China's Hegemonic Ambition and Expansionism

[Ray]

Sorry, I didn't read this book.
Could you please tell where did he got Mao's words? Because it doesn't sound like a word from a chinese leader. Too frank, too stupid. Even a chinese student would got some words better than him. If he realy say these words, his enemies/comrades would love to hear it and make it public. So they can replace his position in next day.

And you also get the fact wrong, except Sichuan provice, villagers in general were eating more food than people in cities. My old relatives including my mum and grandfather have same experience: if you want eat more, find the opportunity to work in countryside. The cause of sichuan famin was the officers there exaggerated their food production.

If you have not read, then hurry up and read it and then give comments so that we can learn.

I am afraid, I was not in China during the Great Famine, but there are enough of books (by Chinese authors too!) giving the description of the hardships the common people had to go through.

The Great Leap was an economic failure. Industries went into turmoil because peasants were producing too much low-quality steel while other areas were neglected. Furthermore, uneducated low-income farmers were poorly equipped and ill-trained to produce steel, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. Meanwhile, essential farm tools were melted down for steel, reducing harvest sizes. This led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. To make matters worse, in order to avoid punishment, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, thus hiding and intensifying the problem for several years.

By the early 1960s, although Mao remained the Party Chairman, his chief responsibility in the Leap's failure forced him into a state of seclusion from day-to-day affairs of state and governance. Many of Mao's Great Leap policies were reversed, their negative impact mitigated and gradually diminished. Among Liu and Deng's reforms were a partial retreat from collectivism, seen as more pragmatic and more effective. During this phase Liu Shaoqi coined the famous phrase, "buying is better than manufacturing, and renting is better than buying," opening a new economic frontier in China that contradicted Mao's self-sufficiency ideals.

AS far as the sayings are concerned, it is well chronicled.

Now, maybe you could tell us how a Chinese leader should speak, if the sayings are not as per your idea as to how a Chinese leader should speak.

 

[Ray]

Sorry, I didn't read this book.
Could you please tell where did he got Mao's words? Because it doesn't sound like a word from a chinese leader. Too frank, too stupid. Even a chinese student would got some words better than him. If he realy say these words, his enemies/comrades would love to hear it and make it public. So they can replace his position in next day.

And you also get the fact wrong, except Sichuan provice, villagers in general were eating more food than people in cities. My old relatives including my mum and grandfather have same experience: if you want eat more, find the opportunity to work in countryside. The cause of sichuan famin was the officers there exaggerated their food production.

If you have not read, then hurry up and read it and then give comments so that we can learn.

I am afraid, I was not in China during the Great Famine, but there are enough of books (by Chinese authors too!) giving the description of the hardships the common people had to go through.

The Great Leap was an economic failure. Industries went into turmoil because peasants were producing too much low-quality steel while other areas were neglected. Furthermore, uneducated low-income farmers were poorly equipped and ill-trained to produce steel, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. Meanwhile, essential farm tools were melted down for steel, reducing harvest sizes. This led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. To make matters worse, in order to avoid punishment, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, thus hiding and intensifying the problem for several years.

By the early 1960s, although Mao remained the Party Chairman, his chief responsibility in the Leap's failure forced him into a state of seclusion from day-to-day affairs of state and governance. Many of Mao's Great Leap policies were reversed, their negative impact mitigated and gradually diminished. Among Liu and Deng's reforms were a partial retreat from collectivism, seen as more pragmatic and more effective. During this phase Liu Shaoqi coined the famous phrase, "buying is better than manufacturing, and renting is better than buying," opening a new economic frontier in China that contradicted Mao's self-sufficiency ideals.

AS far as the sayings are concerned, it is well chronicled.

Now, maybe you could tell us how a Chinese leader should speak, if the sayings are not as per your idea as to how a Chinese leader should speak.

 

[Ray]

Have you read Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Wang Dulu?

Dunhuang Memoir Recalling Cultural Revolution?

 

[Ray]

Great Chinese Famine



officially referred to as the Three Years of Natural Disasters, was the period in the People's Republic of China between 1958 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but scholars have estimated the number of famine victims to be between 20 and 43 million.

Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million. Historian Frank Dikötter, having been granted special access to Chinese archival materials, estimates that there were at least 45 million premature deaths from 1958 to 1962.

The phrases "Three Years of Economic Difficulty" and "Three Bitter Years" are also used by Chinese officials to describe this period.

Causes

Until the early 1980s, the Chinese government's stance, reflected by the name "Three Years of Natural Disasters", was that the famine was largely a result of a series of natural disasters compounded by some planning errors. Researchers outside China, however, generally agree that massive institutional and policy changes which accompanied the Great Leap Forward were the key factors in the famine. Since the 1980s there has been greater official Chinese recognition of the importance of policy mistakes in causing the disaster, claiming that the disaster was 30% due to natural causes and 70% by mismanagement.

During the Great Leap Forward, farming was organized into communes and the cultivation of private plots forbidden. This forced collectivisation substantially reduced the incentives for peasants to work well. Iron and steel production was identified as a key requirement for economic advancement. Millions of peasants were ordered away from agricultural work to join the iron and steel production workforce.

Yang Jisheng would summarize the effect of the focus on production targets in 2008:

In Xinyang, people starved at the doors of the grain warehouses. As they died, they shouted, "Communist Party, Chairman Mao, save us". If the granaries of Henan and Hebei had been opened, no one need have died. As people were dying in large numbers around them, officials did not think to save them. Their only concern was how to fulfil the delivery of grain. (Translation from "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008 of content from Yang Jisheng, 墓碑 －－中國六十年代大饑荒紀實 (Mu Bei - - Zhong Guo Liu Shi Nian Dai Da Ji Huang Ji Shi), Hong Kong: Cosmos Books (Tian Di Tu Shu), 2008, ISBN 9789882119093).

Along with collectivisation, the central Government decreed several changes in agricultural techniques based on the ideas of Ukrainian pseudo-scientist Trofim Lysenko. One of these ideas was close planting, whereby the density of seedlings was at first tripled and then doubled again. The theory was that plants of the same species would not compete with each other. In practice they did, which stunted growth and resulted in lower yields. Another policy was based on the ideas of Lysenko's colleague Teventy Maltsev, who encouraged peasants across China to plough deeply into the soil (up to 1 or 2 meters). They believed the most fertile soil was deep in the earth, allowing extra strong root growth. However, useless rocks, soil, and sand were driven up instead, burying the topsoil.

These radical changes in farming organization coincided with adverse weather patterns including droughts and floods. In July 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center, it directly killed, either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people, while other areas were affected in other ways as well. It could be ranked as one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century.

In 1960, at least some degree of drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of cultivated land , while an estimated 60% of agricultural land received no rain at all. The Encyclopædia Britannica yearbooks from 1958 to 1962 also reported abnormal weather, followed by droughts and floods. This included 30 inches (760 mm) of rain in Hong Kong across five days in June 1959, part of a pattern that hit all of Southern China.

As a result of these factors, year over year grain production in China dropped by 15% in 1959. By 1960, it was at 70% of its 1958 level. There was no recovery until 1962, after the Great Leap Forward ended.

According to the work of Nobel prize winning economist and expert on famines Amartya Sen, most famines do not result just from lower food production, but also from an inappropriate or inefficient distribution of the food, often compounded by lack of information and indeed misinformation as to the extent of the problem. In the case of these Chinese famines, the urban population had protected legal rights for certain amounts of grain consumption. Local officials in the countryside competed to over-report the levels of production that their communes had achieved in response to the new economic organisation and thus local peasants were left with a much reduced residue.

Outcome

According to China Statistical Yearbook (1984), crop production decreased from 200 million tons (1958) to 143.5 million tons (1960). Due to lack of food and incentive to marry at that point in time, the population was about 658,590,000 in 1961, about 13,480,000 less than the population of 1959. Birth rate decreased from 2.922% (1958) to 2.086% (1960) and death rate increased from 1.198% (1958) to 2.543% (1960), while the average numbers for 1962–1965 are about 4% and 1%, respectively.

The officially reported death rates show much more dramatic increases in a number of provinces and counties. In Sichuan province, the most populous province in China, for example, the government reported 11 million deaths out of the average population of about 70 million during 1958–1961, one death in every seven persons. In Huaibin county, Henan province, the government reported 102 thousand deaths out of a population of 378 thousand in 1960. On the national level, the official statistics implies about 15 million so-called "excess deaths" or "abnormal deaths", most of them resulting from starvation

Yu Dehong, the secretary of a party official in Xinyang in 1959 and 1960, stated,
I went to one village and saw 100 corpses, then another village and another 100 corpses. No one paid attention to them. People said that dogs were eating the bodies. Not true, I said. The dogs had long ago been eaten by the people.

Experts widely believe that the government seriously under-reported death tolls. Lu Baoguo, a Xinhua reporter in Xinyang, told Yang Jisheng of why he never reported on his experience:

In the second half of 1959, I took a long-distance bus from Xinyang to Luoshan and Gushi. Out of the window, I saw one corpse after another in the ditches. On the bus, no one dared to mention the dead. In one county, Guangshan, one-third of the people had died. Although there were dead people everywhere, the local leaders enjoyed good meals and fine liquor. ... I had seen people who had told the truth being destroyed. Did I dare to write it?

Some Western analysts such as Patricia Buckley Ebrey estimate that about 20-40 million people had died of starvation caused by bad government policy and natural disasters. J. Banister estimates this number is about 23 million. Li Chengrui, a former minister of the National Bureau of Statistics of China, estimated 22 million (1998). His estimation was based on Ansley J. Coale and Jiang Zhenghua's estimation of 17 million. Cao Shuji estimated 32.5 million. The aforementioned Yang Jisheng (2008) estimated the death toll at 36 million. Hong Kong based historian Frank Dikötter (2010) estimates that, at minimum, 45 million people died from starvation, overwork and state violence during the Great Leap, basing his findings on access to recently opened local and provincial party archives. He quotes other estimates as high as 50 to 60 million. Dikötter's study also stresses that state violence exacerbated the death toll, and that at least 2.5 million of the victims were beaten or tortured to death. He provides an example of what happened to a family after one member was caught stealing some food:
Liu Desheng, guilty of poaching a sweet potato, was covered in urine . . . He, his wife, and his son were also forced into a heap of excrement. Then tongs were used to prise his mouth open after he refused to swallow excrement. He died three weeks later.

The estimations vary largely because of inaccurate data, thanks to inaccurate census as well as the efforts of the government to hide the actual situation (all the related data was classified as extremely confidential until their disclosure after 1983). Some people question the validity of any of these estimates on the grounds of "the absence of reliable country-wide population census". As Wim F Wertheim, emeritus professor from the University of Amsterdam, put it in the article "Wild Swans and Mao's Agrarian Strategy";

Often it is argued that at the censuses of the 1960s "between 17 and 29 millions of Chinese" appeared to be missing, in comparison with the official census figures from the 1950s. But these calculations are lacking any semblance of reliability...it is hard to believe that suddenly, within a rather short period (1953-1960), the total population of China had risen from 450 [million] to 600 million.

 

[Ray]

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is an autobiographical family history by Chinese writer Jung Chang.

Chang's Grandmother's story

The book starts by relating the biography of Chang's grandmother (Yu-fang). From the age of two, she had bound feet. As the family was relatively poor, her father schemed to have her taken as a concubine to a high-ranking warlord General, in order to gain status, which was hugely important in terms of quality of life. After a wedding ceremony to the General, who already had a wife and many concubines, the young girl was left alone in a wealthy household with servants, and did not see her "husband" again for six years. Despite her luxurious surroundings, life was tense as she feared the servants and the wife of the General would report rumors or outright lies to him.

After his six year absence, the General made a brief conjugal visit to his concubine, during which a daughter, Chang's mother, was conceived. During the child's infancy, Chang's grandmother put off persistent requests for her to be brought to the General's main household, until he became very ill and it was no longer a request. Chang's grandmother had no choice but to comply. During her visit to the household, the General died. With his last words, the General proclaimed her free at age twenty-four. The general had no male heir, and Chang's mother was very important to the family. Realizing that the General's wife would have complete control over her life and her child's, Chang's grandmother fled with her baby to her parents' home, sending false word to her husband's family that the child had died. Eventually she married a much older doctor (Dr. Xia) with whom she and her daughter, Chang's mother, made a home in Jinzhou, Manchuria.

Chang's Mother's story

The book now moves to the story of Chang's mother (Bao Qin/De-hong), who at the age of fifteen, began working for the Communist Party of China and Mao Zedong's Red Army. As the Revolution progressed, her work for the party helped her rise through the ranks. She met the man who would become Chang's father (Wang Yu/Shou-yu), a high-ranking officer. The couple were soon married but Communist Party dictates meant they were not allowed to spend much time together. Eventually, the couple were transferred to Yibin, Chang's father's hometown. It was a long and arduous trek. Chang's mother traveled on foot because of her rank, while her father rode in a Jeep. He was not aware that Chang's mother was pregnant. After arrival at Nanjing, Chang's mother undertook gruelling military training. After the strain of the training coupled with the journey, she suffered a miscarriage. Chang's father swore to never again be inattentive of his wife's needs.

In the following years Chang's mother gave birth to Jung and four other children. The focus of the book now shifts again to cover Jung's own autobiography.

Chang's story

The Cultural Revolution started when Chang was a teenager. Chang willingly joined the Red Guards though she recoiled from some of their brutal actions. As Mao's personality cult grew, life became more difficult and dangerous. Chang's parents were labeled as capitalist roaders and made subjects of public struggle meetings and torture. Chang recalls that her father deteriorated physically and mentally, until his eventual death. Her father's treatment prompted Chang's previous doubts about Mao to come to the fore. Like thousands of other young people, Chang was sent down to the countryside for education and thought reform by the peasants, a difficult, harsh and pointless experience. At the end of the Cultural Revolution Chang returned home and worked hard to gain a place at university. Not long after she succeeded, Mao died. The whole nation was shocked in mourning, though Chang writes that: "People had been acting for so long they confused it with their true feelings. I wondered how many of the tears were genuine". Chang was exhilarated by Mao's death.

At university Chang studied English. After her graduation and a stint as an assistant lecturer, she won a scholarship to study in England and left for her new home. She still lives in England today and visits mainland China on occasion to see her family and friends there, with permission from Chinese authorities.

Read this book.

The contradiction and hypocrisy and events of the Cultural Revolution is extraordinarily chilling.

 

[Ray]

Hukou system

A Hukou (simplified Chinese: 户口; traditional Chinese: 戶口; pinyin: hùkǒu) or huji (simplified Chinese: 户籍; traditional Chinese: 戶籍; pinyin: hùjí) refers to the system of residency permits which dates back to ancient China, where household registration is required by law in People's Republic of China and Republic of China (Taiwan).

A household registration record officially identifies a person as a resident of an area and includes identifying information such as name, parents, spouse, and date of birth.

A hukou can also refer to a family register in many contexts since the household registration record (simplified Chinese: 户籍誊本; traditional Chinese: 戶籍謄本; pinyin: hùjí téngběn) is issued per family, and usually includes the births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and moves, of all members in the family. A similar household registration system exists within the public administration structures of Japan (koseki), Vietnam (Hộ khẩu), and North Korea (Hoju). In South Korea the Hoju system was abolished on 1 January 2008.

The formal name for the system is "huji." Within the huji system, a "hukou" is the registered residency status of a particular individual in this system. "Hukou" is more commonly used in everyday conversation. "Hukou" has been adopted by English-language audiences to refer to both the huji system and an individual's hukou.

History

Family registers were in existence in China as early as the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 BCE - 1600 BCE). In the centuries which followed, the family register developed into an organization of families and clans for purposes of taxation, conscription and social control.[citation needed]

According to the Examination of Hukou in Wenxian Tongkao published in 1317, there was a minister for population management during the Zhou Dynasty named Simin (Chinese: 司民), who was responsible for recording births, deaths, emigrations and immigrations. The Rites of Zhou notes that three copies of documents were kept in different places. The administrative divisions in Zhou Dynasty were a function of the distance to the state capital. The top division nearest the capital was named Dubi (Chinese: 都鄙), top division in more distant areas were named Xiang (Chinese: 鄉) and Sui (Chinese: 遂). Families are organized under the Baojia system.

Guan Zhong, Prime Minister of the Qi state 7th century BCE, imposed different taxation and conscription policies on different areas. In addition, Guan Zhong also banned immigration, emigration, and separation of families without permission. In the Book of Lord Shang, Shang Yang also described his policy restricting immigrations and emigrations.

Xiao He, the first Chancellor of the Han Dynasty, added the chapter of Hu (Chinese: 户律) as one of the nine basic laws of Han (Chinese: 九章律), and established the Hukou system as the basis of tax revenue and conscription.

Household registration in mainland China

The Communist Party instigated a command economy when it came to power in 1949. In 1958, the Chinese government officially promulgated the family register system to control the movement of people between urban and rural areas. Individuals were broadly categorised as a "rural" or "urban" worker. A worker seeking to move from the country to urban areas to take up non-agricultural work would have to apply through the relevant bureaucracies. The number of workers allowed to make such moves was tightly controlled. Migrant workers would require six passes to work in provinces other than their own. People who worked outside their authorized domain or geographical area would not qualify for grain rations, employer-provided housing, or health care. There were controls over education, employment, marriage and so on.
[edit] Rationale

With its large rural population of poor farm workers, hukou limited mass migration from the land to the cities to ensure some structural stability. The hukou system was an instrument of the command economy. By regulating labour, it ensured an adequate supply of low cost workers to the plethora of state owned businesses. Like the internal passports of the Soviet Union, the hukou system allowed the state to provide preferential treatment to industrial workers and intelligentsia who would be more likely to protest and even revolt during periods of unrest.

For some time, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security continued to justify these hukou system on public order grounds, and also provided demographic data for government central planning.

The Hukou system has been justified by some scholars as increasing the stability of China by better monitoring of "Targeted persons", people who are politically dubious by the Party's standards, this is still a significant function as of 2006.

The Beijing Hukou is very important and the most attractive in China because it brings much convenience and welfare to those who hold it. One of the key points is that it is easier to matriculate from university for people with the Beijing Hukou. Some people spend tens of thousands of yuan to buy a Beijing Hukou. Most officials of the central government live in Beijing and have Beijing Hukou. Therefore in policy-making Beijing Hukou are often given higher priority.

Enforcement

From around 1953 to 1976, Police would periodically round up those who were without valid residence permit, place them in detention centres and expel them from cities.

Administration regulations issued in 1982 known as "custody and repatriation" authorized police to detain people, and "repatriate" them to their permanent residency location.

Although an individual is technically required to live in the area designated on his/her permit, in practice the system has largely broken down. After Chinese market reforms, it became possible for some to unofficially migrate and get a job without a valid permit. Economic reforms also created pressures to encourage migration from the interior to the coast. It also provided incentives for officials not to enforce regulations on migration.

Technology has made it easier to enforce the Hukou system as now the police force has a national database of official Hukou registrations. This was made possible by computerisation in the 1990s, as well as greater co-operation between the different regional police authorities .
[edit] During the Great Leap Forward's famine

During the mass famine of the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1962, having an urban versus a rural hukou could mean the difference between life and death.During this period, nearly all of the approximately 600 million rural hukou residents were collectivized into village communal farms, where their agricultural output - after state taxes - would be their only source of food. With institutionalized exaggeration of output figures by local Communist leaders and massive declines in production, state taxes during those years confiscated nearly all food in many rural communes, leading to mass starvation and the deaths of more than 30 million Chinese .

The 100 million urban hukou residents, however, were fed by fixed food rations established by the central government, which declined to an average of 1500 calories per day at times but still allowed survival for almost all during the famine. An estimated 95% or higher of all deaths occurred among rural hukou holders. With the suppression of news internally, many city residents were not aware at all that mass deaths were occurring in the countryside at all, which was essential to preventing organized opposition to Mao's scheme.

Many of the starving peasants tried to flee to the cities to beg for food, but tight security at entry points and through regular inspections of resident documents on the streets led to the deportation and subsequent death of most. In fact, it was only when rural family members of higher military officers, who were often isolated from the countryside in cities or bases, began dying from starvation that higher Communist officials began seriously worrying about the stability of the state, and eventually forced Mao to end the program. This was the most extreme demonstration of how much impact a different hukou could have in China, but significant interference in all aspects of life only began declining in the 1980's and 1990's.
[edit] Effect on rural workers

From around 1953 to 1976, the enforcement of non-portable rights associated with one's domicile created an underclass. Urban dwellers enjoyed a range of social, economic and cultural benefits while China's 800 million rural residents were treated as second-class citizens. However, the ruling party made some concessions to rural workers to make life in rural areas "survivable... if not easy or pleasant".
From 1978 to 2001, as China transitioned from state socialism to market capitalism, export-processing zones were created in city suburbs, where mostly female migrants worked under conditions considered far below contemporary standards of western nations. Restrictions placed on the mobility of migrant workers were pervasive,[5] and transient workers were forced to live a precarious existence in company dormitories or shanty towns, and suffered abusive consequences.

The impact of the hukou system on migrant laborers became particularly onerous in the 1980s after hundreds of millions of were forced out of state corporations and co-operatives. Since the 1980s, an estimated 200 million Chinese live outside their officially-registered areas, with much less access to education and government services, and in several respects occupy a social and economic status similar to illegal immigrants. The millions of peasants who have since quit the land remain stuck at the margins of urban society, and have been blamed for the rising crime and unemployment. Under pressure from their citizens, city governments impose discriminatory rules. For example, the kids of "Nong Min Gong - 农民工" (workers who come from counties) are not allowed to enter city schools with their parents, even now they have to live with their grandparents or uncles in order to go to their local hometown schools in counties. They are called home-staying children by Chinese governments. Chinese researchers reported that there are about 130 millions home-staying children without parents year by year.

Analogies to apartheid

The hukou system has been described as "China's apartheid". The gradual relaxation of some of the more repressive aspects of the hukou system since the mid-1990s has largely eliminated the spatial aspect of the "apartheid". However, as the hukou remains partially hereditary, the "substance of the social apartheid remains intact."

Two areas differ from South Africa's apartheid system: Firstly, under a system called xia fang, or "sending down", individuals or groups of urban workers were sometimes re-classified as rural workers and banished to the countryside (at lower wages and benefits), often as a sentence for "bourgeois imperialist crimes" during the Cultural Revolution; by contrast, white workers in South Africa were never sent to work in Bantustans. Second, the ideology driving China's apartheid system was Maoism, not racism. More significantly it is possible to move up from a rural to an urban hukou by obtaining a college degree and gaining employment with a corporation or the government.

Some Mainland Chinese-based scholars claim that though the Hukou system is discriminatory, it is no worse than the passport system keeping people from developing countries from resettling in the West,[21] a system which has been called global apartheid.[citation needed]

Reform

Reforming the residency system has been a very controversial topic within the PRC. Although the system in operation was widely regarded within the PRC as unfair and inhumane, there were fears that liberalization would result in a massive influx to the cities which would stress already strained government services beyond the breaking point, and result in further economic loss to rural areas, rising social unrest and crime.

On the other hand, there has been recognition for some time that hukou is an impediment to economic development. China's accession to the World Trade Organisation has forced it to embrace this reform to liberalise the movement of labour, speeding up its economic reform.

The system has undergone further relaxation since the mid 1990s. The first relaxation allowed rural residents to buy a temporary urban residency permits, meaning they could work legally; fees for these decreased gradually to a fairly affordable level. The discrimination against rural women has been alleviated from 1998, when hukou became inheritable through either the father's or the mother's line.

From 2001 onwards, hukou controls were weakened. In 2003, after the uproar surrounding the death of Sun Zhigang alarmed the authorities, the laws on Custody and repatriation were repealed; by 2004 the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture estimated that over 100 million people registered as "rural" were working in cities.

Chan and Buckingham's (2008) article, "Is China Abolishing its Hukou System," argues that previous reforms have not fundamentally changed the hukou system. Instead, reforms have only decentralized hukou control to local governments. The contemporary hukou system remains potent and continues to serve as one of the key institutions perpetuating China's rural-urban disparity.

The system is currently only partially enforced, and it has been argued that the system will have to be further relaxed in order to increase availability of skilled workers to industries.

Household registration in Taiwan

When Taiwan was under Japanese rule from 1895 to 1945, the Japanese government maintained the same system of household registration (koseki) as they did in other parts of the Empire of Japan. This system of household registration, with minor changes, has been continued. Records concerning native Taiwanese are fairly complete. Records of mainlanders date back to the date they first applied for registration with the local household registration office, and are based on information provided by the applicant.

While all ROC nationals, including overseas Chinese with no connection to Taiwan, can apply for a ROC passport, proper household registration is required for obtaining a ROC ID Card, which is often used as proof of citizenship, such as in national elections, and an ID number is needed to open bank accounts. Unlike in mainland China, residency can be easily changed with the local authorities and household registration does not serve as a tool to limit a resident's movements within Taiwan.
[edit] Special administrative regions

Hukou is not employed in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, though identification cards are mandatory for residents there.

 

[Ray]

The Hukou System and Rural-Urban Migration in China:
Processes and Changes

Until recently, few people in mainland China would dispute the significance of the hukou (household registration) system in affecting their life -- indeed, in determining their fates. In the West, a number of China scholars, notably Christiansen, Chan, Cheng and Selden, and Mallee, have begun in recent years to study this important subject in relation to population mobility. Their work has significantly expanded our understanding. Unlike population registration systems in many other countries, the Chinese system was designed not merely to provide population statistics and identify personal status, but also to directly regulate population distribution and serve many other important objectives desired by the state. In fact, the hukou system is a major tool of social control employed by the state. Its functions go far beyond simply controlling population mobility.



Hukou

 

[Ray]

The Princeling and the Paupers

n China, a divisive fight over political succession underpins a public fight over the internal immigration system.

BY WEN LIAO | MARCH 5, 2010

Three decades after Deng Xiaoping unleashed his market reforms, resentment over China's internal immigration policy -- particularly the hukou registration system -- has finally boiled over. On March 1, 13 state-run newspapers, including the well-regarded Economic Observer, simultaneously carried a front-page editorial calling for the system to be abolished because of the "invisible fetters" it placed on all Chinese citizens. The government seemed wise to the growing resentment, with Premier Wen Jiabao promising to reform the system in an online chat days before the editorial came out and announcing some reforms today. But the unprecedented outcry from the press still caught many in Beijing off guard. So is the Fourth Estate beginning to flex its muscles in China?

Not really. It is hard to imagine that the papers brandished the editorial without advance official sanction. Although one editor might have had the courage to risk his career with the editorial, organizing so visible a joint protest would have brought severe punishment had it not received some wink of approval from on high. Indeed, it is more likely that the government recognized that it needed to fix the hukou system and decided to appease resentment over it in advance of the just convened National People's Congress (NPC) -- during which the Chinese Communist Party will try to stifle or hide all evidence of a house increasingly divided.

The hukou system, modeled on the Stalinist propiska (which also lingers on in today's Russia), effectively controls internal immigration: The government decides how many people can move their registration from one, usually rural, district into another, usually urban, one. People who move to another part of the country without permission risk losing basic rights. They cannot officially live or work anywhere. Their children cannot get schooling; they cannot get medicine. (On a personal note, when I wanted to get married in China in 2006, I could not do so in a civil registration because, having lived abroad, I could not produce a hukou.) Unless illegal migrants can bribe a local official to transfer their papers, they become a refugee in their own country.

The lack of a hukou and its corresponding rights and privileges is why most migrant workers -- the vast majority of whom are male -- rarely bring their families with them when they move to a city seeking work. And, as it impacts China's huge number of internal migrants (estimates place the number between 100 million and 150 million), it -- alongside the relentless petty corruptions of Chinese society -- is a major point of public anger.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) knows it, hence the promise of hukou reform. The timing of the affair also suggests official connivance. The articles appeared just days before the NPC's annual meeting in Beijing. Organized displays of discontent around the time of the NPC are rarely tolerated. The NPC receives petitions from aggrieved citizens in the run-up to the meetings, and the number of petitions has been growing each year, from 100,000 in 2004 to well over 400,000 last year. This swelling unrest has prompted officials to order both strenuous efforts to keep petitioners from flocking to Beijing to present their petitions in person, and also to anticipate and try to dampen public resentments when possible.

Keeping the NPC docile is particularly important this year because the end of the Hu Jintao/Wen Jiabao era is in sight -- and the transfer of power is not going as smoothly as party elders had hoped. President Hu and his heir apparent, Vice President Xi Jinping, due to take over in 2012, are on the opposite sides of China's political spectrum when it comes to crucial domestic policy issues. Xi -- a "princeling," as the descendants of communist China's revolutionary founders are called -- is a follower of the "Shanghai School" of development. He prioritizes China's dynamic urban centers and market-based reforms. Hu, on the other hand, is increasingly keen to focus on rural development and state control.

The urban/rural, market/state divide within the CCP has prevented Beijing from making progress on subjecting the yuan to market forces, fragmented China's stimulus package into industrial policies, and is forcing the Chinese people to keep high saving rates for covering health and retirement expenses. All of this is making the much-needed "rebalancing" of China's economy toward more domestically based growth more difficult.

The friction became public last September when CCP leaders failed to make Xi deputy commander in chief of the armed forces. The suggestion is that Hu maneuvered to keep Xi off the powerful central military affairs commission because he intends to use continuing chairmanship of that body to maintain his influence after he leaves office (something Deng Xiaoping did during his years as the country's paramount leader, when he nevertheless held no official party or state position). This political wrestling match probably goes some way toward explaining China's current diplomatic bluster and the domestic crackdowns in Tibet and Xinjiang. After all, with nationalist feelings on the rise, no Chinese leader wants to look soft and give his rivals an opportunity to attack him.

But the CCP leadership realizes that nationalism alone will not keep the population content. Only growth, and a systematic easing of the plight of the country's most desperate people, can do that. Removing -- or at least reforming -- the hated hukou is part of this political effort. Plus, it has the added advantage of playing to both Hu's and Xi's constituencies by dampening the resentments of both urban migrants and countryside peasants, dreaming of a move to the city.

China's politicians may not be democrats, but they know a win-win reform when they see it.

Chinese Denounces

 

[Ray]

Danwei System

A work unit or danwei (simplified Chinese: 单位; traditional Chinese: 單位; pinyin: dān wèi) is the name given to a place of employment in the People's Republic of China. While the term danwei remains in use today it is more properly used to refer to a place of employment during the period when the Chinese economy was still more heavily socialist or when used in the context of one of state-owned enterprises.

Prior to Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms a work unit acted as the first step of a multi-tiered hierarchy linking each individual with the central Communist Party infrastructure. Work units were the principal method of implementing party policy. Also workers were bound to their work unit for life. Each danwei created their own housing, child care, schools, clinics, shops, services, post offices, etc.

The influence of a work unit on the life of an individual was substantial and permission had to be obtained from the work units before undertaking everyday events such as travel, marriage, or having children. Amongst other things, the work unit assigned individuals living quarters and provided them with food, which was eaten in centralized canteens. The danwei system was crucial to the implementation of the 'one child policy' as the reproductive behaviour of workers could be monitored through the danwei system. Workers not complying with policy could have their pay docked, incentives withheld or living conditions downgraded.

The increasing liberalization of China's economy led to state owned enterprises being put into competition with private enterprise and, increasingly, foreign Multinational corporations. The iron rice bowl, the ideal of a job for every worker, continued to prevent work units from dismissing workers while private enterprises were able to cherry pick the best workers. The decision by the central and provincial governments to offer tax and financial incentives to foreign investors in order to encourage them to invest in China led to further difficulties for the danwei system as the state run enterprises were increasingly unable to compete.

At the same time the role of the work unit is changing as China is moving from a socialist ideology to "Socialism with Chinese characteristics".

 

[Ray]

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

CHINA'S HOUSEHOLD REGISTRATION SYSTEM:
Sustained Reform Needed to Protect China's Rural Migrants


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

China's hukou (household registration) system has imposed strict limits on ordinary Chinese citizens changing their permanent place of residence since it was instituted in the 1950s. Beginning with the reform period in the late 1970s and accelerating during the late 1990s, national and local authorities relaxed restrictions on obtaining urban residence permits. While these moves are a step forward, recent reforms often contain high income and strict housing requirements that work against rural migrants who seek to move to China's cities. Migrants who do not meet these requirements usually cannot obtain public services such as health care and schooling for their children on an equal basis with other residents.

These uneven reforms to the hukou system discriminate against poor migrant workers in favor of the wealthy and educated. Rural migrants who obtain housing and jobs in cities still may not meet legal requirements for a "stable source of income" and a "stable place of residence." Official Chinese press statements portray recent hukou reforms as eliminating discrimination in the household registration system. Instead, these reforms have shifted the hukou system from a method of restricting changes in permanent residence to a barrier preventing some of China's most vulnerable citizens from receiving public services.

The Commission encourages the Chinese government to continue hukou reforms, building on positive steps already taken, by focusing on measures that would protect the interests of China's poor migrants and enhance their upward mobility. The Commission recommends that the Chinese government:

"¢ Continue to liberalize urban hukou requirements, but emphasize non-discriminatory criteria;
"¢ Steadily eliminate current rules that link hukou status to public services;
"¢ Support private efforts to provide social services to migrants;
"¢ Engage in international dialogue on internal migration and hukou reform;
"¢ Eliminate hukou restrictions that contravene domestic and international law;
"¢ Remove structural barriers limiting the voices of migrants and rural residents.


The [United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights] notes
with deep concern the de facto discrimination against internal migrants in the
fields of employment, social security, health service, housing, and education that
indirectly result, inter alia, from the restrictive national household registration
system (hukou) which continues to be in place despite official announcements
regarding reforms.

United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights,
Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Initial Report of the People's
Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macao), May 13, 2005, pg 3.

Sustained Reform Needed to Protect China's Rural Migrants

 

[no smoking]

If you have not read, then hurry up and read it and then give comments so that we can learn.

I am afraid, I was not in China during the Great Famine, but there are enough of books (by Chinese authors too!) giving the description of the hardships the common people had to go through.

The Great Leap was an economic failure. Industries went into turmoil because peasants were producing too much low-quality steel while other areas were neglected. Furthermore, uneducated low-income farmers were poorly equipped and ill-trained to produce steel, partially relying on backyard furnaces to achieve the production targets set by local cadres. Meanwhile, essential farm tools were melted down for steel, reducing harvest sizes. This led to a decline in the production of most goods except substandard pig iron and steel. To make matters worse, in order to avoid punishment, local authorities frequently exaggerated production numbers, thus hiding and intensifying the problem for several years.

By the early 1960s, although Mao remained the Party Chairman, his chief responsibility in the Leap's failure forced him into a state of seclusion from day-to-day affairs of state and governance. Many of Mao's Great Leap policies were reversed, their negative impact mitigated and gradually diminished. Among Liu and Deng's reforms were a partial retreat from collectivism, seen as more pragmatic and more effective. During this phase Liu Shaoqi coined the famous phrase, "buying is better than manufacturing, and renting is better than buying," opening a new economic frontier in China that contradicted Mao's self-sufficiency ideals.

AS far as the sayings are concerned, it is well chronicled.

Now, maybe you could tell us how a Chinese leader should speak, if the sayings are not as per your idea as to how a Chinese leader should speak.

Well, I am not arguing the great leap forward, what I am arguing is that in order to make Mao a murder, the author made up the fake speech. After read this, without check the credibility, anyone would think that Mao designed this famin in order to kill people. As a chinese leader, if he makes such a speech, he is placing the wohle responsibility on his own shoulder. He is actually aborbing all the blame to himself. His enemies would love to hear that because all their mistakes would be covered by Mao's word. Do you think Mao would say that to make his position even weaker?

 

[Ray]

Well, I am not arguing the great leap forward, what I am arguing is that in order to make Mao a murder, the author made up the fake speech. After read this, without check the credibility, anyone would think that Mao designed this famin in order to kill people. As a chinese leader, if he makes such a speech, he is placing the wohle responsibility on his own shoulder. He is actually aborbing all the blame to himself. His enemies would love to hear that because all their mistakes would be covered by Mao's word. Do you think Mao would say that to make his position even weaker?

Have you read all the posts of mine?

Was Mao not responsible for the Great Leap Forward and for the Famine?

You mean to say that Chinese leaders are not truthful when they may a mistake and instead blame others, lest they are purged? And anyway who could purge Mao? Not even Chiu en Lai could do so. The Gang of Four was purged including Mao's own wife (the official one).

Although officially not ended until 1977, the Cultural Revolution had passed its worse excesses by 1972, and a balance of power between left wing and right, radicals and moderates was established. The political instability caused by the Cultural Revolution had an enormous impact upon the economy of China. Recognising that a period of stability was required, Mao stepped back from the day-to-day administration, and Premier Zhou Enlai embarked upon the reconstruction of the economy. Mao, now ageing and suffering ill health increasingly retired from public affairs. In order to build a solid state bureaucracy Zhou reinstated many of the senior bureaucrats who had been denounced during the cultural revolution. The army was brought into firmer Party control, and material incentives were introduced into industry, and private plots into agriculture.

The balance of power was still very precarious, and the Shanghai based Gang of Four, led by Mao's fourth wife, Jiang Qing were poised for power, with one of their number, Wang Hong Wen, holding the third most powerful post in the Party, after Mao and Zhou. By 1973 Zhou was seriously ill with cancer, and suffered two heart attacks in 1974. Mao was four years older than Zhou, and himself was now suffering from Parkinson's disease. With the leadership so clearly at a crucial turning point, an all out power struggle emerged.

The Gang of Four were no friends of Zhou, and Zhou attempted to make the succession clearer by reinstating Deng Xiaoping to high office, including Chief-of-Staff of the military. The Gang of Four tried a number of poster campaigns to criticise the new direction of Zhou and Deng. Mao himself, although he disliked the Gang of Four, and his relationship with his wife was, to say the least, strained, disliked Deng's 'capitalism' even more.

The power struggle grew more intense when, on the 8th January 1976, Zhou Enlai died of cancer in a Beijing Hospital. Zhou's natural successor, Deng, was not chosen to succeed him, but rather a relatively little-known member of the Politburo, Hua Guofeng. Criticism in the media (in the control of the Gang of Four) of Deng became virulent, and Deng went into hiding in southern China. Demonstrations in Tiananmen Square took place at the annual Qing Ming Festival. On the surface they were wreath laying ceremonies in honour of Zhou Enlai - a genuinely admired politician. However, the occasion was used to display banners critical of the Gang of Four, and in praise of Deng. The posters and wreaths were removed, thus enraging the crowd even more. The end result was a riot which was quelled by the Beijing militia. The Gang of Four blamed Deng, and he was stripped of his positions in the government. However, he was permitted to keep his Party membership at the personal request of Mao.

On 9th September, 1976, Mao himself died. This was two months after the disastrous Tang Shan earthquake, which to some Chinese, signified the imminent end of a dynasty. Mao's death was not exactly unexpected, but nonetheless, the reality of it hit the country hard. Mao had been the 'Great Helmsman' and a unifying force in China. Where China was to go, and who was to lead her was the burning question of the day. Although in hiding, Deng was a serious contender to the leadership. He had widespread support throughout the bureaucratic and administrative agencies, as well as among the military. Jiang Qing recognised her weakness, only having support among radical students and the extreme left-wing of the party. Jiang Qing tried to convince Hua Guofeng to support her bid to be Party Chairwoman. He decided against it, and was himself elected Party Chairman. In a radical step, he had the Gang of Four arrested on evidence that they had military coups planned in Beijing and Shanghai. The arrest of the Gang of Four was greeted with demonstrations in support of the arrests in every major city in China, including Jiang Qing's stronghold of Shanghai.

Hua was now in control, but only as a stopgap. He was acceptable to a wide spectrum of the Party, being centre-left: supporting Mao, but holding out against the excesses of the Gang of Four. With Deng still technically in disgrace, Hua presided over a political body still seeking the ultimate successor to Mao. Hua tried to distance Deng with a poster campaign which backfired. Posters appeared demanding Deng be reinstated. This move was supported by provincial leaders and the military, fearing demonstrations on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident.

Deng's reinstatement was followed by a speedy climb to real power, and his four-modernisations programme was given increased prominence - modernisation of agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defence. At the same time there was a reinterpretation of Mao's work, with new editions of his pre-1960's work being published. Mao's pre-Cultural Revolution published work was far more pragmatic, and much more in line with the Deng approach. With the official trial of the Gang of Four, Hua was to lose his last remaining powers as he was implicated in some of the activities of the gang as Minister for Security. Deng became the unquestioned leader, and he set about transforming China in a way that probably no other country in history has been transformed.

Deng was famed for saying 'It does not matter whether a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice'. This was a reference to state-control verses free market economics. Deng was convinced that the test of theory was practice (a sentiment frequently arising in Mao's writings), and was willing to take on board capitalist principles where they were evidently more efficient than state-control. In this way China was opened up for inward investment, special economic zones established among much of China's coastline and Deng developed what he called 'Socialism with Chinese Character'.

Mounting economic success was mirrored in political advances, with agreements being reached with both the United Kingdom and Portugal for the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese Sovereignty in 1997 and 1999 respectively. The dates for drawing lines under European intervention in China and its legacy were timetabled.

China's rapid economic development was not without its problems. Rapid growth had lead to overheating of the economy, and inflation, unknown to China under Mao, was a matter of real political concern. Tight fiscal policies were not popular, nor were the dismantling of much of the state subsidy on food and other daily necessities. To compound matters, economic crimes rose, as did corruption within government.

Growing discontent with the economic disadvantages of restructuring the economy together with anger at corruption and in particular nepotism were focused with the death of Hu Yaobang. A popular politician, his death gave reason to a public display. Again, on the surface, the movement of people to Tiananmen Square was to lay wreaths. However, the marches became more political and bigger. Beijing ground to a halt. The authorities appeared to do nothing, and the demonstrations simply grew bigger. Even the China Daily, the English language paper, reported a million demonstrators in a single day.

Without doubt, the imminent arrival of Mikael Gorbachev in an historic rapprochement was cause for concern as Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of China, and ceremonial centrepiece for any state visit, was under siege.

In the early hours of Sunday 4th July 1989 troops restored the authority of the Communist party through military intervention. The exact number of fatalities is not known. The Chinese authorities place the figure at around three hundred, Amnesty International anything up to three thousand. What is certain, is that the international repercussions on the Chinese government were short-lived for all the noise. Certainly sanctions were quietly lifted as the US, Western Europe and Japan all realised that the Chinese market was far too big a prize to be jeopardised by grand political gestures. Frozen aid, soft loans and reciprocal trade agreements suffered only superficial damage, though some have criticised the developed nations for their unseemly haste to restore normal relations after what was termed the 'Tiananmen Square Massacre' by the western press. However, what was clearly demonstrated was that China was an economic force that no nation could ignore - or would ignore at its peril.

Internally, the events in Tiananmen Square had repercussions as various factions within the government sought to apportion blame, and thus gain political power. However, despite a period of slight instability, Deng retained his overall control, and his reform programmes continued up until his death on 20th February, 1997, just four months away from the handover of Hong Kong back to Chinese sovereignty. There was no power struggle after Deng's death like that that had occurred after the death of Mao. Deng had put in place a strong government team, lead by Zhang Zemin and Li Peng.

On the 30th June, 1997, the world watched as the British left their last significant colonial possession, and the Special Administrative Zone of Hong Kong, China became a reality. It was a period of national celebrations across China, with an official three day public holiday to mark the event.

The speculation and forecasts of the collapse of Hong Kong's booming stock market and vibrant economy under a socialist government have come to nothing. Indeed, while the 'Tiger Economies' of South East Asia have cracked, notably Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia, Hong Kong has retained a stable currency, although the value of the stock market has slumped. And while the economic giant of the region, Japan, seems to be on the brink of depression, China, with her booming economy, national unity ever closer and a stable political environment is looking towards a brighter future. Her history shows that political life and economic fortunes weave as intricate a web as any other major nation, but not withstanding the inevitable twists and turns, the third millennium certainly looks exciting for China and her inhabitants.

And what is all this that Mao was 30% wrong and 70% right or some such thing that is said in China about Mao and his policies? Can anyone be so precise? It again is propaganda to appease the people who have suffered! In China, there is no democracy and so all orders are cleared by the highest authority and so is Mao not then responsible?

 

[jazzguy]

Well. What you purposely missed in the histroy is that Tibet has became part of Chinese terriory since Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271-1368)

 

[Ray]

@Jazzzguy

Well here are two distinct version over Tibet.

Tibet and China: Two Distinct Views​

The Chinese History of Tibet


Tibet has been part of China since the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368). Centuries ago Mongol and Manchu Emperors ruled or influenced large parts of Asia. During the Tang period (618-907), the Tibetan King, Songsten Gampo, married Princess Wen Cheng. The Princess is thought to have had alot of influence in Tibet. During the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), Tibet was part of the Mongol Empire which was under Yuan rule. At this time, the Yuan Government implemented residence registration, levied taxes, and imposed corvee duties in Tibet. China's "White Paper" claims that the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) "replaced the Yuan dynasty in China and inherited the right to rule Tibet." During the Manchu rule (1644-1911), the Qing army on a number of occasions entered Tibet to protect it. Finally, in 1951, China and the Tibetan Local Government signed a 17-point agreement concerning the peaceful liberation of Tibet. During this time, The 14th Dalai Lama supported this liberation and acknowledged Tibet is one part of China.

The Tibetan History of Tibet

Tibet has a recorded history of statehood extending back to 127 B.C. In the seventh to ninth centuries, the Tibetans often bested the Tang dynasty in battle. Additionally, during this dynasty, the marriage of Princess Wen Cheng and King Gampo was viewed as a strategic move to achieve cooperation and peace between Tibet and China. In 821, after centuries of periodic fighting, China and Tibet signed a treaty where boundaries were confirmed, and each country promised respect for the other's territorial sovereignty. During the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), the Mongol leader, Genghis Khan, conquered most of Eurasia including China. Thus, instead of China claiming a right to Tibet, Mongolia could assert claim to both China and Tibet. There is no historic evidence to support the assumption that the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ruled Tibet. In fact, the Qing Emperor in 1652 not only accepted The Fifth Dalai Lama as a leader of an independent state, the Emperor also treated Him as a Divinity on Earth. During this period, Tibet was known in Chinese as Wu-si Zang or Wu-si Guo (guo meaning country). During the Manchu rule (1644-1911), the Qing army was asked by Tibetans to settle disputes. But, this does not support China's right to Tibet. If it did, then the U.S.A. should claim Kuwait and Haiti since it assisted these countries. In fact, on a number of occasions, Tibet exercised power over China, suggesting that perhaps Tibet should claim China! At the time of China's invasion in 1949, Tibet possessed all the attributes of an independent country recognized by international law, including a defined territory, a government, tax system, unique currency, unique postal system and stamps, army, and the ability to carryout international relations. Two years later, the 17-point agreement was imposed on the Tibetan Government by the threat of arms after 40,000 PLA troops had already seized Tibetºs eastern provincial capital, Chamdo. The Tibetan delegates were threatened. The seal of the Tibetan Government was forged by Peking. In Tibet, The 14th Dalai Lama could not freely express His disapproval. However, soon after arriving in India, He repudiated this Agreement stating it was "thrust upon the Tibetan Government and people by the threat of arms." If Tibet had always been a part of China, why was there a need for the 17-point agreement? Finally, the Atlas of Chinese History Maps (published by Chinese Social Science Institute in Beijing) depicts Tibet as an independent country that was never part of China at least before 1280.


Chinese History of Tibet | Tibetan History of Tibet

World Governments Do Not Recognize Tibet | World Governments Do Recognize Tibet Tibet Was Liberated | Tibet Was Not Liberated

World Governments Do Not Recognize Tibet: China's Perspective

China asserts that no country has ever recognized Tibet. China also contends that Britain masterminded the Simla Conference (1913-1914) in collusion with Tibetan pro-British individuals. Both wanted to separate Tibet from China. At the time of the Simla Conference, even though the "McMahon Line" was negotiated between Tibet and Britain, at the end of the tripartite conference on Tibet's status and boundaries, Chinese officials who were present refused to recognize the "Line" on the grounds that Tibet was subordinate to China and had no power to make any treaties.

World Governments Recognize Tibet: The Tibetan Perspective

International law states that recognition can occur by explicit or implicit acts including treaties, negotiations, and diplomatic relations. Mongolia and Tibet signed a formal treaty of recognition in 1913. Historically, Nepal and Tibet had peace treaties. Tibet's independence was also confirmed at the Treaty of Simla (1914) which was concluded by Tibet and British India. In 1949, Tibet maintained diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations with such countries as Nepal, Sikkim, Mongolia, China, British India, and to some extent, Russia and Japan. Further, Nepal maintained an Ambassador in Lhasa and told the U.N. in 1949 that it conducted international relations with Tibet. In fact, Britian, Bhutan, India, and even China also maintained diplomatic missions in Tibet's capitol, Lhasa. The Tibetan Foreign Office conducted talks with President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he sent representatives to Lhasa to discuss the allied war effort against Japan during World War II. In 1950, El Salvador formally requested that China's aggression against Tibet be placed on the agenda of the U.N. General Assembly. The issue was not discussed. However, during four U.N. General Assembly debates on Tibet (1959, 1960, 1961, & 1965), many countries (e.g., Philippines, Nicaragua, Thailand. United States, Ireland) openly stated that Tibet was an independent country illegally occupied by China. In fact, the U.N. passed three resolutions (1959, 1961, & 1965) concerning Tibet stating that Tibetans were deprived of their inalienable rights to self-determination. Even Mao Zedong during the Long March admitted that Tibet was an independent country when he passed through the border regions of Tibet remarking, "This is our only foreign debt, and some day we must pay the Mantzu (sic) and the Tibetans for the provisions we were obliged to take from them." Tibetans clearly constitute a people under international law, as described, for instance, by the UNESCO International Meeting of Experts on Further Study of the Concept of the Rights of Peoples. They are a distinct people and fulfill all the characteristics of this concept: commonality of history, shared language, culture, and ethnicity.

Chinese History of Tibet | Tibetan History of Tibet

World Governments Do Not Recognize Tibet | World Governments Do Recognize Tibet Tibet Was Liberated | Tibet Was Not Liberated


Tibet Was Liberated: Chinas Perspective

China states that its invasion and occupation of Tibet was designed to liberate Tibetans from medieval feudal serfdom and slavery. Tibetan serfs were thought to have no freedoms. They were regarded by their masters as talking animals. China argues that the masses of Tibetan serfs lived in extreme poverty. Since the liberation in 1959, China asserts that Tibetans have enjoyed all rights of equality and they have embarked on the road of freedom and happiness. China claims that Tibet is now a modernized community benefiting from economic growth and social progress. Millions of serfs are now the masters of their fate, and large numbers of Tibetan workers, intellectuals, and officials have taken up the task of building and managing Tibet. China argues that all Tibetans now have equal rights in politics, the economy, and in their daily life. Tibetans are also thought to enjoy full religious freedom. China claims that Tibetans have greatly benefited from their presence. There are now over 2,500 primary schools in Tibet. Moreover, according to China's White Paper, China has invested 1.1 billion yuans to develop education in Tibet. Big strides have been made in education, science, culture, and public health. For instance, China argues that it has rebuilt Tibetan Monasteries, Nunneries, and monuments. Further, it asserts that the Tibetan population has soared to 2 million from 1 million in the 1950's. China also claims that the Tibetans fully support the Communist Party and Government officials in Tibet. China argues that negotiation is the only solution for Tibet, stating that The 14th Dalai Lama should size up the situation, go with the tide of historical development and make a correct choice.

Tibet Was Not Liberated: The Tibetan Perspective

Old Tibet was not perfect. The current Dalai Lama has admitted this. However, The 14th Dalai Lama initiated far-reaching reforms in Tibet as soon as He assumed temportal authority. Throughout Tibet's history, the mistreatment of peasants was forbidden by law and social norms. The largest portion of land in Tibet was held by peasants. Famine and starvation were unheard of in Tibet. The "liberation" has resulted in the death of over 1.2 million Tibetans and the destruction of over 6,000 Tibetan Monasteries and cultural centres. Before the "liberation" in 1959, the population of Tibet was 6 million. Prior to the invasion, Tibet was a simple and self-reliant nation with a very rich cultural heritage. Tibet's citizens, in comparison to its' neighbours, enjoyed much greater freedom. Currently, Tibetans have become veritable serfs. In independent Tibet, over 6,000 Monasteries and Nunneries served as schools. Most were destroyed, and many have been reconstructed as result of Tibetan finances and labour. The teachers in China's "new schools" are unqualified to teach the Tibetan language, culture, or history. Chinese students are the main beneficiaries of these schools. Since 1980, over 15,000 Tibetan children have fled Tibet to receive education in India.The primary beneficiaries of China's presence in Tibet have been the Chinese settlers, their government and military, and their business enterprises. Former Communist Party Secretary, