At 4:30am on the morning of the 12th December – the day that the mobilization orders were to be issued – troops from Zhang Xueliang’s Northeastern Army Division arrived at Chiang Kai-shek’s villa. Alerted only moments before the troops’ arrival, he escaped to a nearby cave but was easily tracked and kidnapped. Zhang Xueliang and his followers held him for a week, presenting to him a list of eight demands which essentially called for the end of civil war and for a united armed resistance against the Japanese.
KMT members captured during the Xi’an Incident
Song Meiling took a lead in the effort to secure her husband’s release during the intense negotiations that followed. Zhou Enlai – who had served under Chiang at the Whampoa Military Academy – also bargained for Chiang Kai-shek’s freedom. Zhou said that if Chang would fight the Japanese, the CCP would join the KMT in a Second United Front. A telegram from Stalin had urged the communists to support such an alliance. The rise of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy combined with Japan’s growing militarism caused the Comintern to urge fledging national communist parties in all countries to form partnerships with leftists and anti-fascist groups to fight against these avowed enemies of Bolshevism and Marxism.
In the case of China, a second alliance with the KMT would have the added benefit of protecting Russia’s flank from Japanese aggression. Stalin also argued in the telegram that Zhang Xueliang lacked the authority to lead the KMT effort. Having agreed to join with China and to fight the Japanese, Chiang Kai-shek returned with Zhang Xueliang to Nanjing where they were met by an ecstatic crowd of 400,000 Chinese citizens. At Nanjing, Zhang Xueliang was arrested for insubordination and placed under house arrest after his sentence of 10 years imprisonment was commuted.
What Happened Next
Japanese soldiers in Nanjing
In 1937 Japan launched a full scale invasion of China. By 1938 Japan had control of China’s Eastern Seaboard while the KMT retreated to the Western city of Chongqing after fighting horrific battles such as that for Nanjing. Yet, despite China’s huge military disadvantages, the Chinese turned what the Japanese military had assumed would be a three month campaign into a war of attrition lasting until 1945. The war pinned down 1.2 million of Japan’s 2.3 million overseas troops in the process.
The CCP benefitted from the Sino-Japanese War by expanding its territory, its army and its party membership. From their Yan’an Base, the communists waged a guerilla war which not only had some success against the Japanese, but also boosted their standing in the eyes of the Chinese people. It was during this time that the CCP developed and put into practice many of the social policies that were to form the crux of the CCP’s ruling philosophy once it assumed power in 1949.
The 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese war ended abruptly in 1945 after the Americans dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Despite its terrible toll, the war had real benefits for China: elevating it to Great Power status, winning it a place on the UN Security Council and ending the imperialists’ hated Policy of Extraterritoriality and the Unequal Treaties that had plagued China since the 19th century.
References
Modern Chinese History IV: Japanese Invasion and World War II 1937-1945
/in History, Modern Chinese History /by chinafolioIntroduction
Chinese Army defending Marco Polo Bridge 1937
The Second United Front – that was to fight Japanese expansion in China – worried Japanese militarists who increasingly controlled Japanese domestic and foreign policy. They argued that Japan should strike against China before it became too strong. Conquering China was a first step in their plans to extend Japanese power throughout Asia. On July 7, 1937 the Japanese used a scuffle between Chinese and Japanese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge as a pretext to launch an invasion of northern China. By 1938 Japan had taken control of China’s Eastern Seaboard while the Kuomintang or Nationalist Government (KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek retreated to the Western city of Chongqing after fighting horrific battles such as that for Nanjing.
International assistance to China was limited. After some initial loans from the Soviet Union and the West, China stood alone against Japanese aggression until the US entered the war after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. China had little heavy industry – much of which was lost by 1938 – and no capacity to build planes or even trucks. Its arsenals were hampered by lack of supplies due to a Japanese naval blockade. The only supplies coming into China were overland, first over the Burma Road, and then via an air route over the Himalayas known as the Hump. Additionally, hyperinflation and the shifting allegiances of Chiang Kai-shek’s warlord allies plagued the KMT, undermining any effort at good governance and fueling corruption. Yet, despite China’s huge military disadvantage, the Chinese turned what the Japanese military had assumed would be a three month campaign into a war of attrition lasting until 1945. The war pinned down 1.2 million of Japan’s 2.3 million overseas troops in the process.
Mao Zedong in Yan’an
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) benefitted from the Sino-Japanese War by expanding its territory and by building the strength of its army and the membership of its party. From their Yan’an Base in Shaanxi province, the communists waged a guerilla war which not only had some success against the Japanese, but also boosted their standing in the eyes of the Chinese people. It was during this time that Mao Zedong consolidated his power and developed and put into practice many of the social policies that were to form the crux of the CCP’s ruling philosophy once it assumed power in 1949. A strict policy of anti-corruption, a fair regime of taxes and an assumption that both cadre and peasants alike would share in the work won great favor with the people in their territory. So did the honesty and efficiency of its governance, particularly when contrasted with the corruption endemic in the KMT. Indeed, the CCP’s growing popularity so alarmed the KMT that, by 1941, the two parties were again fighting each other, and the KMT sent 200,000 of its best troops to blockade the main communist base around Yan’an instead of using them against the Japanese.
Atomic cloud over Hiroshima
The 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese war ended abruptly in 1945 after the Americans dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Despite its terrible toll, the war had real benefits for China – elevating it to Great Power status, winning it a place on the UN Security Council and ending the imperialists’ hated Policy of Extraterritoriality and the Unequal Treaties that had plagued China since the 19th century. It also allowed the CCP – which had been almost eradicated during the Long March in 1937- to expand its military and membership strength to such an extent that the CCP won the ensuing 1945-1949 Civil War.
The Marco Polo Bridge Incident and the Japanese Invasion of China
Japanese cross the Marco Polo bridge 1937
Between 1932 and 1937, Japanese militarists began projecting themselves into national politics at the expense of the civilian government, breaking with the tradition that the military was to stay out of civilian affairs. The most extreme called for a military dictatorship, military oversight of the national budget, nationalization of war-needed industries, enlargement of the army and navy and territorial expansion in Asia and China. Already, by 1935, the Japanese militarists had encouraged an autonomous movement in the five northern Chinese provinces of Hopeh, Chahar, Suiyan, Shansi and Shantung under the aegis of the Eastern Hopeh Autonomous Council. When Tokyo refused the Kwantung Army’s subsequent request to move further into China, the Army acted independently. Using a July 7, 1937 scuffle at the Marco Polo Bridge outside of Beijing as a pretext, it launched a full-scale – although undeclared- invasion, beginning with the bombing of Wanping, close to the bridge. Chiang Kai-shek, who had opposed a war of resistance against the Japanese since 1931 in order to first defeat the Chinese communists, finally felt that had no choice but to fight back.
Baby survives Shanghai bombing
The Chinese military – crippled by lack of supplies – was to prove no match for the modern mechanized forces of the Japanese which were well equipped with excellent naval and air support. The Japanese advanced swiftly, following the railways southwards. By July 28, Beijing had fallen. Tientsin was lost two days later. On August 13th, the Japanese attacked Shanghai, with the plan to destroy China’s financial center and thus its economic capacity to wage war. Chiang Kai-shek defended the city with his crack 87th and 88th divisions which succeeded in pinning down the Japanese for three months, at a cost of 250,000 Chinese soldiers – almost 60% of Chiang’s best troops – compared to 40,000 Japanese. Despite their heroic fighting, Shanghai was eventually overwhelmed and the Chinese retreated westward.
The Japanese capture of Shanghai facilitated its establishment of a naval blockade, isolating almost the entire of China’s east coast from outside contact. With the Japanese now approaching its doorstep, the KMT government withdrew to the remote western city of Chongqing. Although protected by the rugged terrain and the narrow gorges of the Yangtze River, it was a poor position from which to direct a counterattack. Yet inadequate though it was, the KMT used its new base of resistance to tie the Japanese down in a long war of attrition, ending Japanese hopes to subjugate China within three months.
The Rape of Nanjing or the Nanjing Massacre
Chinese civilians to be buried alive, Nanjing Massacre
In December 1937, the Japanese followed retreating Chinese forces into Nanjing, Chiang Kai-shek’s capital city. For six weeks thereafter, the Japanese committed a spree of mass murder and war rape that ranked among the most violent in modern warfare. During this period, as many as an 300,000 Chinese civilians, armed and disarmed soldiers were killed by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. Widespread burning and looting occurred and an estimated 20,000 women and girls were raped. The killing and rape was particularly horrific as it continued even after Nanjing was securely taken.
Some have argued that the brutal actions of the Japanese were in retaliation for the large loss of life that they had suffered when fighting for Shanghai; others have said that the Japanese were taught to consider all Chinese the enemy regardless of whether they were wearing a uniform. The Japanese also underwent training to desensitize them to violence before being sent to the front which may have made it easier for them to rape and kill indiscriminately. Several Japanese leaders of the atrocities were later prosecuted, convicted and executed at the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal and at the wide-ranging International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Yet the court findings and the massacre itself have been both denied and downplayed by some in Japan, including by prominent politicians. This continues to cause discord in Sino-Japanese relations today.
Breaking the Dikes of the Yellow River
Japanese advance despite broken Yellow River dikes
From Nanjing, the Japanese moved to take the northern city of Xuzhou in March 1938. The Chinese defended it valiantly at the cost of 30,000 Japanese lives, yet the city ultimately fell in May. In June 1938, in a desperate attempt to stall further Japanese advance, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the dikes of the Yellow River to be broken at Huayuankou, near Zhengzhou. The resulting flood – for which the Chinese civilian population was wholly unprepared – was one of the largest acts of environmental warfare in history. Waters flooded into Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu. The floods – which permanently changed the course of the Yellow River, shifting the mouth of the Yellow River hundreds of miles to the south- covered and destroyed approximately 21,000 square miles of farmland and swamped an estimated 4,000 Chinese villages. At least 800,000 Chinese civilians were drowned, starved or died of ensuing diseases and several million villagers were forced from their homes and made refugees.
Despite the flooding, the Japanese attack on China continued. The Japanese military captured Canton on 21 October and Wuhan on December 25, 1938 after five months of fighting in the area. Wuhan would have likely fallen sooner if not for assistance of Russian pilots sent by Stalin. By the end of 1938, Japan controlled the entire east coast of China, cutting off KMT access to major industrial centers, to large areas of natural resources, to its most fertile farmland and to the outside world.
Japanese Puppet Regimes in China and Chinese Collaborators
Wang Jingwei ran Nanjing for the Japanese
The Japanese ran its conquered territory through an interconnected network of puppet regimes headed by Chinese collaborators such as Wang Jingwei, a close follower of Sun Yat-sen’s and a high-ranking member in the KMT. Wang was lured into working with the Japanese by its promotion of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and by Japan’s specific promise to return to China all concessions and leased territories, to abolish extraterritoriality and to fight Chinese communism.
In exchange, Japan asked China for its recognition of Manchukuo, for permission to station Japanese troops in China, preferred access to China’s natural resources, and consent for the Japanese to appoint cultural and educational advisors. Chiang Kai-shek condemned these Japanese proposals as nothing more than a concealed plan to annex China and expelled Wang from the KMT as a traitor.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese who did not wish to live under Japanese occupation migrated to the KMT area around Chongqing, often transporting key machinery and factory parts with them. Chongqing doubled in size during the first three months of KMT occupation. Others joined the Communist pocket in Yan’an. This migration swelled CCP membership from an estimated 40,000 in 1937 to 800,000 in 1940.
KMT Administrative Challenges during the War
KMT government at Chongqing
Chiang Kai-shek faced many challenges both governing and organizing the war effort from his new Chongqing stronghold. China was again fragmented. While the KMT held a large area in the southwest of China, Japan occupied Manchukuo, the Inner Mongolian Federation, east-central China and Taiwan. The Communists held their Shaanxi base in northwest China while Muslim Xinjiang and Buddhist Tibet both reasserted their independence.
While Chiang Kai-shek was nominally the Chairman of both the Supreme National Defense Counsel and the Military Affairs Commission – confirming his position as head of the Army and Air Force – in reality he presided over a loose alliance of warlords who did not always obey KMT directives. This hampered efforts to coordinate the war effort and to create cohesive policies that could be applied consistently to the local governments under his rule. Incomes and tax revenues shrank while military expenses skyrocketed.
Chongqing civilian casualties during Japanese air raid
To finance its rapidly growing deficit, the KMT printed money, creating a destructive inflationary spiral within its territory. Corruption, extortion and food shortages became endemic. As inflation rose, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to collect its taxes in kind from the farmers either in rice, wheat, beans, maize, millet or cotton. On top of these in-kind taxes, grain “surcharges” were levied. The surcharges were to be paid back at fair market rates, yet delays and abuses were commonplace. KMT farmers were also responsible for the cost of grain transport to specified depots. These exorbitant and often unfair grain collections undermined popular support for the KMT government. As a result, confidence between officers and men and between soldiers and civilians eroded. As dissatisfaction with KMT leadership grew, so did KMT suppression in response. As suppression increased, liberal-leaning Chinese looked to the Communists for new policies. As a result, KMT repression intensified further, becoming as indiscriminate as it was corrupt.
Complicating further KMT’s efforts at government was the fact that it had no real base of support in Chongqing. Furthermore, while the city’s isolation helped to safeguard it against Japanese invasion, it also meant that Chongqing was backward. It had little modern industry and only rudimentary administrative and financial structures aggravating the difficulties the KMT already faced by being cut off from its industrial, financial and resource-rich eastern regions. Additionally, large floods of refugees put huge strain on the city.
Large military casualties also undermined morale as did the 1939- 1941 Japanese aerial bombing campaign of the city, killing thousands of civilians. The initially high civilian losses were stopped only when the KMT finished a network of underground shelters buried into the rock beneath the city and when it created an early warning system where KMT sympathizers behind Japanese lines alerted the KMT when Japanese planes left their bases.
Limited Access to Aid
Burma Road
Adding to these difficulties was the fact that the Japanese blockade of China’s coast all but isolated China from access to international aid. Between 1937-1939 the Soviets granted to the KMT three loans totaling $450 million, supplied it with 1,000 planes and sent about 50 military advisers to China. During this same time, total Western aid to China amounted to $263 million, $120 million of which came from the Americans for nonmilitary purchases. The outbreak of war in Europe in 1939 caused Russian aid to China to dry up. To try and avoid the fighting and buy time, Russia signed the August 1939 Non-Aggression Pact with Germany and the 1941 Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact in which the Soviet recognized the territorial integrity of Manchukuo.
Initially, because of Japan’s successful naval blockade, China’s only access to foreign military supplies were those shipped overland via the Burma Road – opened in 1938 – and via rail links in Vietnam. In 1940 the British government gave into Japanese diplomatic pressure to close down the 715 mile Burma Road to supplies to China for three months. In June 1941 the rail link to Hanoi was cut after the Japanese put pressure on the French colonial authorities in Vietnam. By 1942 the Japanese invasion of Burma closed the Burma Road completely. At that point, China’s only access to foreign military supplies was those flown in by the Americans from airfields in India, over “the Himalayan Hump”. While the Hump airlift was key to China remaining in the fight, nevertheless it was only able to provide the Chinese military with a small fraction of its military needs.
Flying Tiger maintenance on an airfield in China
Its aid situation improved significantly when the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 caused the US to enter the war. In 1941, the US began by sending volunteer American pilots to fly in combat against the Japanese and to train Chinese aircraft personnel. These “Flying Tigers” inflicted real damage to Japanese bombing runs on Chongqing. The US Congress also re-opened the aid spigot – passing a $630 million lend-lease supply deal in which military supplies were made available to China without the need for compensation as long as they were employed fighting against Japan. The US government also gave the KMT government a further $500 million loan. Lend-lease aid to China eventually reached $1.54 billion. In 1943, Washington gave China an additional $300 million for currency stabilization. In 1944, the Allies recaptured northern Burma. They built a new Burma Road – the Ledo Road – which was open for transport by January 1945.
The Communists and the Second United Front
Eighth Route Army
The Communists were also facing challenges governing their territory and working with the KMT. Chiang Kai-shek’s 1937 kidnapping forced Chiang into the Second United Front, again partnering with the Communists. Yet, the alliance was troubled from the outset. The Communists- increasingly under Mao Zedong’s leadership- promised to uphold Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles, to stop acts of sabotage against the KMT, to end the confiscation of rich peasant landholdings, to make its 30,000 man Red Army a unit of the KMT military under the name of “The 8th Route Army” and to organize its 10,000 soldiers located south of the Yangtze into the New Fourth Army. For a time, these reorganized armies received a portion of military supplies and financial support.
Yet, from the beginning, Mao’s viewed the Second Front as a way to protect the CCP from further KMT attacks. It was Mao’s objective to use the war as a vehicle to expand both the Red Army and the CCP to one million members each. Similarly, Chiang Kai-shek never stopped viewing the Communists as a “disease of the heart” – a threat more fatal to China than the Japanese “disease of the skin”; Chiang believed that the Communists would eventually need to be eradicated.
Leaders of the 8th Route Army
That said, at the beginning of the alliance, there were real examples of KMT-Communist cooperation. In September 1937, for instance, the Eighth Route Army supported by the Nationalist 14th Army fought off a Japanese attack on Shanxi province. The KMT gave the CCP 50 of the 200 seats of the newly formed People’s Political Council. It allowed the CCP to set up a bureau of joint communication in Xi’an located in-between the KMT’s base in Chongqing and the Communist strong-hold in Shaanxi, and to publish for a time the Communist New China Daily. The KMT also permitted the CCP to transform their outlawed soviets into to KMT-approved border governments – one in the Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia area and the other in the Shanxi, Charhar and Hebei region.
