Page 4 - China Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

The People's Republic of China In the 1920s Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary In Beijing on October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed base in south China and set out to unite the the founding of the People's Republic of China. The fragmented nation. With Soviet assistance he new government assumed control of a people organized the Kuomintang (KMT or "Chinese exhausted by two generations of war and social conflict Nationalist People's Party") and entered into an and an economy ravaged by high inflation and alliance with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party disrupted transportation links. A new political and (CCP). After Sun's death in 1925 one of his proteges economic order modeled on the Soviet example was Chiang Kai-shek seized control of the KMT and quickly installed. succeeded in bringing most of south and central China PAGE 3 under its rule. In 1927 Chiang turned on the CCP and In the early 1950’s China undertook a massive Population | Time | Visas executed many of its leaders. The remnants fled into Insurance | History economic and social reconstruction. The new leaders the mountains of eastern China. In 1934 driven out of gained popular support by curbing inflation restoring PAGE 4-6 their mountain bases the CCP's forces embarked on a History "Long March" across China's most desolate terrain to the economy and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial plants. The CCP's authority reached into the Northwest where they established a guerrilla base PAGE 7 almost every phase of Chinese life. Party control was Government | Language at Yan'an in Shaanxi Province. assured by large politically loyal security and military PAGE 8 During the "Long March the Communists reorganized forces; a government apparatus responsive to party Climate under a new leader, Mao Zedong. The bitter struggle direction; and ranks of party members in labor women's and other mass organizations. PAGE 9 between the KMT and the CCP continued openly or The Land | People | Religion clandestinely through the 14-year long Japanese The "Great Leap Forward" and the Sino-Soviet Split invasion (1931-45), even though the two parties PAGE 10 In 1958 Mao broke with the Soviet model and nominally formed a united front to oppose the Currency | Credit Cards announced a new economic program the "Great Leap Changing Money | Tipping Japanese invaders in 1937. The war between the two parties resumed after the Japanese defeat in 1945. By Forward aimed at rapidly raising industrial and PAGE 11 agricultural production. Giant cooperatives 1949, the CCP occupied most of the country. Etiquette | Health & Vaccinations (communes) were formed, and backyard factories" dotted the Chinese landscape. The results were PAGE 12 Chiang Kai-shek fled with the remnants of his KMT disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were Communications | What to Pack government and military forces to Taiwan, where he disrupted agricultural production fell behind and proclaimed Taipei to be China's provisional capital" PAGE 13 China's people exhausted themselves producing what Shopping | Customs and vowed to re-conquer the Chinese mainland. The turned out to be shoddy unsalable goods. Within a KMT authorities on Taiwan still call themselves the year starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural PAGE 14-15 "Republic of China." Food & Drinks areas. From 1960 to 1961 the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad PAGE 16-17 weather resulted in famine. Culture & The Arts | Religion The Cultural Revolution In the early 1960’s State President Liu Shaoqi and his protege Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping took over direction of the party and adopted pragmatic economic policies at odds with Mao's revolutionary vision. Dissatisfied with China's new direction and his own reduced authority Party Chairman Mao launched a massive political attack on Liu Deng and other pragmatists in the spring of 1966. The new movement the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was unprecedented in Communist history. For the first