Mao Zedong and the Yan’an Years
Mao Zedong in Yan’an
Having fought off leadership challenges and enjoying a temporary respite from KMT attack, Mao Zedong used the Yan’an years to adapt Marxist-Lenin principles to the unique conditions of the Chinese experience. In particular, Mao continued to believe that it was the peasant farmers and not the workers who would lead China’s communist revolution, and he worked hard to engage the peasants into fully participating in the political, economic and military organizations of the base areas. The poverty of the Shaanxi province helped these efforts as it made it easier to shift the peasants toward radicalism. Similarly, the Japanese invasion helped foment feelings of revolutionary nationalism. Mao discovered that by involving the peasants directly in the fight against the endemic problems of poverty and oppression, he not only developed their class consciousness, but he also helped the peasants to lose some of their traditional subservience. As there was no capital available for development, Mao increasingly relied on the mass mobilization of labor to achieve his infrastructure and other objectives.
Mao launched many major campaigns during the Yenan period which were to remain important governing themes when Mao won national power. One important theme was ensuring popular support for the military while maximizing its effectiveness and minimizing its bureaucracy. To this effect, Mao reduced the size of the standing army and its administration and increased the relative size of the guerilla forces. The CCP worked hard to make sure that the Red Army remained courteous to local farmers and village leaders, that it compensated locals for food and other supplies, and that it kept its distance from the village women. Thus respected, the local population proved invaluable in providing the communist with intelligence and logistical support that helped Mao coordinate effective guerilla attacks against the Japanese. Mao also augmented the number of its soldiers by forming alliances with the local militia as well as with secret societies such as the Red Spears.
Red Army soldier doing farm work
Prevented from pursuing a policy of land transfer due to the stipulations of the Second United Front, the CCP instead instituted a program of rent, interest and tax reductions which made it less profitable for the rich to keep large land holdings and made it more possible for the poor to increase their farms to a profitable size. The CCP also encouraged farmers to join mutual aid cooperatives in which they pooled labor, tools and draft animals and formed producer cooperatives to purchase grain and advance credit. Party cadres were encouraged to participate in both manual and managerial work. Mao was careful to make sure the peasant benefited from his programs instead of just adding to their work. Mao also made efforts to make all administrative units and members of those units – whether they be civilian or military – self-sufficient in food and cotton. While self-reliance was never reached, by 1945, most communist units were meeting as much as 40% of their own needs.
As the communist villages within their territory often had poor communication links, party cadres were encouraged to take local initiative instead of relying on orders from above to find their direction. This independence encouraged leaders to be flexible and to study local conditions. Early on Mao realized that the CCP could only increase production if gains in peasant incomes were larger than the rise in their taxes. The peasants needed to feel that it was worth it to invest their surplus labor to better their own lives. The resulting efforts caused close bonds to form between the leaders and the people. This comradely was at the heart of the Yan’an experience, as was the poverty, frugality, and egalitarianism shared by all.
Yan’an Meeting Hall were many self-criticism forums occurred
Mao reinforced these bonds by educational movements designed to teach peasants and party leaders alike about ways to achieve the socialist revolution; as the party had grown, Mao increasingly felt that a common framework of ideological reference was needed. These educational efforts included mass-line campaigns to further developing class-consciousness. The “Rectification Campaigns” celebrated labor heroes and vilified abusive landlords, creditors and corrupt officials. Refugees into Yan’an were categorically reminded of the imperatives of the socialist cause: intellectuals were sent to the villages to learn from the peasants as were some of the too numerous communists bureaucrats, causing them to lose status in the process.
Reluctant converts – or those who challenged Mao’s power- were singled out in mass self-criticism forums. These forums could include intense small-group discussions, criticism, self-criticism, repeated written confessions, brainwashing and physical abuse which at times resulted in death or suicide. Those who were socially unreliable – for example, adulteresses, opium addicts, and those who failed to make party meetings -were also subjected to self-criticism. Mao also targeted those who had strong Soviet links; Mao increasingly viewed the Soviets as unreliable friends and wished to minimize Russian influence in CCP policy. In this way, a movement that began as an educational policy at times became a purge. As the movement spread, people’s records were increasingly scrutinized.
Mao Zedong at his desk 1938
The impact of Mao’s mass line soon began to curtail intellectual and artistic expression. In speeches in 1942 Mao argued that the role of art and literature was to serve the revolution by inspiring the masses to transform their social and economic environment. Mao believed that the constraint of intellectual thought was essential to developing a tightly disciplined force which had absolute loyalty to the party. This narrow-mindedness and intolerance to dissent was to result in decisions which were to haunt the party in later decades.
During the Yan’an years, Mao devoted much of his time to theorizing and to writing communist and military strategy. It was to be one of the most creative and productive periods of his life. In one two year period, for instance, he wrote 200 pages on strategy, 165 pages on politics and 55 pages on philosophy. Titles of his works included: On the Protracted War, Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War; Problems of Strategy in the Guerrilla War against Japan, On the New Democracy and On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship.
Hundred Regiments Campaign and the Japanese Policy of Three All
Japanese soldiers escorting Chinese farmers from their fields
Having consolidated local support and lacking the artillery to engage the Japanese directly, the CCP fought the Japanese with guerrilla tactics, much as they had the KMT. An exception was what has been called the Hundred Regiments Campaign in which an estimated 400,000 Eighth Route Army soldiers – broken into 105 regiments- fought the Japanese in North China in August 1940. An initial Chinese objective was the Chinese railway network the Japanese were using to transport troops. Although the CCP succeeded in destroying 1000 miles of road, 300 miles of track, 260 railway stations and scores of bridges and tunnels, its victories came at a great cost. The CCP was forced to conclude that it should not engage the Japanese Imperial Army directly.
Its return to guerrilla tactics caused the Japanese to adopt in December 1941 a policy of “The Three All” – “Kill all, Burn all, Destroy all”. The brutal Three All policy was designed to undermine peasant support for the Communists. Those peasants who cooperated with the Japanese were moved to safe villages where they were given food; Communist or KMT collaborators were killed or starved, their homes demolished and their livestock slaughtered. The Three All campaign succeeded in reducing Communist territory and its population from one containing 45 million people to one containing 25 million. While many peasants were deterred from aiding the CCP as a result of the Three All Policy, for others the Three All only served to stiffen their resolve to resist the Japanese at all cost. The Three All Policy was a significant factor in increasing the Red Army to one million men by the end of the war and was another good example of Japanese brutality.
The New Fourth Army Incident and Renewed KMT-CCP Fighting
New Fourth Army troops on their way to the Northeast
Despite the CCP’s real successes in engaging the Japanese in North China, the KMT remained wary of signs of growing CCP strength. The KMT as particularly concerned that The New Fourth Army allowed the Communists a strategic presence in the Yangtze Delta. KMT generals tried to maneuver the New Fourth Army northward, but the Communists were reluctant to give up their Southern foothold. The two sides began engaging in an escalating series of skirmishes. During one key battle the CCP routed the KMT. By December 1940, Chiang Kai-Shek ordered the New Fourth Army to cross the Yangtze by January 31st, 1941, but then – accusing the New Fourth Army of mutiny – attacked their rearguard before the CCP could comply. Between January 7 and January 13, 1941, a pitched battle ensued, with the KMT killing 3,000 communists in an ambush and later executing and imprisoning many more.
The communists used the New Fourth Army Incident to great propaganda effect. It was also soon able to reestablish a guerrilla base south of the river. After the incident, the KMT begin an economic blockade on the CCP’s Yan’an base. It also ended financial support for the Eighth Route Army. The CCP-controlled areas soon faced serious shortages of both civilian and military supplies. The New Fourth Army Incident did not shatter the Second United Front, but it did caused both parties to increasingly position themselves in the event of civil war.
The Japanese Bombing of Pearl Harbor
USS Oglala after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor thus causing the US to enter WWII. Japan considered the U.S. Navy fleet a threat to its ambition to create a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere under Japanese dominion. Japanese military leaders felt that if the US fleet’s operational mobility was not curtailed, the US Navy could not only threaten Japan’s blockade of China’s coast, but it could also make it difficult for Japan to consolidate its control over Vietnam and Burma. The US declaration of war against Japan improved China’s prospects immensely. Not only did the US send aid, but Roosevelt also appointed Gen. Joseph Stillwell as commander-in-chief of the American forces in the China-Burma-India theatre.
The flying Tigers were reorganized as a regular part of the 14th Air Force. China was also recognized, along with the Soviet Union and Britain, as one of the four great powers in the Allied war effort. Roosevelt justified this recognition by pointing out that China was pinning down almost half of Japanese military forces. In 1943 Roosevelt also got the Unequal Treaties repudiated. The Unequal Treaties were forced on China by Western powers after military defeats that took place during the Qing Dynasty. The treaties encroached on China’s sovereign rights, diminishing it to a semi-colonial status. Roosevelt also helped end the Western practice of extraterritoriality in China; China could now prosecute foreigners according to Chinese law.
Chiangs and General Joseph Stilwell
Initial enthusiasm regarding the US’s increased involvement in China’s war effort was hampered to some extent by the fact that Gen. Joseph “Vinager” Stillwell did not often see eye to eye with Chiang Kai-shek, and expressed his disagreement in an undiplomatic manner. Despite Stillwell’s good command of Chinese and his real affection for the Chinese people, he did not respect Chiang Kai-shek as a leader nor did he have much tolerance for Chiang Kai-shek’s commanding officers whom he found both corrupt and reluctant to fight.
He also abhorred the campaigns of conscription that the KMT were forced to employ in order to raise troops for its army. These campaigns necessitated on many occasions the need to manacle half-starved and maltreated men in order to get them to the front. Indeed, it is estimated that 1 in 10 Chinese soldiers died from disease and starvation before seeing any fighting. Stillwell also severely criticized Chiang Kai-shek’s policy of using large numbers of KMT troops to blockade the communists instead of using them to fight the Japanese.
Japanese soldiers with gas masks, Battle of Changsha, 1941
To the extent that the Chinese did fight – as they did when they launched training bombing raids on Thailand from their newly expanded network of airfields east of Chongqing in June 1944 – it was often against Stillwell’s advice. In retaliation, the Japanese launched operation Ichigo during which they successfully attacked first the railway line in Henan province, then the city of Changsha, then the newly expanded airbases. Despite Stillwell having been proven correct and despite the significant damage that Ichigo inflicted on both Chiang Kai-shek’s remaining forces and the credibility of his leadership, by October 1944, Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in getting Stillwell removed from his Chinese command. He was replaced by Gen. Albert Wedemeyer.
Western Journalists in China during the War
Mao Zedong with foreign journalists in Yan’an
America’s involvement in the war and the existence of a communist China in Yan’an with its own territory, government, social policies and army attracted the attention of both foreign journalists and American military leaders. Journalists such as Edgar Snow, T.A. Bisson and Gunther Stein all drew sharp contrast between the corrupt KMT officials and their poorly managed territory, and the honesty and frugality of the communist leaders and their evident concern for the welfare of their people. Linking communists efforts to better the lives of its people with Western ideals of democratic progress, many reporters found Chinese communism to be in many respects a new form of agrarian democracy and began to distinguish it from Russian communism. Chaing Kai-shek unsurprisingly dismissed their findings as biased. Mao himself took umbrage with some of their reports, insisting that the Chinese communists were genuine Marxists just like the Russians.
The Dixie Mission
Dixie Mission commander Colonel David D. Barrett and Mao Zedong in Yan’an, 1944
After much lobbying with both the US State Department and a very reluctant Chiang Kai-shek, it was agreed to send an American military contingents to Yan’an in July and August 1944. Led by Col. David Barrett and named the Dixie Mission, Barrett’s objective was to evaluate ways that the communists could most effectively assist in the war effort. The Mission’s reconnaissance concluded that while the communists were excellent guerrilla fighters, they had no ability to fight the Japanese head on. The Mission also recognized efficiency and honesty with which the communists ruled.
During the Mission, Mao argued that the Americans must intervene to prevent a Chinese civil war between the KMT and the communists. Mao argued that Chiang Kai-shek would be dependent on American military support in order to wage war against the communists. Mao also argued that only the Americans could liberate China from Japan.
As a result of the Dixie Mission, high-ranking Americans including Vice President Wallace, Chinese Ambassador Clarence Gauss and special emissary Patrick Hurley began arguing that the Communists were a permanent force in China. They also argued that the US might ultimately be backing the wrong horse by unilaterally supporting Chiang Kai-shek. Despite these arguments, the US government concluded from the Dixie Mission that it would continue to sustain Chiang Kai-shek as legal head of the Chinese government.
The Yalta Conference
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill at Yalta 1945
Chiang Kai-shek’s mismanagement of the Ichigo battles as well as the management of his regime generally caused his influence to diminish with its allies. In February 1945 Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met at Yalta where they decided that Russia would enter the war in Asia three months after Germany’s defeat. Russia would be given back all territory lost to the Japanese including the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. It would have access to the warm water ports of Dairen and Port Arthur, and would lease again the naval base at Lushun.
The city of Dalian would be “internationalized” and thus accessible to the Russians. Russia would also be given a stake in this Sino-Russian Railways in Manchuria. Finally the allies would lend their support to the newly formed Outer Mongolia as an independent country. The Yalta concessions came as a great blow to Chiang Kai-shek. Russia argued that without such concessions, it would be hard to justify war against Japan to the Soviet people.
Hiroshima after the bomb
In May 1945, Germany surrendered. On August 8, 1945 Russian forces moved into Manchukuo to attack the Japanese. On August 6 and August 9, the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By August 14, the Japanese surrendered. In the end, Russia achieved significant rights in Manchuria with very little effort. A Sino-Soviet 30 Year Treaty of Friendship and Alliance ensued in which Stalin offered China aid against future Japanese aggression and recognition of Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria in exchange for many of the concessions he had negotiated at Yalta.
The Consequences of the War
China, Britain and Japan sign documents of surrender 1945
The Sino-Japanese War and World War II caused far-reaching changes for China. The Unequal Treaties and the Policy of Extraterritoriality had been abolished as had China’s semi-colonial status. China replaced Japan as Asia’s leading power and it was given a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. European colonialism and influence in Asia was rapidly coming to an end as India, Burma, Indochina and Indonesia all began to call for independence. America, in contrast, was to become a rising force in Asia.
The KMT was exhausted by the war effort. By 1945 China had succeeded in pinning down over 1.2 million Japanese troops and consuming 35% of Japan’s total war expenditure. It had enlisted over 14 million Chinese soldiers, over 3 million of which were wounded and 1 million were killed. Its war debt exceeded $1.4 billion. Chiang Kai-shek’s government was in tatters. Deficit spending and money printing had led to devastating inflation which encouraged corruption, theft and extortion. Inflation, poor management, harsh conscription policies and battle fatigue had seriously undermined army morale.
The KMT’s excessive money printing led to high inflation
Inflation and war had also reduced much of the middle class to poverty and had destroyed countless civilian lives, embittering many. When rumblings of civil war began to be heard, few had heart left to meet the call.
The communists by contrast came out of the war stronger than before. By 1945, the communists in Yan’an had control over 1 million square kilometers of land populated by nearly 100,000,000 people. It had almost 1 million party members and members of its armed forces. As importantly, the communists had developed a reputation for honesty, for showing real concern for the Chinese people, and for efficient governance. Also, although the KMT bore the brunt of the Japanese invasion, the communists had won the public relations war. Their bravery in the face of Japanese aggression was held in high regard by the Chinese people. Indeed Mao later said that without the Japanese Invasion of China and the ensuing Second United Front, the communists would never have been able to gain the strength necessary to win the ensuing civil war.
What happened next
Japanese surrender to Chinese troops 1945
After WWII ended, the US tried to shore up KMT strength by air-lifting KMT troops into position to accept Japanese surrender. The idea was to prevent the communists from taking command in as many areas as possible. The US also continued to provide Chiang Kai-Shek’s government with military and financial aid. Subsequently, US envoys such as General George Marshall worked to negotiate a power-sharing truce between the KMT and communists in the form of a democratic-oriented government with an elective assembly. Yet by January 1947, US mediation efforts proved futile, and the US withdrew from involvement in China. China rapidly descended into Civil War.
References
Modern Chinese History V: The Chinese Civil War 1945-49
/in History, Modern Chinese History /by chinafolioIntroduction
Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb
On August 6 and August 9 the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By August 14 the Japanese surrendered, bringing to an abrupt end the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War and WWII into which the Sino-Japanese War had been subsumed. The Kuomintang (KMT) – also called the Nationalist Party – led by Chiang Kai-Shek was exhausted by the war effort. Inflation, poor management, harsh conscription policies and battle fatigue had also seriously undermined civilian support for his regime.
In contrast, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) came out of the war stronger than before. After having been almost wiped out by the Long March in 1935, the communists in Yan’an led by Mao Zedong now controlled 1 million square kilometers of land populated by nearly 100 million people. The CCP also had almost a million party members and a million Red Army soldiers. As importantly, the communists had developed a reputation for honesty, for showing real concern for the Chinese people and for efficient governance.
General Wedemeyer, commander-in-chief of the American forces in the China-Burma-India theatre, warned Washington in 1945 that if peace came swiftly to China, there would be extensive disorder as the KMT had no national reconstruction plan. Moreover, Wedemeyer also told Washington that KMT authority would continue to be seriously challenged by growing communist strength, by a disillusioned populace, by chronic economic mismanagement and by continued alliances with self-interested warlords.
The communists had significantly increased CCP membership and support by the end of the war
After WWII ended, the US tried to shore up KMT strength by air-lifting KMT troops into position to accept Japanese surrender to prevent the CCP from taking command in as many areas as possible. The US also continued to provide Chiang Kai-Shek’s government with military and financial aid. US envoys such as General George Marshall also worked to negotiate a power-sharing truce between the KMT and Communists in the form of a democratic-oriented government with an elective assembly. Yet, as Marshall mediated to create real power sharing between the various Chinese political parties, China moved closer to all-out Civil War. By January 1947, the US disbanded its mediation liaisons and withdrew from involvement in China, much to the shock of Chiang Kai-shek who believed that the US would never abandon its country to communism. Chiang Kai-shek failed to believe that the US would be willing to replace China with Japan as the keystone of its East Asian policy.
In the early stages of the Civil War, the KMT seemed to have all the advantages. Not only did it out number the communists 2 ½-1 in terms of men and equipment, but it was also receiving military and financial support from the US. An early string of KMT victories between July and December 1946 seemed to bear this belief out. Indeed, in March 1947 the KMT captured the Communist wartime base in Yan’an. However, abuse of power, crushing inflation, and poor military strategy soon turned the KMT advantage.
By mid-1947, the KMT military machine began to founder, while the Communist army continued to expand in numbers. Chiang Kai-shek’s initial string of victories soon turned to losses. Between September 1948 and January 1949 the KMT lost 1.5 million men to death, injury, desertion and surrender. Faced with such overwhelming troop losses, the KMT defence collapsed in mid-1949. On October 1, 1949 Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile what remained of the KMT government retreated to Taiwan, taking with them huge quantities of dynastic art and most of the nation’s supply of gold and silver.
The End of the Sino-Japanese War
Americans airlifting troops in China
After the Japanese defeat, the US supported Chiang Kai-shek by airlifting close to a half million of Chiang Kai-shek’s troops to key cities in order to accept Japanese surrender in advance of the Communists. It also placed 50,000 American marines in the key ports and communication centers to await the arrival KMT troops. The scale of the surrender was immense and took months. Over 1.25 million Japanese soldiers, 900,000 and 1.75 million Japanese civilians had to be disarmed and transported from the country.
For its part, the CCP ordered its troops to seize as many Japanese-occupied towns, cities and communication centers as possible, receiving their surrender and their military supplies. Communists efforts were not supported by the Americans and were strongly opposed by the KMT. Indeed, often the Japanese were instructed to continue to fight the CCP until the KMT could move into position. In Manchuria, Chiang Kai-shek asked Stalin to hold the province until the KMT could assume control. Yet, the CCP were well positioned geographically in the north, especially for Manchuria. Not only was Manchuria relatively close to their northern Shaanxi base, but it also had an active underground communist movement that rapidly resurfaced. Despite being ravaged by years of fighting, Manchuria remained a good prize. It was rich in resources, and had a developed industrial base, large cities, good food stores and a hilly and forested topography that would allow protection for communist guerrilla forces.
Chinese communist troops head north to Manchuria
On August 11, 1945, CCP leader Lin Biao led a 100,000 man army along the Beijing-Mukden Railway into Manchuria. They joined up with 150,000 People’s Self-Defense fighters organized by the re-surfacing Manchurian communists. Many of the People’s Self-Defense fighters were either native Manchurian or Koreans who had fled during the Japanese invasion of their country. In the weeks after the Japanese surrender, the CCP extended their territory from 116 to 175 counties. The communists fighters also successfully secured the industrial city of Harbin with a population of almost 800,000 people, giving it its first urban base since the Northern Expedition.
Their efforts were helped by the Soviets who – when not busy stripping Manchuria of food, gold and equipment – allowed the communists to take hold of large arms and ammunition stores. Yet the Soviets did not set up the CCP to takeover Manchuria. Instead, Stalin insisted that the communists negotiate with the KMT to form a coalition government. Despite Stalin’s ideological proclamations of international communist revolutions, Stalin’s real-politic objective was to keep China weak so it could be used as a platform to expand Russian influence in East Asia.
KMT troops significantly outnumbered the Red Army at the start of the war
Despite CCP success in Manchuria, overall the KMT was better positioned by the time the dust settled after the Japanese surrender. The government had retaken control of almost all important cities in communication centers in central, east and southern China. The KMT had a men and materials superiority of 2 ½ – 1, the support of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, as well as the backing of the US – the most powerful country in the world. Because of what he believed to be his overwhelming advantages and because Chiang was confident he could now destroy the communists once and for all, Chiang made the ill-fated decision to send almost a half million troops of his best troops to Manchuria despite American advice that he should first consolidate his control south of the Great Wall.
Communists in Manchuria
The communists put high taxes on luxury goods such as those sold in the Minakai Department store located in Hsingking, the Japanese capital of Manchukuo
The CCP’s control of industrial city of Harbin marked the first time since the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 that the Communists had a large base in an urban environment. Their experiences there were to prove important once the Civil War began to expand communist power southward. To facilitate the task of urban government, the CCP divided the city into six districts which were further divided into 58 street governments each overseeing a population of approximately 14,000 citizens. Once in control, the CCP launched registration campaigns, arrested thieves and other “destructive elements”, organized citizens into self-policing organizations, and employed urban workers to assist the PLA in transporting goods and wounded soldiers from the various fronts.
The CCP also worked conscientiously to restore order to the economy. They kept prices low for fuel, grain and cooking oil, but instituted more punitive taxes for tobacco, cosmetics and luxury goods. They also taxed businesses. Additionally, they launched a so-called Voluntary Contribution Campaign; using mass media, public meetings and coercion, the CCP succeeded in raising an additional 200 million yuan to fund its fighting. Once again, CCP economic and government policies contrasted sharply with KMT practices in Manchuria.
The KMT formed alliances with hated Japanese collaborators or had their cronies displace local officials. The new KMT leaders would then often use their new posts for self-enrichment. Rocketing military expenses and economic mismanagement again forced the KMT to print money, fueling inflation, despite the KMT’s efforts to isolate Manchuria from China’s national surging inflation by introducing its own Manchurian currency.
KMT’s failure to meet Governing Challenges After the War
KMT in-fighting over the return of property confiscated by the Japanese such as the Manchurian Coal Company hurt economic recovery
Despite American assistance at the beginning of the war, the KMT quickly started to fritter away their authority. To begin with, the KMT were militarily, financially and spiritually exhausted. This exhaustion gave them little bandwidth to tackle the corruption and economic mismanagement that had plagued the party throughout its time in power. They also undermined their popular support by forming alliances with dodgy warlords, including many known Japanese collaborators. Even when anti-Japanese collaborator regulations were implemented in September 1946, loopholes allowed many to escape punishment and receive appointments, much to the outrage of the Chinese public. Abuse of power and scandal became widespread, often relating to the return of property confiscated by the Japanese during their Chinese occupation. Disputes forced factories and business premises to remain closed longer than had been promised, throwing people out of work and further weakening local economies already ravaged by war and inflation. Unemployment rose. A reduction in defense spending and some demobilization increased unemployment figures further.
Equally corrosive was Chiang Kai-shek’s poor management of the national currency and the money supply. During the war, exchange rates and even currency varied by region. Many of the Japanese-puppet regimes had issued their own money. After the war, currency speculation became rife.
Excessive KMT printing of money led to economic chaos and high inflation
Making matters worse was the persistent budget deficit. This meant that the KMT were constantly short of money. The knee-jerk response to this shortage was to print banknotes which resulted in catastrophic inflation. Wholesale prices, for instance, increased 30% per month from 1945-1948. Anyone on the fixed salary was hit hard. Soaring inflation destroyed the livelihood of hundreds of millions of Chinese. Industrial workers, for instance, had their purchasing power sharply eroded. They began to strike in protest, encouraged by underground Communists who again began to infiltrate workers’ unions. The KMT tried hard to negotiate with workers in order to avoid more conflict, offering, for instance, wage rates based on 1936 pay scales which were then multiplied by a current cost of living index; this, in turn, displeased employers who felt that the higher wages eroded Chinese competitiveness.
When the new wage scheme proved ineffective, the KMT instituted price and wage ceilings, setting prices for rice, flour, cotton, cloth, fuel, salt, sugar and edible oil and locking wages into the January 1947 cost of living index. These controls had some effect through March 1947, but hoarding, inadequate enforcement and distribution problems eventually caused inflation to return. By May 1947, the price and wage ceilings were abandoned. Even a July 1947 American plan to distribute food and fuel at low prices through the Central Bank of China did little to halt inflation’s rise. In a last-ditch and ultimately unsuccessful attempt, the KMT issued ration cards for staple foods to urban citizens.
Facing an increasingly serious crisis which was quickly wearing away their power base, in July 1948 Chiang Kai-shek and his financial advisor T.V. Soong decided to introduce a gold yuan, abandoning its current currency. Soong and his other financial advisors warned Chiang Kai-shek that the currency would not hold unless the deficit was dramatically reduced, which in turn would mean that military spending would have to be cut. They had also hoped to support the new currency with loans from the US which they were unable to secure after Truman was re-elected in 1948.
Demoralized KMT troops had little desire to fight their own countrymen
In order to increase confidence in the gold yuan, the KMT committed to printing a maximum of 2 billion yuan worth of notes. To support the currency further, wage and price increases were banned as were strikes and demonstrations. Sales taxes were increased to raise more revenue. All gold and silver bullion held by Chinese citizens were to be turned over to the banks (although many were reluctant to comply.) Yet, despite the KMT’s efforts, the gold yuan also failed. By October 1948 inflation returned, along with shortages of food, goods and medical supplies. Barter began to flourish in the absence of functioning monetary system.
KMT soldiers too were battle-weary. Patriotism and the ever-growing prospect of victory gave the KMT troops the energy they needed to fight to the end of the Sino-Japanese war. Relieved, proud, the often-gang pressed troops now wanted to return home for a much looked-for rest. They had no desire to launch into a Civil War to fight against their own people. They especially had no desire to be sent to Manchuria where the local population and the terrain was unfriendly and unfamiliar.
Failed Marshall Mission
Ambassador Hurley encouraged a reluctant Mao to negotiate with the KMT 1945
Despite the KMT’s economic and military challenges, Chiang Kai-shek proceeded with plans to destroy the communists once and for all while the Americans worked actively to create a KMT-CCP power-sharing truce that would avoid civil war and that would install some form of a democratic-oriented government which shared power through an elective assembly. In August 1945, Ambassador Hurley accompanied a reluctant Mao Zedong from Yan’an to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai-shek. Despite the KMT’s apparent strength, Mao Zedong was confident that the CCP would eventually control a large area north of lower Yangtze and Huai Rivers, yet he also believed that securing the territory would take time.
Given that he was outnumbered both in men and arms, Mao adopted a flexible and constructive negotiating position during the talks in order to buy the communists time. These initial talks lasted until October 10 and resulted in the publication of what seemed to be a collaborative set of tenets including the need for: political democracy, freedom of religion, speech, assembly, publication and person, an integrated military, and equal legal status for all political parties. A People’s Congress or National Assembly was to be called.
Yet undermining these public agreements was the fact that Chiang Kai-shek intended to a reassert KMT control over the entire country where, at the very least, Mao and the communists intended to hold on to the territory currently under its control. Given this, much of their promises were to prove empty including the agreement to integrate their military forces. While the CCP did pull their troops out of southern China, they consolidated their hold over their territories in the north. In November 1945, the KMT attacked the CCP in the north. Zhou Enlai, who had remained in Chongqing to continue negotiations, returned to Yan’an and Ambassador Hurley unexpectedly resigned.
Truman sent General George Marshall to negotiate a power sharing arrangement between the CCP and the KMT
Still earnest in his desire to lead China onto a peaceful and democratic course, Truman sent General George Marshall as his envoy in December 1945. Marshall achieved a cease fire in January 1946, and got Chiang Kai-shek to agree to convene the People’s Congress as had been agreed during the August-October 1945 talks. Thirty-eight delegates, representing all of Chinese various political parties, assembled in Nanjing between January 11 and January 21 where they appeared to reach accord on the framework of a constitutional government, of a unified military command and of a national assembly. Yet despite these accords, military clashes between the KMT and the CCP recommenced.
Buoyed by a string of military victories, in July 1946 Chiang Kai-shek convened his own National Assembly in open disregard to the original agreement that no such Assembly should be called until all political parties first formed a coalition government. The CCP and the Democratic League boycotted the illegal assembly in protest. In a move reminiscent of Yuan Shikai’s efforts to take control of the National Assembly in 1914, Chiang Kai-shek proceeded without multi-party support, drafting a constitution that would cement his control of power.
Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek toast each other 1946
In June 1946, General Marshall again got the KMT and the CCP to call a halt to their fighting – particularly heavy in Manchuria – and to return to the negotiating table. He pressed both sides to reopen the railways which were a key to the country’s distribution system. Yet, even as these discussions were occurring, the KMT was organizing a second assault on CCP positions in Manchuria to be launched in July. The CCP, in turn, were hardening their position. They refused joint military leadership, declined to give up any territory that they controlled and refused to have dictated to them which policies they could implement within the territory that they governed. The CCP were also increasingly suspicious of American intentions. In their base areas, they began to voice anti-American propaganda about how the Imperial Americans were once again interfering in Chinese politics. In July 1946, the communists attacked an American supply convoy, killing four American Marines and wounding a dozen others.
In the face of renewed fighting, President Truman told General Marshall that the Americans would not support China if it dissolved into Civil War. He also re-articulated this in an August 10, 1946 letter to Chiang Kai-shek. Truman warned Chiang that if his positions did not become more flexible, American support would end. He encouraged Chiang to “outflank” the CCP through economic and social reforms instead of trying to crush them militarily. Yet, the KMT had always drawn its power from urban centers and from their business elite. It still paid little attentions to agrarian problems and remained largely unsympathetic to the peasants’ plight even though the peasants represented the overwhelming majority of the Chinese citizens. Chiang thus failed to recognize the revolutionary potential of the peasant masses. He never made any efforts to organize them for himself or to neutralize them with land and social reforms. Instead, for the most part, he continued policies that forced them into submission when the need arose, without ever considering what was making peasants revolt in the first place.
Chinese Peasants became radicalized due to KMT neglect of their conditions
Chiang Kai-shek also believed that the United States would never let China fall to the communists. It was true that the United States wanted to establish a new balance of power in the Pacific and East Asia in which it could play a dominant role. Such a policy required a strong alliance with either China or Japan. That said, the US’s first priority was to rebuild Europe. Because of this, it wished to achieve its East Asian goals as inexpensively as possible. As China began to spiral into Civil War, the US began to look to Japan as a better and cheaper option on which to build its East Asian strategy.
By January 1947 Truman reached the conclusion that the KMT and the CCP were determined to fight it out. Truman had no intention of embroiling US troops in a Chinese civil conflict. US mediators were recalled. When Truman stole the election from Dewey in 1948, it was the nail that sealed the end of significant US engagement in China. The KMT had carefully cultivated relations with the Republican Dewey who had said that, if elected, he would extend massive aid to the Chinese. Truman showed no such inclination. After his election, he twice turned down KMT requests for aid in November and December 1948.
Land and other Reforms in Communist-held Areas
The CCP began implementing land redistribution in the territory under its control
While American-led negotiations were occurring through 1947, the communist leaders moved from a land reform policy based on rent reductions and graduated taxes to a more aggressive policy of land redistribution and the eradication of tenancy in the areas that they controlled. The CCP were particularly active in launching this land reform policy in its original war-time base of Shaanxi, northern Jiangsu, and parts of Hebei and Shandong. The Communists efforts were most successful in areas ravaged by Japan’s Three All Policy as well as those provinces destroyed when Chiang Kai-shek broke the dikes of the Yellow River. In these areas, the Communist message of a new, fairer social order resonated with peasants mired in poverty. Also, years of fighting had weakened the peasants’ traditional social loyalties such as those to their lineage and religious associations. Often now, their villages and provinces were commanded by appointed officials whom the villagers considered nothing more than bullies and bandits.
Mass peasant engagement and violence became elemental to the land reform process. Mass meetings were used to unleash the anger of peasants against their wealthy landlords. These landlords were then subjected to public humiliation, beatings and even death while the peasants confiscated their land and often their food and wealth. Some of the land redistribution was temporarily reversed when KMT troops recaptured territory. Where landlord power was restored, the KMT and landlords retaliated harshly.
The Battle for the Nation Intensifies
Communist troops in the Battle of Siping
With land and other reforms in communist controlled areas now set in motion, Lin Biao began to transform the PLA into a conventional fighting force, moving away from the guerrilla tactics that had been the communist modus operandi up until now. On May 1, 1946 the CCP renamed the Eight Route Army and the New Fourth Army the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (“PLA”). Lin Biao employed his new methods successfully by repulsing a KMT attack on Harbin. Then, in November 1946 he crossed the frozen Sungari River and attacked KMT troops in their winter base. Lin Biao continued to strike across the river throughout their early months of 1947, and then in May 1947, he launched a massive attack on the railway junction of Siping with 400,000 troops.
Defeated by the KMT who were backed by air power, Lin reorganized his forces and then surrounded and isolated several key Nationalist-held Manchurian cities by cutting off rail access which was a major line of supply. The KMT’s fighting spirit eroded. In particular, KMT troops were demotivated by the disparity between their poor pay and that of the officers’ who often used their positions for self-enrichment. KMT troops in Manchuria were quickly adopting a siege mentality, digging in behind defensive lines instead of trying to proactively attack the CCP whose troops were buoyed by many native Manchurians who felt they were fighting for their homeland. This effectively allowed the CCP complete control of the Manchurian countryside. By May 1948, the position of Chiang Kai-shek’s troops in Manchuria was turning increasingly desperate. This was all the more important because Chiang had concentrated many of his best troops there, without having first consolidating military and civil control of the South. The KMT strongholds of Changchun and Mukden could now only be supplied by air.
KMT soldiers with straw shoes – poor equipment and corrupt KMT military leaders led to high desertion rates toward the end of the Civil War
Yet Chiang Kai-shek had too much invested in Manchuria to listen to his military advisors who proposed that he pull back behind the Great Wall in order to regroup his forces. Louyang was captured by the Communist in April 1948, cutting Xi’an off from the East. Subsequent CCP victories in Shandong isolated 100,000 KMT troops in Jinan. Under a separate assault in March 1948, the Communist led by Peng Dehuai recaptured their wartime base of Yan’an which had been taken by Chiang Kai-shek in March 1947.
At the city of Kaifeng on the Yellow River – which protected the key railway junction of Kaifeng – the communists pitted 200,000 season troops against about 300,000 KMT fighters. The CCP succeeded in holding Kaifeng for a week before being forced to retreat. Yet the victory cost the KMT lost 90,000 men. By October 1948, the city of Jinan fell to the CCP due in part to KMT troop desertion and to communist underground activity. This meant that Chiang Kai-shek now lost its last base in Shandong. Also in October 1948, Lin Biao succeeded in capturing both Mukden and Changchun, thus causing the desertion, surrender or elimination 400,000 of Chiang Kai-shek’s best troops.
Chiang Kai-shek’s Leadership Challenged
Student protests
Chiang Kai-shek had been re-elected president in the spring 1948 by the National Assembly which had been boycotted by the CCP and the Democratic League. Yet continued economic, civil and military mismanagement was eroding his popularity. His support suffered further when in July 1948 government forces killed 14 and wounded over 100 students who had fled fighting in Manchuria and who were now living as refugees in Beijing. The students were shot when marching to protest their inadequate subsistence allowance which often forced them to beg in order to eat. On January 21, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek resigned as president, although he remained head of the Kuomintang Political Party. Chiang Kai-shek was replaced with Li Zongren.
The Final Communist Push
Peasants carting supply for communists
Having lost Shangdong, the KMT tried to regroup to defend northern China, or if that failed, the center of the country. In late 1948, Zhu De, Commander-in-Chief of all CCP forces, launched a successful 600,000 troop assault on the railway junction of Xuzhou against an equal number of KMT soldiers. In the 65 day battle that followed, the communists showed new skill with conventional warfare by outwitting the KMT generals who suffered from conflicting commands from Chiang Kai-shek and from heavy troop desertions. Deng Xiaoping orchestrated the communists’ logistical support by mobilizing 2 million peasants over four different provinces. Over the same period, Lin Biao captured Tianjin in January 1949. He then moved on to Beijing, convincing the KMT general to surrender. The KMT had lost the north of China.
The capture of so many large northern cities threw the communists into urban government as never before. Mao Zedong recognized this in March 1949 when he gave a report stating that the focus of communist efforts would begin to shift from the countryside into the cities while the PLA moved southward on its conquest of the country. In practical terms, their experience in Harbin was to prove invaluable. So was their initial decision to disrupt as little as possible the property and livelihoods of the people in the cities that they captured. To this effect, Chinese businesses were protected, urban property did not change hands, and factories were guarded from looting.
People’s Liberation Army enters Beijing
The PLA continued to maintain strict discipline in all the areas into which it moved. A people’s currency- the renminbi – soon replaced the KMT yuan. To try to prevent monetary chaos, only a short window was provided in which the yuan could be exchanged for the renminbi. Thereafter, any exchange in gold, silver or foreign currency was prohibited. Additionally, labor unions were not allowed to strike. Refugees were fed and repatriated when possible. Educational institutions continued to teach. Stockpiles of food were used by the government to stabilize food prices during times of shortage.
The KMT plan for a Final Retreat
Taipei Bureau of Monopoly occupied by angry crowd Taiwan 1947
By early 1949 the KMT was making contingency plans in the event of the once unthinkable- that communists could win control of the country. In 1945 China had reclaimed Taiwan from the Japanese who had ruled the island as a colony since 1895. When the KMT reinstalled a Chinese government in Japan after the war, the same patterns of KMT corruption and disregard continued. The KMT quickly alienated the local population. Taiwanese discontent came to a head in 1947 when Chinese troops fired into a group of Taiwanese gathered to protest the shooting of a woman selling cigarettes in contravention to a government monopoly. Over the following weeks, the KMT continued to treat the situation heavy-handedly by arresting and executing thousands of Taiwanese intellectuals and civilian leaders. It eventually imposed Martial Law in order to control the population.
Li Zongren
By January 1949, the KMT began transporting to Taiwan thousands of crates of Qing Dynasty archives as well as a huge collection of China’s dynastic art taken from the Imperial Palace collection. Chiang Kai-shek also began to steadily build up on the island a force of over 300,000 soldiers personally loyal to him.
Li Zongren, the new KMT president, tried to prevent this final retreat by getting Mao Zedong to compromise on his conditions for KMT surrender. These conditions included provisions such as a complete reform of the land tenure system and the reorganization of KMT armies under communist command that were completely unacceptable to the KMT. By April 1949, the Communists gave President Li an ultimatum to accede to their conditions within five days or the communists would attack anew.
Nanjing fell on April 23 without resistance. Hangzhou and Wuhan were lost shortly thereafter. Shanghai was taken in May 1949. Xi’an, Lanzhou and Changsha were taken by August 1949. By September the KMT had lost Xinjiang, Suiyuan and Ningxia. By October the KMT surrendered Canton and Xiamen – the last port from which to retreat to Taiwan. By November 1949 Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime base of Chongqing was claimed as communist territory.
The People’s Republic of China
Mao Zedong founding People’s Republic of China October 1, 1949
Anticipating victory Mao Zedong convened a Political Consultative Conference in Beijing in late September 1949. The conference was dominated by the CCP while also including representatives from 14 other political parties. At a subsequent ceremony on October 1, 1949, standing atop the main entrance of the Ming and Qing Imperial Palace, Mao Zedong announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
References
Modern Chinese History VI: Creating a Communist Mindset 1949-1957
/in Modern Chinese History /by ChinaFolioIntroduction
Mao proclaiming the Founding of the PRC
On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) stating, “China has stood up!” The PRC was recognized by the Soviet Union on October 2nd and by other Communist countries shortly thereafter. The PRC was also recognized by India, Burma, Pakistan, Ceylon, Britain and France, but not recognized by the United States until January 1979. Instead, during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the US considered that the Taiwanese government – led by Chiang Kai-shek and members of the Guomindang (KMT) which had retreated to Taiwan after it had lost the Chinese Civil War – to be China’s legitimate government.
To stand up to the world was no easy task for China in 1949. The China that Mao inherited lay largely in ruins. Industrial production was 44% below what it had been in 1937. Agricultural output hovered at subsistence level with many Chinese citizens facing starvation. Inflation was rampant. Much of the railway and transport networks had been damaged or destroyed during the fighting. Many industrial and other professionals fled with the KMT. These professionals took with them physical, financial and intellectual assets as well as a significant collection of art. Additionally, China’s military capacity was weak, outmatched by rival powers.
Much of China was in Ruins after the Civil War
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) party was not well prepared to deal with these challenges. To begin with, the CCP had only 4.3 million members in 1949 – less than 1% of the total population- leaving it with a shortage of reliable officials that could take over the reins of government. A recruitment drive was launched to compensate, and CCP membership grew by 3 million people between 1949 and 1952, but many of these new recruits lacked experience in the responsibilities they were asked to take on. Additionally, the CCP had operated outside of urban environments during most of its existence. Now it planned to make the industrial proletariat the center of its new social order, despite the proletariat consisting of only 5% of China’s 600 million citizens. The peasants – who were at the heart of the CCP’s power base and had been central to the CCP winning the Civil War – were now given a subsidiary role in new China. It was to be the peasants’ job to feed China’s industrial workers and to create grain surpluses that could be used to pay for machinery imported from the Soviet Union.
These challenges notwithstanding, great strides were made on many fronts in the early years of the PRC. The CCP stabilized China’s economy, controlled inflation and re-ignited economic growth. Basic hygiene policies reduced the mortality rate. Land and marriage reform improved the quality of life for millions of Chinese citizens. The last vestiges of foreign imperialism were eradicated. China reasserted political control over Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang which had been enjoying greater independence during China’s decades of war. The PRC also successfully invaded and also re-absorbed Tibet. The PRC fought the US and UN troops to a standstill during the Korean War, greatly increasing China’s prestige abroad and his authority domestically.
Political Organization
The First People’s Congress 1954
As the CCP took political control of country in 1949, it initially worked to gain allegiance from non-communists political, religious and intellectual leaders who were not directly affiliated with the defeated KMT. To this effect, Mao organized the Chinese People’s Political Consultant Conference (CPPCC) which included CCP as well as non-Communist minority parties, members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), ethnic minorities and overseas Chinese. The CPPCC passed the Organic Law and the Common Program. The Organic Law became the temporary constitutional basis for the new government. The Common Program made clear many of the policies that the CCP intended to implement. One such policy established equal rights for women, including the freedom to divorce and to choose whom they married.
Mao Zedong was elected chairman of the provisional government and remained as Chairman of the CCP. All important leadership positions in the new regime were given to CCP members, although lesser positions were bestowed on minority party members who had been supportive of the CCP during the Civil War. The government’s political and economic framework reflected the principles that Mao Zedong championed in his New Democracy writings in which he laid out that new China would be built on a Marxist societal structure and economy. Going forward, China’s economy would be led by a state-owned industrial sector supported by collectivized agriculture and a smaller private sector.
Mao and Zho Enlai at the 1954 National People’s Congress
By 1954, the provisional government had been formalized, and the Constitution was approved by the first National People’s Congress. The Constitution tightened the CCP’s hold on power by stating in Article I that the PRC would be led by the CCP and not by a coalition government as had been suggested during the CPPCC. The new government was to be led by the National People’s Congress (NPC) whose communist delegates would come from each of China’s provinces, autonomous regions, and independent municipalities. It was the NPC’s job to enact legislation, rule on economic plans and amend the Constitution. When the NPC was not in session, the government’s Standing Committee exercised the NPC’s functions. Underneath the NPC was the State Council to which reported China’s various ministries, including the army which was placed under the newly formed Ministry of Defense. Regional People’s Congresses were also created at the provincial and local levels. Although the 1954 Constitution made reference to elections, in fact, the CCP nominated all candidates. It was expected that those elected would strictly follow CCP policies.
Stabilizing Inflation and the Economy
Chinese Workers rebuilding a rail line in 1950
At the same time as it was creating a governing political structure, the CCP was also working to stabilize the economy. A first task was to bring inflation under control. To do this, the CCP created a people’s currency – the renminbi (literally “people’s currency”)– which replaced the KMT’s yuan. Only a short time was allowed for the yuan to be exchanged for the renminbi. Thereafter, any exchange in gold, silver or foreign currency was prohibited. The CCP kept firm control of the bank notes in circulation. It also guaranteed that savings and wages were tied to a basket of goods including food staples, cloth, coal, and cooking oils, thus guaranteeing the purchasing power of wages regardless of their monetary value. These policies succeeded in reducing annual inflation to 2% or below between 1952 and 1957.
The CCP also went to a long way to balancing the budget by raising taxes on urban dwellers and by aggressively cutting government and military spending. It invested little, for instance, in public health. Health spending never increased above 2.6% of the state budget through 1956. That said, vaccination campaigns and the implementation of basic hygiene, disease and pest control measures led to a real drop in China’s mortality rate. From 1950 onward, China’s population began to expand rapidly. Mao encouraged this population growth as he felt that a large population was a competitive advantage.
Initially at least, the CCP’s first rule in solidifying industrial production was to do no harm. It allowed private urban industry to continue and the CCP worked hard to stop factory closures, to prevent production disruptions due to shortages, and to keep urban unemployment from rising. Workers were told not to strike regardless of their complaints.
Creating a Communist Mindset
Chinese Communist Propaganda Poster
Integral to creating a new political framework and righting the economy was the implementation of Communism in China. For Mao, China’s Communism was to be more than just a new political, economic and social structure. Mao also wanted to change Chinese thinking so that the masses were engaged not just with their actions but also with their hearts and thoughts. Mao’s idea was to initiate campaigns to expose those who were not fully behind the Communist movement. Those so exposed could then be won over or neutralized. The mass quality of the campaigns had the effect of making everyone complicit in the Party’s actions, especially when the actions led to execution, humiliation and torture. Mao believed that the blood of the revolution should drip from everyone’s hands.
To effectively execute these campaigns, the CCP created a complete monopoly over all communication outlets. It also began to organize China’s entire population into various mass organizations over which the government could then exercise control. Examples of mass organizations established by 1953 included the 18 million members All China Federation of Democratic Youth, the 76 million member All China Democratic Women’s Federation, and the 20 million member Young Pioneers. Eventually, urban workers were collected into danwei (working units) which provided housing, shops, schools and recreational facilities in self-contained communities, and peasants were brought together in large collectives.
Once within these organizations, Chinese citizens were encouraged to attend regular political meetings and to study communist teachings. The teaching stressed the need for loyalty to the Communist Revolution over loyalty to family and friends. Citizens were encouraged to report individuals who were not good communists. Struggle sessions were then held against them.
Mass Political Rallies were mandatory
For more recalcitrant cases, reluctant communists often underwent an indoctrination process that could last up to a year. Usually, indoctrination started with individuals being removed from their friends and family and being cut off from contact with the outside world. Recalcitrant citizens were split into small groups and lodged in often ramshackle conditions. For the first few months recalcitrants were worked long hours so that fatigue could help fracture their resistance. Thus depleted, recalcitrants were then forced to criticize themselves and each other’s backgrounds. After a while, the hours of hard labor were reduced, food improved and criticism sessions were lengthened to include the study of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The study sessions emphasized the superiority of communism while depicting China’s imperialist and republican pasts as dark, backward, unjust and corrupt. It was expected that, during this second phase, individuals would undergo an emotional breakdown during which they came to see that opposing the CCP was futile. Instead, once they began to fully accept CCP teachings they usually experienced real emotional relief. Solidifying their acceptance of CCP teachings usually lasted an additional 3 to 4 months during which time they often saw new truths in communist theory. Part of this consolidation process involved their aiding others to find the true communist light. Once returned to their political and societal organizations, their new communist thinking was continually underpinned by study sessions and political rallies.
Mass Campaigns
Reading out the Land Reform Law
Mao’s remolding of the individual was a precursor to his remolding society. Mass campaigns were a key tool by which he sculpted new China. As it still does today, the CCP often tested its social campaigns regionally before expanding them nationwide. Often quotas were set as to the number of people that would need to be reformed or eliminated. Most of these quotas were arbitrarily established.
The CCP’s earliest social campaigns were focused on consolidating CCP control by eliminating pockets of opposition and by strengthening its rural base. For instance, between 1950 and 1951, Mao called on CCP faithful to eliminate “bandits, spies, bullies and despots as well as KMT agents and saboteurs”. His call resulted in an estimated 2.6 million real and perceived enemies being executed.
In 1950, the CCP passed the Agrarian Reform Law which ultimately resulted in an estimated 200 million acres of arable land being redistributed to an estimated 75 million families. During land reform, the holdings of landlords were reallocated while the farms of rich peasants were often left intact as they frequently grew a large percentage of an area’s food. The factors which classified peasants into different classes was multifaceted, yet the ultimate classifications were consequential. A family’s class label not only decided how much land it would gain or lose, but its class label also had an impact on its work and marriage prospects going forward. Children inherited their social class from their parents. If a divested landlord son married the daughter of a poor peasant, for instance, their children would still be considered landlords regardless of their poverty.
Land Reform was administered at the county level and was managed by work teams of 3 to 30 people. The work teams set up local peasant associations to identify those who had engaged in harsh and exploitative practices. Important goals of these early meetings were to overcome the deference with which peasants traditionally treated rural gentry and to destroy the power base of the landlord elite. “Speak bitterness” campaigns were used to empower peasants and to make all complicit. During the struggle meetings, landlords were publicly criticized, accused, humiliated, beaten and even executed. It is estimated that 1 million landlords were killed during this period.
Mao with People’s Commune Workers
The ‘Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and to Resist America and Aid Korea’ was also launched during this time. By late 1950, China had entered the Korean War against the Americans and the United Nations. The Suppress Counterrevolutionaries and Aid Korea campaigns were to support China’s war effort by eliminating domestic spies and enemy agents – real or alleged. Anyone that could be shown to have previous links with the KMT were especially targeted as were those who had any connection with foreign firms, universities and churches. Foreign business assets were frozen and foreigners were compelled to sell their companies to the CCP at below market prices. Afterwards, foreigners were largely cleared from China.
As the Suppress Counter-Revolutionary Campaign progressed, it grew in violence and in the ways that humiliation tactics were employed. While some accused counterrevolutionaries were prosecuted through the Chinese judicial system, the large majority were indicted in mass meetings that ultimately engaged an estimated 80% of the Chinese population. Factories, schools, government offices and street organizations were encouraged to root out state enemies. It is believed that over 500,000 people were executed during this effort.
The 1951 Three-Antis Campaign was a mass movement against corruption, waste and bureaucracy. The CCP gave word that about 25% of all Party members would be purged as a result of the mass investigations. The denounced were not allowed to defend themselves; they could only confess their wrongdoings. This stage-managed quality of these meetings became increasingly common feature of mass investigations. The Three-Antis Movement helped the CCP to consolidate its control over labor by getting workers to side with the CCP against their bosses. Usually the more senior CCP officials were the ones indicted for corruption.
Overlapping with the Three-Antis Campaign was the CCP’s 1952 Five-Antis Campaign meant to stamp out bribery, tax evasion, fraud, the theft of government property and the sale of state secrets. This campaign largely targeted wealthy industrialists and merchants. Having stabilized China’s economy, the CCP felt that it could now take action to reduce the size and wealth of China’s private businesses. It also wanted to erode the power base of the national bourgeoisie. Worker’s organizations were encouraged to inspect the finances of their employers in order to identify tax evasion, fraud, bribery and other financial abuses. Leaders of the worker’s organizations could then be rewarded by being able to take over the positions of the managers that they denounced. At the same time, the CCP would install party officials within the larger businesses. CCP officials would then oversee operations and collect information for the state. After the Three-Antis and the Five-Antis Campaigns, worker-employer meetings became a staple part of most businesses, and workers were encouraged to report on both their employers and co-workers if they were acting in breach of communist policies.
The First Five Year Plan
Tianjin Papermaking Plant 1952
As the CCP consolidated its control over both society and the economy, it began to think about developing its first five year plan. China’s first five year plan copied the five year plans of the Soviet Union with their focus on heavy industry, high rates of savings and investments and collectivized agriculture. It was expected that, as China’s economy became progressively centralized, the five year plans would grow to determine all aspects of economic activity including the production of capital, consumer and agricultural goods, the development of transportation and communications networks, and the creation of health, education and welfare infrastructure. China’s first five year plan covered the years from 1953 to 1957. It set as a target the construction of 694 industrial projects, 156 of which were to be built with Soviet aid. 58.2% of its capital outlay was slated for industrial construction, 19.2% for transportation, posts and telecommunications, 7.6% for agriculture, forestry and water conservation, and 7.2% percent for cultural, education and public health.
The CCP helped finance the plan by procuring agricultural surpluses cheaply and by keeping grain prices low. Establishing state agricultural quotas gave the CCP grain to export to the Soviet Union to pay for loans, technical assistance and heavy equipment. During this period, more than 10,000 Soviet engineers, technicians, and scientists assisted in developing and installing new heavy industrial facilities, including entire plants and pieces of equipment purchased from the Soviet Union. An even greater number of Chinese students and engineers traveled to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe countries for education and training.
During the First Five Year Plan, private industry in China was all but eliminated. By 1956 about 67.5% of all major private industrial firms were state owned, and 32.5% were under joint public-private ownership.
Henan Wheat Harvest 1952
Agriculture also underwent extensive organizational changes despite any significant state investment in the industry. Instead, its 4% annual growth rate resulted primarily from gains in efficiency brought about by land reform and the establishment of cooperative farming. From 1953 onward, the government encouraged peasants to voluntarily pool their farms. These small cooperatives resulted in higher yields which in turn provided the peasants with extra resources which they then used to raise and sell livestock. Small farming markets began springing up across the nation. Unlike the large scale collective farming policies which were launched in 1958, these early cooperatives were successful and popular. By 1957, about 93.5% of all farm households had joined producers’ cooperatives.
Urban workers also benefited from China’s early economic progress. The urban proletariat saw improvements both in living standards and job security. That said, urban workers had little choice in the job that they performed and were given little personal mobility. Increasingly, all Chinese were registered by area. Travel became strictly controlled, especially that of peasants wishing to come to the cities.
In terms of economic growth, the first five year plan exceeded most of its targets. Iron and steel manufacturing, coal mining, cement production, electricity generation, and machine building industries all grew significantly, and were put on a more modern technological footing. Overall, industrial production rose at an average annual rate of 19% between 1952 and 1957 while national income increased 9% a year.
China’s Foreign Policy
Mao and Stalin
As the PRC was implementing its political and economic policies, he was also crafting his foreign policy positions. Early foreign policy objectives included eradicating remaining foreign imperialism in China, ensuring that no country violated China’s borders in the future, and returning China to a position of international prominence. Mao also wished to promote communist revolution abroad.
Marxist ideology played a real role in crafting China’s foreign policy positions. Mao was impressed with the Soviet Union’s rapid industrialization despite its human costs. The CCP believed that if Marxist economic principles were applied faithfully, then China too would see rapid development. Because of this and because of his distrust of the West, from the first days of the PRC, Mao made it clear that the PRC would “lean to one side”, meaning that Mao intended to reject aid from capitalists such as America and Britain and to align itself with the USSR and other communist countries. Mao believed their common ideologies would create strong bonds. He also believed that aligning with Soviet countries would underpin the momentum of the Chinese communist revolution domestically.
Having made the decision to align itself with the USSR, Mao further stated that he would “clean the house before inviting in the guests” meaning that he would not recognize diplomatic relations, treaties or agreements which the PRC had inherited from the Republic of China and that he would clean the country of any remaining colonial influences. All new diplomatic relations and treaties China entered into were to be based on equality, and were to be negotiated on a country by country basis. Additionally, The PRC would not establish diplomatic relations with any country that continued relations with the KMT.
Yet while Mao leaned toward Moscow, the USSR had proven to be an inconsistent ally. At the end of the second 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese war, for instance, the USSR agreed to cooperate with and recognize Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT government despite the growing strength of the Chinese communists. At the 1945 Yalta conference, the Soviet Union had insisted on retaining its economic, port and railroad rights in Manchuria and in the Sakhalin and Kurile Islands which China also claimed. Thus, Mao’s house cleaning also needed to include the USSR. Additionally, Stalin assumed that the Soviets would continue to lead the Communist world, a stance inconsistent with Mao’s long-term desire to return China to a leadership position in the international arena.
1952 Chinese Mission to Moscow
The challenges of the Sino-Soviet relationship were made clear when Mao traveled to Moscow to meet with “big brother Stalin” for the first time in December 1949. Initial talks between Mao and Stalin accomplished nothing, and Stalin treated Mao in a way that made him feel personally slighted. It wasn’t until February 1950 that Mao and his chief diplomat Zhou Enlai finally succeeded in getting the Soviets to sign the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance. The treaty set out that the two countries would assist each other in the case of renewed Japanese or Allied aggression. In separate treaties, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw its troops from Manchuria and to return the Manchurian Railway and other property in Dalian and Lushan, thus effectively abrogating the special privileges in Manchuria that it has secured from the KMT at the end of the war. China in turn recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia. The USSR also agreed to give the PRC a loan of $300 million and to provide it with technical and economic assistance which the loan itself financed.
Having recovered complete Chinese sovereignty in Manchuria, Mao turned his attention to Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. Mao was intent upon restoring China’s borders to those established at its maximum historic extent during its imperialist era. In terms of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, the PRC moved quickly to re-establish a firm political and military grip on the provinces and began to encourage the migration of Han Chinese into the areas. In terms of Hong Kong, Mao decided not to demand Hong Kong’s immediate return. As a British protectorate, Mao believed that Hong Kong would be useful both as a base from which the PRC could collect international intelligence and as a port from which the PRC China could import international goods and capital.
Invasion of Tibet
PLA Marching into Lhasa 1950
Tibet was given no such clemency. Mao never considered that the pseudo-independence which Tibet enjoyed during the second Sino-Japanese War and China’s Civil War to have been legitimate, despite declaring during the war with Japan that minorities would be free to decide their own destinies once the war had been won. Instead, Mao argued that the CCP had what amounted to a moral duty to free Tibet from it semi-feudal, backward, theocratic state. Consequently, in October 1950, China invaded Tibet. Tibet tried to secure international assistance for it defense saying – “Liberation from what and from whom? We are a happy country.” – but no significant help was forthcoming. By May 23, 1951, Tibetans had little option but to sign in Beijing the 17 Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet. The Agreement left Tibet’s political, economic and social systems in place with the Dalai Lama at its head while Tibet in turn agreed to recognize China’s sovereignty over Tibetan territory.
Taiwan 1950
Taipei 1951
Having re-secured Tibet, Mao’s next objective was to regain control over Taiwan. In a January 1950 speech Truman stated that America would take a neutral stance towards Taiwan and stop military assistance to Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT regime. Mao interpreted that speech as giving it a clear hand to retake the island. Mao and his generals knew that retaking Taiwan would be difficult. Not only was Taiwan an island, but it was also well defended by the remnants of the KMT’s large, well-equipped army. Indeed, the PRC had already failed to capture the proximate, less well defended island of Jinmen. Mao decided to delay its campaign against Taiwan until spring 1951 in order to give the People’s Liberation Army more time to prepare. The outbreak of the Korean War, however, changed America’s position toward Taiwan thus making reunification in the short term impossible.
Korean War
Chinese troops crossing the Amnok or Yalu River
Historically, Korea had been an independent kingdom closely linked to China’s imperial dynasties. Korea’s independence ended when Japan conquered the country in 1905. In 1945, defeated Japan surrendered Korea to the Soviet Red Army in the north and to the US army in the south with the 38th parallel being the arbitrary dividing line between the two forces. This temporary line quickly hardened into a permanent border as the USSR and the US supported the establishment of independent regimes in their respective Korean sections with governing systems which replicated their own political philosophies. The United Nations attempted to negotiate a compromise government that would allow the county’s reunification, but it was forced out in September 1948 by Kim Il-sung , the leader of the northern Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
It wasn’t that Kim Il-sung was averse to reuniting Korea, it was just that he wanted to reunite it under communism and his control. On June 25, 1950, having secured both Stalin’s and Mao’s support, North Korean forces invaded the south. The United Nations, encouraged by the US, swiftly condemned the north as the aggressor. On September 15, 1950, a US-led coalition under the command of General McArthur and acting under the auspices of the United Nations launched a counter attack. By October 1st, the United Nations-Southern Korean Forces crossed the 38th parallel and pushed northward under a UN mandate to unite the whole country.
Mao watched the war unfold on the Korean peninsula with growing alarm. As the UN troops neared China’s border, he began to fear that China’s Manchurian industrial heartland was at risk of invasion. He also felt ideologically compelled to aid his Korean communist comrades, many of whom had fought alongside the CCP in Manchuria during the early days of the Civil War. He also wanted to reestablish China’s prominence on the international stage by supporting revolution in other countries. Stalin, too, was urging Mao to fight.
General Peng Dehuai signs armistice ending the Korean War
In October 1950, the PRC entered the Korean War calling it the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea”. On October 25, General Peng Dehuai led the first 400,000 of his troops into battle. The Chinese overcame the better armed UN forces by sheer numbers, and the United Nations troops were forced back behind the 38th parallel. General McArthur wanted to counterattack back into the north, but Truman refused. By July 1951, the United Nations initiated armistice negotiations. Given the huge communists losses, both the Koreans and Chinese came to the table. Negotiations faltered, however, over the return of Communist prisoners of war, many of whom pleaded not to be sent back to China. Only after Eisenhower took office and threatened to restart the conflict if the Communists did not agree, was an armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953.
While Mao had fought the UN and the US to a standstill, its victory came at great cost to China. An estimated 700,000-900,000 Chinese were killed or wounded during the fighting – including Mao’s son Mao Anying – compared with 160,000 Americans, 400,000 South Koreans and 600,000 North Koreans. The US imposed a trade embargo on China and used its leverage to prevent the PRC from joining the United Nations. The US also moved closer to Taiwan and began to patrol the Taiwan Strait, and accelerated the conclusion of a peace treaty with Japan.
Despite these costs, however, China’s international prestige was greatly enhanced by the conclusion of the war. In his book On China Kissinger argues China overcame its comparative military weakness by using psychological domination as a weapon. Mao countered conventional wisdom by being willing to enter a new military conflict so soon after the country had emerged from decades of war. Publicly, he showed no weakness. Instead he showed indifference to the military strength of its rivals. This indifference extended to nuclear attack. Mao made the international community believe that China would be willing to endure hundreds of millions of casualties to defend the Chinese homeland and to promote communist revolution. In Korea, Mao played this strategy out. In the face a military superiority, Mao succeeded in overwhelming the enemy by sheer numbers. Mao was also demonstrating the Chinese aversion to encirclement. For Mao, it was worth 600,000 dead or injured in order to keep the enemy from his border.
Although it had to be paid for, the war also enabled China to obtain large amounts of Soviet ammunition and military equipment. The war also strengthened the Sino-Soviet alliance and increased the economic ties between the two countries. Sino-Soviet trade increased from approximately $300 million in 1950 to over $1 billion in 1952.
Domestically, the CCP used the war as evidence of the continued imperialist ambitions of the West and the persistent animosity of the United States for the Chinese people. This hatred and the heroism of the Chinese soldier became strong themes in CCP propaganda. It also used the Korean War as an opportunity it to further consolidate its domestic power.
The Hundred Flowers Campaign
Mao Zedong announcing 100 Flowers Campaign
As the CCP tightened its hold over the country, many intellectuals became demoralized at their loss of intellectual, political and artistic freedom. Historically, most Chinese intellectuals came from wealthy families which had made or had inherited their money from landholding or business. In communist China such backgrounds were now considered feudal or reactionary. It became incumbent on these intellectuals to demonstrate their loyalty to the CCP by undergoing reeducation in revolutionary colleges and by writing confessions and self-criticism. Despite these challenges, the majority of Chinese intellectuals remained in China and many distinguished Chinese living overseas returned to China in late 1949 and 1950.
As China progressed through its first five year plan, many CCP members began to realize that its intellectuals were needed in order for China to continue to make social and economic progress. If these intellectuals were terrorized by the risk of punitive campaigns, their contributions to China would falter. Already, highly publicized attacks on intellectuals such as literary editor Feng Xuefeng in 1954 and writer Hu Feng in 1955 had made intellectuals wary. Many CCP members began arguing that the loyalty of intellectuals should be trusted even if they did occasionally criticize the party. Others in the party felt that unity was paramount, and that any criticism of the CCP would diminish its effectiveness and morale.
In 1956, Mao Zedong stepped into the debate by making two speeches in which he expressed the need for warm relations between party and non-party members. He said that the CCP should consider any reasonable views expressed by those outside the Communist Party. Specifically, he urged “letting a hundred flowers bloom” in the field of culture and “a hundred schools of thought contend” in the field of science. The idea was that greater intellectual freedom would help the government to fix problems and improve efficiency.
Zhou Enlai at Peking University 1957
Mao’s call was finally given full support by the CCP in May 1957. At CCP conferences, in the state-controlled press, at rallies on the streets and in posters pasted on university walls, intellectuals, students and the common masses began to speak out. They criticized policies such as the harshness of previous mass campaigns, censorship and the lack of political plurality. They criticized the many privileges enjoyed by party cadres and the many examples of their corruption. They complained about the lack of employment choices and about the harsh living conditions of China’s peasants. Industrial workers began to strike for better pay and working conditions. Key themes of the protests were that the Communist Party should relinquish its stranglehold on the government, that other political parties should be allowed to compete on an equal footing with the CCP, and that there should be a free press.
Startled and frightened by the vehemence of the criticism and anger, by June 1957, the CCP began taking steps to stop any further criticism. Mao Zedong altered the text of a key speech so that it now stated that intellectual freedom was only to be used to support the Communist Revolution and to strengthen socialism. Mao would later claim that his “hundred flowers” campaign had been a trick to flush out enemies of the revolution. By July 1957, the CCP propaganda machine was attacking critics in full force. Overall, an estimated 400,000 educated and professional men and women were labeled “rightist” which effectively destroyed their careers. Many were sent to labor camps, jailed or exiled to the countryside. Others committed suicide after breaking under the constant pressure of public struggle sessions. Others were shot.
The CCP used the Anti-Rightest campaign in a more broad base way to silence all forms of opposition and to re-impose Maoist orthodoxy in public expression. Having thus re-consolidated its authority, Mao and the CCP was ready to lead China into the next level of socialism.
References
China, Rare Earths and Technological Edge
/in Economics, Politics /by ChinaFolioIntroduction
Praseodymium, one of the light rare earth elements
A sign at the entrance of China’s Baotou, Inner Mongolia Pioneering Rare Earth Hi-Tech Zone quotes Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 claim: “There is oil in the Middle East, but there is rare earth in China.” The rare earth elements (REE) are a group of 17 chemically similar metallic elements occurring in the Earth’s crust that are becoming increasingly integral to the production of products ranging from smart phones and LED light bulbs to wind turbines and cruise missiles. Since the 1980s, REE mining and processing has increasingly moved to China. Due to factors such as cheaper labor and less stringent environmental regulations, China has been able to produce the elements at two-thirds the cost of non-Chinese producers. As a result, it now produces over 90% of the world’s REEs. China has also been moving from a supplier of unfinished REEs to a manufacturer of high-end REE products and it believes that mastering high-end REE technology will not only help ensure its safety given REE’s many defense applications, but could also allow it to leapfrog the US and other countries in the production, for instance, of green technologies.
China’s monopoly of REEs came to a head in 2008 when it began restricting the amount of unfinished REEs that it exported while increasing REE export taxes and removing REE VAT rebates. International concern was further increased in 2010 when China was believed to have implemented an unofficial REE export embargo against Japan for two months and the US and the EU for two weeks. A 2012 WTO complaint filed against China by the US, the EU and Japan claimed that the effect of these policies has meant that non-Chinese producers of REE products pay 31% more for their REEs than their Chinese competitors. The US, the EU and Japan also say that Chinese practices are placing pressure on foreign manufacturers to relocate their operations to China in order to minimize the impacts of rising costs and shrinking supplies, as China does not restrict or tax the export of REEs in manufactured products. China counters that its policies are necessary to improve the real environmental degradation that its lax standards have caused and to conserve its finite REE resources.
Rare Earth Elements and the History of their Development
The REEs are a group of 17 chemically similar metallic elements including the 15 lanthanides as well as scandium and yttrium. Scandium and yttrium are grouped with the rare earths as they share similar chemical and physical properties. Despite their name, the REEs– with the exception of the radioactive promethium which is currently synthesized in labs – are quite abundant in the Earth’s crust, although their crustal abundance varies significantly from place to place. The “rare” earth name comes instead from the rarity of the minerals from which they were originally derived. It also comes from the fact that the elements are rarely found in concentrations that are viable to mine.
The REEs are broadly divided into light rare earth elements (LREE) – lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, and samarium (atomic numbers 57-62 on the periodic table) and heavy rare earth elements (HREE) – gadolinium, promethium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium, lutetium (atomic numbers 64-71). Scandium (atomic number 21) and yttrium (atomic number 39) are usually grouped with the LREEs. This division is somewhat random; sometimes the REEs are divided between light, middle and heavy. LREEs are more abundant than HREEs.
Although approximately 200 minerals are known to contain REEs, most REEs are mined from the minerals bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime. While these minerals usually contain the full range of the elements, either LREEs or HREEs tend to dominate one mineral or the other. For instance, bastnaesite, the most commercially productive source for REEs, tends to house a high percentage of LREEs and a small percentage of HREEs. Monazite, the second most common mineral used as a rare earth ore, also contains more LREEs than HREEs, although it typically has a higher concentration of HREEs than bastnaesite. Xenotime, the third most important rare earth element ore, holds the highest ratios of HREEs. HREEs can also be found concentrated in some soils, absorbed in the form of ions. Bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime all contain traces of the radioactive elements thorium, although the amount varies between the minerals and between ore deposits. The presence of the radioactive element makes REE mining and waste management more difficult.
The first discovery of rare earth materials was made in the late 1800s in Sweden. Given that rare earths occur together and share similar chemical properties, it was a further 150 years until all the rare earth elements were isolated and identified. The last rare earth element to be discovered was the radioactive promethium which was found as a result of nuclear fission research carried out during World War II. In nature, promethium can only be found in trace amounts as it is highly unstable and has a half-life of 17.7 years.
Production of Rare Earth Elements
The periodic table
Until 1948, the majority of rare earths were produced in India and Brazil, followed by South Africa in the 1950s, and the Mountain Pass Mine in California from the 1960s to the 1980s. Since the 1980s, REE mining and processing, and the production of many REE products has moved to China. Between 1990 and 2000, for instance, China increased its REE production from 16,000 to 73,000 metric tons while non-Chinese producers saw their output decline from 44,000 tons to 16,000 tons. In 2009, China produced 129,000 tons while the output from all other countries dropped to 3,000 tons.
China now dominates the REE industry because it can produce REEs and REE products less expensively and with more purity than its competition. Its low cost production is the result of many factors including inexpensive labor, lower environmental standards and a REE industry which has historically been poorly regulated. It is estimated that China’s lower environmental standards have enabled it to produce rare earths at roughly a third the price of its international competitors. China has also made significant investments in REE mining and processing techniques which are now paying off in greater efficiencies. China also mines the majority of their REE as a by-product of their iron ore and other mineral mining, which also reduces their cost basis.
Where Global Rare Earth Resources are Found
The U.S. Geographical Society estimated that in 2008 China held approximately 57.7% of the world REE reserve, the Commonwealth of Independent States (which includes Russia and many former members of the Soviet Union) 13.6%, the US 9.1%, Australia 3.8%, Brazil 0.05%, India 0.84%, Malaysia 0.02% and other countries 14.9%. Additionally, the British journal Nature Geoscience reported scientists led by Yasuhiro Kato of the University of Tokyo, have found huge deposits of REEs in sea mud at 78 locations in international waters east and west of Hawaii, and east of Tahiti in French Polynesia. Japanese scientists have also identified REEs off island of Minamitorishima, an isolated Japanese coral atoll in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.
In China, REEs have been found in 21 of China’s provinces and Autonomous Regions: Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Yunnan and Zhejiang. In general, China’s REE reserves are distributed in a light north, heavy south pattern. An estimated 75% to 90% of China’s REE output is in LREEs; 50% to -60% of its LREEs comes from its Banyan Obo mine in Inner Mongolia, and another 25% to 30% comes from mines in Sichuan Province. China’s remaining output is HREEs sourced primarily from its ion-adsorption clays located in the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi.Southern China’s ion-adsorption clays are currently one of the most important concentrations of heavy HREEs in the world. Importantly, these clays have extremely low levels of radioactive elements.
Mining and Processing of Rare Earth Elements
Most REEs are mined either by digging in open pits or in underground mines. The ore is then crushed, heated and treated with various chemicals in order to separate first the bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime, and then to separate the REE from the bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime. In order to ensure a high market value, REE needs to be of high purity. This is a difficult process because REEs share such similar chemical properties. Each REE has its own unique extraction steps and refinement processes, and often these elements need to be reprocessed in order to achieve the ideal purity. Once separated, the REEs are in the form of oxides which are then made into metals. It takes an average of 10 days to go from mining to the production of rare earth oxides. China currently leads the world in REE separation processing technology. Chinese companies can produce REEs of 99.9999% purity compared with French companies at 99.99% purity and Japanese at 99.9% purity.
Outside of China, companies in the US, France, Russia and Japan can complete some of the refining steps, but only China has the industrial capacity to complete the entire REE refinement process for all the elements. Mining companies such as US Molycorp and Australian Lynas which extract REEs outside of China currently find it necessary for technological and economical reasons to ship their minerals to China for processing despite their respective efforts to move further down the REE processing chain.
Separating REE from bastnaesite, monazite and xenotime is more difficult than separating REE from the ion-adsorption soils. In Southern China, most of its REEs are found in clay deposits. Not only is it easier to separate REEs from the clay compared with the hard minerals, but it is also usually easier to access the clays in the first place. The ion-adsorption clays are near the crust’s surface, and generally require little drilling or blasting to remove. China’s Jiangxi South Rare Earth Hi-Tech Company has reduced the costs of the clay processing further by pioneering in-situ mining. This method involves drilling holes directly in the clay deposits, pumping in ammonium sulphate or salt-based solutions which remove 90% of the REE from the clay and then collecting the resulting liquid from pipes drilled in at lower levels. The liquid is then pumped into tanks where it is treated with further chemicals, filtered and roasted to produce rare earth oxides.
Uses of Rare Earths Elements
Rare earths are essential in the production of X-ray machines
REEs are essential to many products that are fundamental to our modern life. REEs can be found in products as diverse as TVs, plasma screen technologies, microwave filters, ear phones, self-cleaning ovens, flint lighters and computer memories. Because REEs are extremely effective in absorbing ultraviolet light, REEs are used in glass bottles, sunglasses, and camera lenses. Because they allow for the development of powerful permanent magnets – which differ from electrical magnets in that they produce their own magnetic field – REEs create improved magnetic performance in smaller sizes. They are, thus, important in miniaturization technology, and are a key reason why laptops, cell phones and smart pads are becoming increasingly lighter and smaller.
Permanent neodymium-iron-boron magnets are also fundamental to many green technologies, especially wind turbines. Their superior magnetic strength means that they increase the amount of electricity that a wind turbine can produce. REE magnets also have the advantage that they retain more magnetism when heated. These qualities make them ideally suited for the production of hybrid cars. The Toyota Prius, for instance, contains 1 kg of neodymium in each of its electric motors. REE magnets also improve the energy efficiency of many appliances and cooling systems. REE magnets have been shown to reduce the power consumption of air conditioning systems by as much as 50%, and have led to the development of more environmentally friendly refrigeration methods. Energy efficient lighting such as the fluorescent lamp and LEDs are also big users of REEs.
REEs are also employed in other green technology applications. For instance, REEs are essential to the automotive catalytic converter whose job it is to convert pollutants in engine exhaust gases into non-toxic compounds. They also used in oil refineries to process heavy crude oil into lighter gas, jet fuel and petrol. They are also proving essential to the development of solid oxide fuel cells – a low-pollution technology which electrochemically generates electricity at high efficiencies – and other fuel cells which are being developed as power generators for zero emissions electric vehicles.
Besides, the green technology industry, REEs are also found in a wide range of industrial applications. For instance, REEs are employed in many aspects of nuclear energy production because of their ability to absorb neutrons while remaining stable at high temperatures. They are also found in ceramics, glass coloring and in the colors displayed on TV, computer and hand-held screens. They help paint pigment deflect ultraviolet light which makes them less likely to fade. Most finished glass products, such as mirrors, have been shined by REE concentrates and oxides. REEs are also a critical component in the creation of super-alloys or super-metals which are a class of heat resistant alloys used in the aerospace and power industries, particularly in gas turbine engines. REEs are also elemental to the technology that allows for the solid state storage of hydrogen.
REEs are also found in many medical technologies including x-rays and PET scan detectors. REEs not only improve the performance of MRI machines, but they also enable the physical internal scanning space of the machines to be wider, which serves to reduce feelings of claustrophobia for sick patients. Medical lasers produced with REEs are used in the cosmetic industry to remove pigmentation and scarring on skin, as well as in many other surgical procedures. There are also increasingly used in dentistry to remove tooth decay.
REES are crucial for the defense industry. They can be found in disk drive motors installed in aircraft, tanks, and command and control centers, and in radar systems and in reactive armor. They are key to the production of precision guided munitions, helping to guide the direction of the missile once it is launched. They are fundamental to lasers employed in enemy mine detection equipment, underwater mines and other countermeasure weapons systems. REEs are also found in components used in military communication networks including satellite, radar and sonar. They are also used in optical equipment and speakers.
In 2011, the US Geological Society estimated that the global use of rare earths broke down as follows: catalysts 47%, metallurgical applications and alloys 24%, glass polishing and ceramics 15%, permanent magnets 9%, computer monitors 19%, radar, television and x-ray machines 5%.
Environmental Consequences of Rare Earth Mining
The manufacture of REEs poses significant environmental hazards because of the large amounts of chemicals used in processing and because the processing waste often contains toxic gases and traces of the radioactive thorium. In northern China’s Bayan Obo (Baiyun Ebo) mine in Inner Mongolia, for instance, REEs are mined and then transported 120km south to Baotou to be processed. Dozens of new factories have been built around Baotou’s processing facilities in what has been called Baotou’s Pioneering Rare Earth Hi-Tech Development Zone. A coal-fuelled power station supplies electricity to Baotou’s large and growing industrial complex.
The Yellow River
The Chinese Society of Rare Earths estimated that for every ton of rare earth oxide it produces in Baotou, China generates up to 12,000m³ of waste gas containing dust concentrates, sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid, and about 2000 tons of mine tailings. Tailings are the ground materials left over once the REEs have been removed from the ore. In northern China, these tailings contain traces of radioactive thorium. In addition, it is estimated that all factories and processing facilities in the Rare Earth Hi-Tech Development Zone create approximately 10 million tons of all types of waste water every year. Much of this waste water along with an estimated 7-8 million annual tons of mine tailings are dumped into what has grown into an approximately 11km² waste impoundment lake without being effectively treated. A 2006 Chinese report undertaken by local authorities found that the level of thorium in soil near the lake was 36 times higher than in the soil in other areas of Baotou. From the lake, the chemical and radioactive waste has seeped into the ground water. The waste has also found its way into the Yellow River which passes to the south of Baotou before continuing another 1300 miles to the Yellow Sea. The Yellow River is subsequently used as a water supply for a large concentration of China’s population, including the residents of Beijing and Tianjin.
Around Baotou, most fish in the Yellow River have died. Agriculture has also been severely affected as lake wastewater has contaminated irrigation water supplies and the soil. Local farmers say that since the 1980s, fruit trees have either yielded no fruit or that the fruit they do grow is small and foul-smelling. Vegetable plants have stopped producing and many livestock in the area have become ill and died.
Residents inhaling the vapors and drinking the contaminated water have noticed higher incidents of diabetes, osteoporosis, respiratory diseases, leukemia and other cancers, skin and eye irritations, irritation to the gastrointestinal tract, black lung disease and kidney damage.
China’s southern REE mining and processing operations have also caused significant environmental degradation. The in-situ extraction method, which was hoped to be less environmentally damaging, has also resulted in reduced or eliminated crop yields and in fish dying in the rivers in the areas around which it is being mined. One issue in the south has been the extensive presence of illegal mines which are particularly prone to releasing toxic waste into the general water supply.
Until recently, China has never had firm pollutant discharge standards for the rare earth industry. Additionally, it poorly enforces the regulations that do exist. This lack of stringent environmental regulation and enforcement has meant that China’s REE industry produces REEs at roughly a third the price of its international competitors. While some Chinese REE companies have tried to improve their mining processes to make them more environmentally friendly, many have chosen to keep their environmental costs to a minimum in order to maintain a competitive edge in the market. In addition, as the government owns the land on which the factories lie, companies have little incentive to protect it. Additionally, China’s still-developing legal structure means that people and companies cannot easily be held accountable through the country’s judicial system. In Western countries, if employees or residents become ill due to unsafe production methods, those responsible would likely face due process which could result imprisonment and fines. This is not the case in China, unless victims have the support of the government. Yet the government often has a stake in the REE production process which acts as an incentive for the REE processing to continue untouched.
Characteristics of China’s Rare Earth Industry before Government Reform
Fluorescent light bulbs require rare earths
Starting in 2000, China’s government began to re-evaluate its REE strategy in the light of its rapid development, the poor profitability of its rare-earth producers and the rapidly growing demand for REEs worldwide. While its achievements in the REE field since 1978 are undeniable, the government has become increasingly concerned about a number of issues. These issues were outlined in Situation and Policies of China’s Rare Earth Industry published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China in June 2012 and included: severe ecological damage to the environment, excessive exploitation of REE resources, poor profitability of the REE industry causing what it considered to be a severe divergence between the price and the value of REEs, and the illegal mining and sale of REEs.
While the environmental degradation that has been caused by China’s REE production is quite widely known, part of the purpose of the China’s REE report was to inform on the other challenges that China faces in managing its REE resources. Specifically, China found that 50 years of aggressive mining of its REE resources have significantly reduced its reserves. In Baotou, for instance, the report stated that only about one third of the original volume of REE resources was left in its principal mines. In its ion-adsorption clays, the reserve extraction ratio – the remaining supplies of REE in years – has declined from 50 years of remaining resources 20 years ago to 15 years of REE resources today.
While China publishes the country’s REE data yearly, these reports are not available to foreign researchers. Independently verifying the PRC’s calculation of its reserve levels has thus been difficult. For instance,
s China’s Situation and Policies of China’s Rare Earth Industry paper calculated that China holds 23% of the world’s reserves, while the 2008 US Geological study calculated that China held 58% and a 2011 British Geological Survey Rare Earth Elements paper calculated that China held 44%. That said, there can be no doubt that China has seen a rapid depletion of REE reserves in the last three decades.
China has also expressed concern about the poor profitability of the REE industry. Historically, the Chinese REE industry has been characterized by numerous, relatively small-scale enterprises, particularly in the south, which often engage in cutthroat competition. This has often meant that REE producers have often struggled to maintain profitability. Yet, as many local governments have relied on REE producers to provide employment and revenue, they have continued to encourage local production even it means exceeding national production targets. As a result, China feels that it REE resources have been sold at prices which do not reflect their real value or take into account environmental costs. To support this argument, China cites the fact that between 2000 and 2010 the price of rare earth products increased by 2150%, while the prices of gold, copper and iron all increased by in excess of 4300%.
China’s REE has also been plagued by illegal mining and smuggling. The report states, that from 2006 to 2008, statistics collected from foreign customs offices were 35%, 59% and 36% higher than the volumes that China officially exported over this time period. In 2008, it was estimated that approximately 29,000 tons of rare earth materials were smuggled out of the country, representing an estimated one-third of total REE exports. In 2014, it was estimated that illicit sales rose to 40% of all REE production or as much as 40,000 tons. Illicit REE materials are often hidden as steel composites, then reverse-engineered out when they reach the customer’s home country. It is believed that Japan is the largest importer of illicit REE materials, and may get as much as 20% of its REEs from China’s black market. Smuggling hurts China’s rare earth industry both by depressing prices, more quickly depleting REE resources and by increasing environmental damage as smugglers usually pay scant attention to pollution management.
Rapid Increase in Domestic Demand for REE Products
China has also seen a rapid increase in domestic demand for REEs, and it expects this demand to continue to increase in the future. In 2000, for instance, Chinese REE consumption was about 19,000 metric tons while non-Chinese usage was about 72,000 tons. By 2009 Chinese REE consumption had reached about 73,000 tons while other usage had declined to 59,000 tons. China uses more REEs today as its REE industry is moving higher up the manufacturing value chain. For instance, its 1987 production of products such as catalysts, magnets, phosphors, and polishing powder represented only about 1% of the total REE that it consumed. By 2008, the production of these products accounted for about 53% of the REEs used in China. Going forward, China expects its REE use in the new material technologies to grow faster than in its other traditional industrial sectors.
As an example, in July 2008, China had approximately 600 million mobile phone users; by November 2012 China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology estimated that China’s mobile phone owners had exceeded one billion. Similarly, in 1998, the United States, Europe and Japan produced 90% of the world’s permanent neodymium-iron-boron magnets; today China manufactures 76% of the world’s total. In 2009, China produced 12,000 gigawatts of wind power; by 2015, China aims to have 100 gigawatts of on-grid wind power generating capacity, and to be generating 190 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind power annually.
China’s Reform of its Rare Earth Industry
As early as 1990, the Chinese government deemed REEs to be a strategic mineral critical to China’s long-term political, economic and military power and began restricting foreign investors from mining rare earth, or from participating in smelting and separating except in joint ventures with Chinese firms. By 2000, Chinese scientists and military experts were calling for even greater controls over its REEs. In 2005, Xu Guangxian, China’s leading REE scientist, argued that at the current rate of extraction the Bayan Obo mine would be depleted in 35 years.
As a result, the Chinese government began to implement a number of initiatives designed to reform the industry. Laws regarding REE mining, production and waste management were reviewed, and efforts have since been made to improve enforcement. Additionally, in 2005, the government eliminated the value-added tax rebates for REEs, and taxes on the export of unimproved REEs were raised. The government also reduced the number of REE mining and processing licenses issued. In 2006, 47 domestic REE producers and 12 Sino-foreign rare Earth producers were licensed to export rare earth products from China. By 2011, that number had dropped to 22 domestic REE producers and 9 Chinese-foreign joint venture REE producers. It has also begun to stockpile REE materials with the goal of reaching reserves of 30,000 to 55,000 tons of rare earth concentrates.
Additionally, it created the 2009-2015 Plan for Developing the Rare Earth Industry, and established the Chinese Society of Rare Earths, consisting of 150 members whose aim is to develop a fully integrated REE sector. Part and parcel of this, it has divided the country into large REE districts: Jiangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, and Guangxi in the South; Inner Mongolia and Shandong in the North; and Sichuan in the West. Between 2009 and 2015, the government expects Inner Mongolia and Sichuan to be primarily responsible for producing LREE with additional capacity coming from Shandong as needed. HREEs will be produced in Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian. Increased inspections by government officials will be carried out in order to ensure that facilities are not exceeding national quotas and that mining and manufacturing are meeting environmental regulations.
Since January 2014, China has pressed aggressively ahead with its efforts to consolidate the REE industry under six large state owned enterprises (SOE)including Inner Mongolia Baotou Iron and Steel Group, China Minmetals Corporaion, Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco), Guangdong Rare Earth Group, Xiamen Tungsten, and Ganzhou Rare Earth Group. These SOEs will control the industry by geographic region. An estimated 300 smaller, independent REE producers have been forced to shut down or to merge with the SOEs. These SOEs will invest in all aspects of the rare earth industry chain. Currently, these six companies control 94% of China’s RE resources, 75% of its mines and 60% of the smelting and separating capacity. After consolidation, the six SOEs are expected to have complete control over these sectors. These conglomerates will be supported by financial subsidies, tax breaks, and other form of government investments, and will be encouraged to expand their expertise in areas such as REE recycling.
China continues to view the REE industry as of strategic importance to the country. Its goal is to have a significant market share of the entire REE supply chain from mining, smelting and separating to manufacture of high-end rare earth technologies. China’s dominance in the middle aspects of the REE supply chain – transforming mined materials into useful ingredients – enables China to draw in related domestic and multinational businesses that depend on the REE materials. This in turn increases China’s importance to supply chains in everything from mobile phones to wind turbines.
Since January 2014, Beijing has also stepped up its campaign against illegal mining. It has forced smaller, wildcat producers to close, and is now conducting helicopter searches in areas where illegal mines are purported to be operating. It is also going after the gangs who are running them as well as local government officials who turn a blind eye.
Beijing is also working to stamp out illegal production by larger, licensed companies which avoid production quotas by exporting RRE under ambiguous labels such as “iron alloy”. New export license paperwork for the big six will be more onerous and exacting. Beijing is also trying to implement a RE supply chain trace-ability system.
Since July 2014, China has push ahead with its plans to grow its domestic REE stockpiles. China plans to use it stockpiles to ensure adequate resource supply in the future, especially in light of growing domestic demand. It will also use it stockpiles as a mechanism to support REE pricing.
Export Quotas
Chinese ships loaded with rare earth minerals for export
The government also began to implement quotas on the amount of REEs that it allowed to leave the country. From the Chinese perspective, quotas felt appropriate as foreign countries, particularly the United States and Japan, were seen to be taking advantage of China’s cheap, environmentally-destructive REEs while maintaining strategic stockpiles in their own un-dug mines. Quotas would also help ensure that the Chinese had plenty of REEs for their domestic needs. Historically, separate export quotas have been set for domestic REE producers and for Sino-foreign joint venture REE producers. Between 2005 and 2007, the government authorized domestic REE producers to export 40,000 metric tons and Chinese-foreign joint ventures to export 16,000 metric tons. In 2008 and 2009, China reduced the domestic quota by 21.6% and 2.5% respectively while holding the Chinese-foreign joint venture quota steady. By 2010, China’s overall REE export quota was reduced an additional 37.1%, this time impacting both domestic and Sino-foreign joint venture producers alike.
The government’s new policies are specifically designed to restrain the export of unprocessed REEs, as no quotas have been placed on REEs exported in finished products. Part of the reason for this is that the government wants to encourage foreign REE manufacturers to relocate their production facilities to China, particularly to Baotou’s Pioneering Rare Earth Hi-Tech Development Zone. It is estimated that approximately 50 foreign companies are already operating within Baotou’s industrial complex. From the Chinese perspective, this would allow them access to new technology and would generate jobs for its citizens. Non-Chinese consumers of REEs have criticized this policy saying that it is pressuring them to relocate to China in order to stay cost competitive. This in turn could put their proprietary REE technology at risk, and it would continue international dependence on China’s REE industry.
Chinese Suspension of Rare Earth Exports
On September 7th, 2010, a Chinese fishing trawler rammed a Japan Coast Guard vessel near to the Senkaku/Diaoyu disputed islands, known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, and in China as the Diaoyu Islands. The islands are administered by Japan but are also claimed by China and Taiwan. The Japanese subsequently detained the captain, causing a major diplomatic dispute between the two countries. Despite repeated demands by the Chinese government, the Japanese refused to release the captain, saying that instead his case would be handled by the Japanese courts. In retaliation, the Chinese canceled official ministerial Sino-Japanese meetings, and revoked an invitation for 1000 youths to attend the Shanghai World Expo. (Lin, 2010) Although denied by the Chinese government, on September 21st, it is widely believed that the Chinese also orchestrated an unofficial halt of REE exports to Japan by having its custom agencies prevent the export of REEs, though this has recently been questioned in academic studies, particularly in light of the fact that shipments to Europe and the US were also halted the following month, and given that the Japanese government had expressed grievances over the rare earths issue as early as August 18th. Beijing claimed instead that the export stoppage was a spontaneous, independent demonstration of support by Chinese REE exporters and custom agents. Regardless of its origin, the embargo has enabled China to exert political pressure on Japan. The unofficial nature of the embargo also made it more difficult to challenge in the World Trade Organization (WTO) which bans most unilateral export stoppages. On September 24th, Japan released the Chinese captain, with the Chief Prosecutor citing “Japan’s national interests”.
By mid-October 2010, China was also blocking some shipments to the United States and Europe after the Obama administration opened an investigation into whether China was violating free-trade rules with its green energy policies including its restrictions on REEs. China resumed shipments to the U.S. and Europe at the end of October, but did not resume shipments to Japan until the November 24th. Part of its decision to resume shipments to Japan might have been due to the fact that many Chinese assembly factories, employing hundreds of workers, were running low on Japanese-made components when suppliers began to face shortages of some of the REEs needed in their manufacture.
Consolidating the Industry and Ending Illegal Mining and Smuggling
Since 2006, the government has stepped up its efforts to shut down illegal mines in the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Sichuan. Over the last two years, China has investigated and rectified 600 cases of illegal mining, has identified an additional hundred cases against which further action will be taken, and has closed 13 mines and 76 processing facilities. Similarly, in 2011, China launched a campaign to crack down on REE smuggling, retrieving 769 tons of smuggled REE metals and prosecuting 23 criminal suspects in eight cases.
China has also been urging its REE producers to merge together. Ultimately, the government envisions that the REE industry will be eventually controlled by a few, state owned enterprises. Surviving Chinese producers have seen advantages to this consolidation strategy as it has helped to reduce unnecessary competition and increase profitability. For instance, Dingnan Dahua New Materials Co., Ganxian Hongjin Rare Earths Co. Ltd, Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co. Ltd have all joined together to form Minmetals Ganzhou Rare Earth Co. Ltd to process REEs in Ganshou, Jiangxi Province. Their operations are expected to slowly subsume the majority of the production of the 88 smaller REE producers that have historically been operating in the area.
Improving Environmental Regulation
Rare earths are crucial for wind turbines
China also plans to implement stricter environmental standards. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has now set discharge standards for six types of atmospheric pollutants and for 14 different types of water pollutants. China will aim for its new REE facilities to be built to ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certificate standard. It may also force its dirty mining and processing facilities to halt operations until they are also able to secure the ISO accreditation. The ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 are internationally recognized accreditations that look at how a product is produced rather than the product itself. The ISO 14000 standards help organizations establish procedures that minimize negative effects to the environment. If China enforces its tougher environmental standards, it is estimated that it could add between $145 and $220 to the production costs of every ton of REE products. These higher costs would significantly erode China’s cost advantage in the industry.
Additionally, China intends to increase the recycling rate of both REEs in discarded electronic products as well as recycling an estimated 12.6 million tons of REE oxides that had been deposited in its Baotou tailings pond. Currently there are no cost-effective ways to recycle rare earth elements from old equipment such as computers, electric motors and cell phones. Similarly, technology to extract residue REEs in tailings ponds is also in need of further development. China is also working on technology that will reduce the amount of REEs that are flushed into tailings ponds in the first place.
China’s Rare Earth Industry Research and Investment
As China considers its REE industry to be of critical strategic importance, it is heavily investing in REE research and development. It hopes breakthroughs in REE technology will help ensure its national security, and could enable China to leap-frog the West to lead in the development of many new advanced technologies such as those found in the rapidly emerging environmental sector. Indeed, in 1999 President Jiang Zemin noted that if China could master REE technology, its REE resource advantage could then help lead China to economic superiority.
Much of China’s REE investment has been funneled through the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, affiliated with Peking University in Beijing, and the State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, affiliated with the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry which is run under the direction of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Between the two labs, there are approximately 70 faculty members, 35 professors and 75 graduate students dedicated to REE research. Additionally, China also conducts REE research through the Baotou Research Institute in the General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals. Each of these institutions run complementary but independent research into the efficient and environmentally friendly mining and processing of REEs, the development of technology employing REE materials, the recycling of REEs from already existing products and the reclamation of REE materials in its extensive waste ponds.
China is not only investing in REE domestically, it is also purchasing stakes in rare earths natural resources abroad. For instance, China has purchased a 25% date in Arafura Resources Ltd, an Australian Rare Earth developer.
World Response to the Reform of China’s Rare Earth Industry – WTO filing
In March 2012, the United States, European Union, and Japan filed a complaint with the WTO against China’s REE trade practices in response to export restrictions, restrictions in export licensing, higher export taxes, and the withdrawal of the 16% refund of value-added tax on exports of unimproved REEs. They argued that the effect of these policies has been that non-Chinese producers of REE products pay 31% more for their REE materials than their Chinese competitors. The US, EU and Japan are also challenging aspects of the allocation and administration of export quotas, export licenses and the manipulation of export prices. They contend that Beijing aims to satisfy domestic REE demand first, and to control the international price of REEs abroad. They also say that Chinese practices are placing pressure on foreign manufacturers to relocate their operations to China in order to minimize the impacts of rising costs and shrinking supplies. It is expected that the complaint will take between one and three years to resolve.
WTO ruled against China’s REE export restrictions
China has countered that its policies are intended to improve the environmental standards of its REE mining and processing facilities as well as to promote the long-term economic sustainability of its REE resources. It has rejected a call for the establishment of a WTO panel. China has also countered that foreign suppliers have not complained of China dumping low-cost REEs as they previously had with China’s export of low-priced steel and textiles.
The US, EU and Japan feel that a WTO ruling made in January 2012 supports their case. In that ruling, the WTO decided that price and quantity controls primarily targeting foreign entities were not a reasonable implementation of a resource conservation policy. It also stated that trade restriction measures for the purpose of environmental protection can only be applied in conjunction with restraints on domestic production or consumption.
In June 2014 the WTO ruled against China and in August 2014 China lost its appeal. The WTO stated that China’s efforts conserve its limited REE resources and to protect its environment by restricting foreign access to REE tungsten and molybdenum through export duties, export quotas, minimum export pricing requirements and additional requirements and procedures constitute a breach of WTO rules. Instead the WTO found that the China’s REE restrictions were designed to achieve industrial policy goals rather than REE resource conservation or environmental protection. The WTO ruled this because no measures were put in place to restrict domestic access to REE supplies. Instead the export restrictions gave domestic companies preferential access to REEs at prices below that available to foreign customers.
World Response to the Reform of China’s Rare Earth Industry – Developing New Rare Earth Sources
Car production could be affected by rare earth shortages
Many governments and companies around the world are also beginning to develop new REE sources, now feasible given the higher REE prices which have resulted from increased REE demand and China’s export restrictions. The Australian company Lynas Corporation, for instance, has invested in an $800 million processing plant located on Malaysia’s East Coast. Once fully operational, Lynas’s Malaysian processing plant is slated to become one of the largest REE processing plants in the world. Yet, the opening of the plant has been plagued by protests from Malaysian activists who worry about its environmental implications. The plant is located on reclaimed swampland just 12 miles from Kuantan, a city of 600,000 people. A particular worry is that the plant’s toxic wastewater, containing chemicals and low levels of thorium, will seep into the groundwater, and that its storage ponds could become vulnerable to the monsoons that inundate the swampy coastline each autumn. Currently, Mitsubishi Chemical is investing $100 million to clean up its Bukit Merah REE processing site which it was forced to close in 1992 when local residents began complaining of leukemia and other ailments tied to thorium contamination. This environmental contamination has caused Malaysian activists to demand greater environmental regulation for all future RE processing facilities located on its soil.
In California, near Death Valley, Molycorp Minerals has invested $781 million in the modernization and expansion of its RE mining and manufacturing facilities that were shuttered in 2002 when it was unable to produce REEs at prices which could compete with Chinese producers. Molycorp aims for its newly refurbished Mount Pass facility to be one of the most technologically advanced, energy efficient and environmentally friendly REE processing operations in the world. By the end of 2013, Molycorp expects Mountain Pass to be producing 40,000 metric tons of REEs annually. As the US currently consumes between 15,000 and 18,000 metric tons of rare earth oxides each year, this would mean that the US would turn into an exporter of REE products in the near future.
Mines are also under consideration in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Greenland, Mongolia, Vietnam and India. In 2009, Japan signed a contract with Vietnam to invest in a rare earth mine that will produce solely for Japanese vehicle manufacturers. The problem is even if these new mines and accompanying processing plants were given the go-ahead, it could still take between 3 and 10 years, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars, before these new projects would become fully operational. Others are investing more heavily in the manufacturing of high-end REE products outside of China. Japan’s Hitachi Metals Company, for instance, is investing in a permanent magnet factory in China Grove, North Carolina instead of locating it in China as it had originally envisioned.
A concern for those investing in new REE mining and processing locations is that China could increase production again driving down REE prices just as their projects come on line, once again making non-Chinese mining and processing facilities uneconomical. Ironically, a WTO judgment in favor of the US, the EU and Japan could have this effect by forcing them to withdraw export restrictions which would once again flood the market with Chinese REE product. To protect against this, some non-Chinese scientists and industrialists have called for their governments to provide federal support in the form of loan guarantees and other assistance. Others argue that the rapidly growing demand for REEs should help maintain prices, even in the event of a significant increase in Chinese REE production.
World Response to the Reform of China’s Rare Earth Industry – Other Initiatives
International consumers of China’s REEs are also taking other steps to become independent from Chinese supplies. As a short term stop-gap, countries such as Japan and South Korea already have strategic stockpiles of rare earth metals. Countries are also increasing research into REE substitutes and REE recycling.
Trends for the Future
Rare earth mining is certain to be an important part of China’s future economy
China’s REE industry continues to grow at a strong clip. According to the Industrial Minerals Company of Australia, China’s REE annual output is forecasted to rise from 105,000 tons in 2011 to approximately 130,000 tons by 2016.
China considers the development of REE technologies a national priority. To support this objective, it will continue to invest heavily in research and development in all aspects of REE production from improved mining efficiency to the development of cutting-edge REE technologies. It will also continue to invest in technologies that will allow it to reclaim REEs from its tailing ponds and to recycle REEs from discarded electronic products.
China should be able to have substantially greater influence over REE’s supply and the pricing. To some extent this will offset its inability to control supply and price by export quotas and by other trade restrictions now ruled to be illegal by the WTO. China will also continue to build domestic stockpiles.
The financial and academic resources China is investing in basic REE research are unparalleled anywhere in the world. Similarly, no other country has identified the manufacturing of REE technologies as a national objective and is pursuing it as single-mindedly. Given China’s significant level of naturally occurring REE reserves, its destination as a low-cost manufacturing base, and its heavy research and investment in all aspects of the REE sector, it can be expected that China will continue to rapidly consolidate its already strong foothold in the manufacture of many of the REE technologies. It is likely it will dominate the production of many of these technologies in the future.
Rising REE prices and aggressive Chinese REE policies have caused non-Chinese REE miners and manufacturers to seek alternative REE sources and alternative locations to produce their REE components. Over the next 10 years, it can be expected that new REE mining and processing sources will come on line, allowing international competitors to claw back some unfinished REE market share. In particular, US Molycorp and Australian Lynas both have brought REE mines on stream. Similarly, international REE producers, wary of the Chinese subsuming their technology, will continue to seek alternative, cost-effective places to manufacture. That said, they will struggle to compete against China’s advantages.
Part I – A Formative Age: Prehistory 780,000 BCE – Zhou Dynasty 1046-221 BCE
/in Dynastic History of China /by ChinaFolioIntroduction – Emerging Great Themes of Dynastic History
The China that we see today had its origins in Prehistory. The remains of one of our earliest human ancestors, Peking Man, were found near the Zhoukoudian cave system located about 50 km southwest of Beijing. As early as 780,000 BCE, cave dwellers lived in China. Beginning in approximately 8000 BCE, people in north and central China began domesticating animals and growing food, especially millet, in the Yellow River valley of the north and rice in the Yangtze River valley to the south. A warming climate aided agricultural innovation. The surplus food production allowed more populous and complex societies to evolve. By 5000 to 4000 BCE Neolithic settlements were scattered throughout China. By 2000 BCE these village settlements saw people begin to specialize in different kinds of productive occupations. Agricultural production supported a growing non-agricultural population including artisans producing non-agricultural goods, administrators who collected taxes and set rules and regulations for society, and soldiers who defended and expanded the territory under the government’s control. Dating approximately from 2200-1600 BCE the Xia Dynasty was China’s first dynasty, although its existence has yet to be corroborated by archaeological evidence. The Shang (1600-1046 BCE) and the (Zhou 1046-221 BCE) saw the great themes of Chinese civilization begin to develop with the mastering of large scale mining and bronze casting, the development of writing, and the creation of a bureaucratic infrastructure to manage the expanding state. Religious and philosophical paradigms began to be formed, around which society could be structured and the world understood.
Peking Man
Over 4000 years of history, China has shown great continuity of values and purpose. There were times when it fractured into many smaller states, yet each of these states maintained many of the core political, social and religious power systems which came to define the Chinese civilization. Many factors contributed to China’s cultural continuity despite its periods of political disunity. One key factor was China’s formidable geography. Mountains, deserts and oceans formed real barriers between China and the rest of the world. For much of China’s history, its main threat came from the nomadic people who lived in the north. China built, and rebuilt the Great Wall, a 4000 mile barrier, along its northern border to stop invasions by these horse-riding “barbarians”. China’s cultural continuity was also facilitated by a common written language that allowed people throughout the empire to communicate, despite their many different dialects that were often mutually unintelligible. The ability to correspond in written form throughout China enabled governmental edicts to be communicated territory-wide, reinforcing the effectiveness of a strong, centralized, governmental bureaucracy. It also allowed the dissemination of philosophical, religious and cultural thought. From early on, China created a considerable body of literature, much of which was concerned with how people lived and behaved. This literature helped build a commonality of values throughout China. The Chinese invention of book printing helped spread these values further, as did its emphasis on education as a way to reach the highest levels of society.
These edicts also ordered the building of unprecedented engineering works – the Great Wall and the Grand Canal to name but two – that also brought the country together. China’s basic religion of ancestor worship also proved to be a strongly unifying. This ancient religion stressed the duty of sons to care for parents before and after death. By 550 BCE, Confucius expanded this pattern of obligation to include loyalty to the Emperor and the state.
780,000-2200 BCE
Even before there was Chinese civilization, there was primitive human life in what came to be China. Early human occupation of the area began over 1.7 million years ago. In the 1920s, near the Chinese village of Zhoukoudian, Peking Man was discovered. This early human lived in the area’s caves from roughly 780,000 to 600,000 BCE. Peking Man hunted and cooked animals, used sharpened stone tools, and had an intelligence level somewhere between that of apes and modern man. By 10,000-8000 BCE, in early north and central China, the Chinese people began farming and domesticating animals. By 3000 BCE, the Chinese had developed painted pottery, made relatively sophisticated tools and created decorative objects of Jade. By 2000-1500 BCE, Chinese settlements produced enough food to support artisans, soldiers and administrators who collected taxes and governed society.
Xia Dynasty: Approximately 2200-1600 BCE
China’s earliest cultural heroes from this time were called the three Sage-Kings – Yao, Shun and Yu – who were known for their morality and commitment to the wellbeing of their subjects. This theme of Chinese rulers who are both virtuous and committed to their people’s welfare runs throughout Chinese history. The Chinese believed humans could constantly improve themselves. From early on, Chinese leaders placed great value on education, and on choosing rulers and governing bureaucrats based on their capabilities, not just based on their connections. Yao, for instance, passed his throne onto Shun, rather than his own son, because Shun was most devoted to the people’s interests. Shun in turn chose an engineer, Yu, who began developing techniques to control river flooding. Yu, however, did pass his rule to his son, creating what is believed to be the first of the Chinese dynasties, the Xia. The Xia is the first dynasty to be described in ancient records including the Records of the Grand Historian and the Bamboo Annals, although scholars still debate whether the dynasty actually existed.
Shang Dynasty 1600 BCE-1046 BCE – Character Writing, Engineering and An Optimistic Outlook
Tradition has it that the moral superiority of King Tang, the first Shang Dynasty ruler, enabled him to overpower the last Xia ruler Jie, known for his atrocities, neglect and incompetence. This lifecycle of the Xia Dynasty – from the estimable founder through a series of often unexceptional rulers to the corrupt and ineffectual tyrant – became a pattern of subsequent dynastic cycles.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the early Shang Dynasty was quick to develop a political hierarchy and a complex economic and social system. Shang cities, for instance, were large and protected by massive walls up to 40 m wide and 10 m high, the largest of which are estimated to have required an investment of some 13 million labor days. The Shang leadership seemed adroit at mobilizing thousands of conscripts for such mass projects which also included military campaigns, the construction of tombs for deceased kings, and the clearing of new lands. Much attention was given to the efficient maintenance of these human resources, especially improving agriculture efficiency. This ability to mobilize large labor pools to achieve state objectives became a hallmark of Chinese dynasties from the Shang onwards.
Oracle Bone
The Shang territory was ordered in system of towns and villages ruled by the king’s relatives. Land near the Shang capital (Yan, present day Qufu, also the birthplace of Confucius) was entrusted to the king’s immediate clan. More distant areas were ruled by descendants of former Kings, and by allies of the royal lineage. Maintaining these alliances required effective diplomacy. Diplomatic tools included marriage, economic and military strength – some Shang armies numbered over 10,000 soldiers – diplomatic visits, Shang respect for the deities and ancestors of the other lineages, and employment of alien dignitaries in the Shang court. Allied courts paid tribute to the Shang by sending animals and prisoners of war, which were often sacrificed to placate ancestors.
“Oracle bones” – chicken bones and turtle shells – dating from the Shang time, record the first examples of Chinese character writing. These bones were used by rulers to consult ancestral spirits. The Chinese believed that the afterlife reflected the hierarchy of life on earth, and they saw their own dead ancestors organized in a pyramid of power with more distant ancestors being more powerful than those recently deceased. At the top of the Pyramid was the “Lord on High”, whom they believed to be the mightiest spirit of all. Shang rulers believed that many natural and political phenomena, from drought to foreign invasions, were the result of divine powers. Yet the Chinese were not fatalistic; instead, optimistically believing that relations with deities were manageable and that malevolent deities could be controlled by enlisting the help of royal ancestors. To ensure ancestral support, elaborate burial tombs were constructed and, after burial, communication with the dead was made through regular sacrifices. Over time, Shang religious activity became more ritualized. For instance, communication with ancestors occurred on specific days, which was enabled by the invention of calendar keeping.
The Zhou Dynasty 1046 BCE-221 BCE – Legalism, Confucianism, Daoism and the Mandate of Heaven
Around 1045 BCE, the Zhou conquered the Shang. Exactly what caused the Shang to lose their hegemony is not clear. The diminished dependency of Oracle bone divination’s over time means that their inscriptions became less informative. What seems clear is that the Shang state decreased in size in the 11th century BCE. Allies and dependencies of the Shang whose names frequently occur in earlier inscriptions disappear from those of the last 50 years of Shang rule. Additionally, the last ruler of the Shang appeared to be a cruel tyrant who putatively engaged in such acts as dismembering one of his aides and pickling another, enjoying orgies, and generally neglecting state affairs.
The Zhou worshipped Heaven, a benevolent force that helps right triumph in human matters. The Zhou conquerors argued that the last Shang kings were corrupt and irresponsible and that Heaven therefore granted the Zhou the right to rule in their place. Thus was created the “Mandate of Heaven”, the idea that Heaven bestows on an honorable and noble leader the right to rule, an idea that was to remain prevalent throughout Chinese dynastic rule.
The Zhou consolidated rule by weakening what was left of Shang dynastic power. Shang elites were relocated close to the center of power and Zhou settlements were established in strategic places throughout its territory. The Zhou slowly discarded the Shang custom of large-scale human sacrifices. Oracle bone divination gave way to prophecy based on an ancient text called the Book of Changes, which argued that ethical behavior brought favorable outcomes while immoral behavior jeopardized dynastic rule. In 770 BCE, the Zhou lost control over regional polities and the capital was conquered by two former Zhou vassals. The surviving court retreated to establish a new capital several hundred miles to the east. Thus 1045-770 BCE is called the Western Zhou period, while 770 BCE-256 BCE is the Eastern Zhou.
Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
In the 8th century BCE, Zhou power became fragmented in the Spring and Autumn period (770 BCE-453 BCE), named after the influential Spring and Autumn annals, and the Warring States period (453 BCE – 221 BCE). In the Spring and Autumn period hundreds of states eventually arose, each submissive to Zhou kings in name only. Yet despite this political fragmentation, much cultural uniformity was preserved as nobles maintained the practice of Zhou ritual culture. Eventually, during the Warring States period, these smaller polities were gradually consolidated into seven larger powers, including the Qin in the West. These seven larger powers expanded aggressively, ultimately conquering territory that, if conglomerated, began to anticipate the eventual borders of the Chinese nation. These states centralized control over their territory, discouraging autonomous political units which were viewed to be the cause of the constant warfare. Large numbers of commoners were rallied to build walls, dams, dikes and irrigation canals, meaningfully raising the yields of millet, wheat, soybean and rice crops which allowed these states to support large standing armies. Rulers increasingly recruited commanders based on skill and organizational abilities rather than on birth. This began China’s emphasis on creating an intellectual elite to help rulers maintain their hegemony, and introduced the idea of social mobility based on meritocracy.
During the Spring and Autumn period, in what became known as the “Period of a Hundred Schools of Thought” (famously recalled by Mao Zedong during his “Hundred Flowers” campaign), China considered many aspects of how society should be governed and how people should behave as it searched for an end to constant combat. An important school of thought during this time was the Legalists who argued that hegemony was achieved through the creation of severe laws with harsh punishments under the theory that harsh punishment deterred undesirable behavior. They supported the promotion of soldiers and officials on the basis of ability not just relationships and blood, and believed that rulers should pursue the goal of a powerful universal state. The Art of War, attributed to Sunzi (frequently written as Sun Tzu), was written during this time and is still studied today both in China and across the world.
Confucius
Confucius
Competing with this view were the ideas developed by Confucius. Born in 551 BCE, Confucius argued that the welfare of the people was more important than the privileges of the ruling class. Confucius also believed that officials should be chosen on the basis of ability not birth. Although he was agnostic about spirits, Confucius nevertheless believed that it was important to express respect and gratitude for dead forefathers. He thought the wisdom of the ancients should be studied so their insight could be passed on to future generations. He believed in the idealistic vision of benevolent rule, and thought that all people have the capacity for kindness. Yet he thought that this goodness needed to be nurtured through education, ritual, and the imitation of righteous role models. These role models included the example of parents, teachers and the great moral leaders of the past. He believed in social hierarchy and that sons were to be obedient to fathers as fathers should be obedient to their rulers. He also believed that scholars should study poetry, music and history to broaden their minds, a tradition that was to become entrenched within the Chinese dynastic civil service. While Confucius is, arguably, the most influential Chinese philosopher that has ever lived, it was not until after his death that his ideas gained wide acceptance and became entrenched in Chinese culture. Later followers of Confucius such as Mengzi (often referred to in the West as Mencius) and Xunzi thought those that worked with thought should rule over those who toiled with their hands, yet these rulers were obliged to be moral and just. Rulers received the Mandate of Heaven when they cared for their people; those who exploited their subjects lost the Mandate and failed. Xunzi also argued that events like droughts, floods or hurricanes were part of the natural world, not divine retribution for poor rule. A ruler lost the Mandate of Heaven not because a hurricane occurred, but because the ruler failed to respond to it compassionately and effectively.
Daoism also developed during this time and spoke in more philosophical terms about the nature of life and state. Dao means “the way”, and is a metaphysical construct that considers the totality of the universe and its laws of nature, trying to understand within that whatever is unchanging and everlasting. It seeks harmony with this natural, unchanging force in order to create a harmonious and stable society.
The Past in the Present – Historical Themes in Today’s China
Ancestor worship continues in China today
Confucianism, with its teachings of respect and loyalty for one’s parents, husbands and rulers created a tight knit society where one’s own individual desires were often subjugated to those in more favorable hierarchical positions. China’s worship of its ancestors extended this respect for, and deference to, its elders into the afterlife. The emphasis on education as a means of political advancement meant that the leaders of China shared a common culture as they all studied the same body of literature in order to pass their examinations. The spread of these cultural values to all parts of China was facilitated in part by China’s early creation of character writing. It also allowed the edicts of the government to be communicated throughout China, even though China had (and still has) many diverse spoken dialects.
From early on, the Chinese government was able to mobilize large numbers of its populace to execute works for the public good including the building of irrigation and dyke systems and the construction of city walls. They also conscripted large armies to defend Imperial territory. The Chinese have generally been an optimistic people who believed that their efforts had a direct impact on the outcome of events. For example, instead of attributing a devastating river flood to the wrath of a mercurial God, they instead recognized its natural causes and then set about engineering solutions, often on a grand scale.
Yet, while the political, social and cultural systems characteristic of Chinese civilization became firmly established, who should govern this civilization was periodically put into question. Specifically, there was often tension between the rule of the dynastic court and regional power centers. These regional power centers generally did not want to change the nature of Chinese society; instead, they wanted to take the rule of this society for themselves.
Many of these themes are still prevalent in China today. China is still ruled by a centralized, bureaucratic, authoritarian government. Education is still given the highest importance; success in university entrance exams allows those from even the humblest backgrounds to have the promise of future upward mobility, though, as with other modern societies, those already with power and wealth have a structural advantage. Before China’s market opening in 1978, communist ideology absolutely subjugated individual aspiration to the good of society as a whole. While the creation of the largely-capitalist economic system has now allowed for more individual aspiration (at least in economic terms), it has also undermined the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) justification for rule. The CCP has countered this in part by promoting nationalism, which among other things, celebrates the prestige of its 4000-year-old history, including its Confucian tradition, something that had previously been played down during the Mao years. This Confucian revival can be seen, for instance, in China’s building of Confucian centers around the world to promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture.
China still has an amazing capacity to mobilize its populace for the benefit of the public good, as evidenced by the current, unprecedentedly rapid building of infrastructure including roads, railways, hydro-electrical and other power systems. The Chinese are still optimistic in their ability to solve nature’s challenges and, thus, optimistic about their ability to control their future destiny. For instance, their hugely ambitious South-North Water Diversion Project will divert at least six trillion gallons of water each year from the Yangtze River to satisfy the water needs of the North China Plain and its 440 million people, thus tackling a growing water crisis in northern China.
Tensions between Beijing and provincial powers remain today, reflecting the struggles of bygone eras between the center and the regions. As China has transitioned from a communist to a largely-capitalist economic system, some regional areas and municipalities have grown in power and importance, posing a challenge for the regime in maintaining its absolute control.
What Happened Next?
The development of cultural norms, based around Confucian ideals, and the establishment of centralized governmental systems in order to pacify the restive regions continued after the Zhou, with the successes of first the Qin and then the Han. Similarly, the tendency for grand projects also manifested itself with the first creation of a ‘Great Wall’ on China’s northern frontier and the development of the Grand Canal. The story continues in A Classic, Bureaucratic Empire.
References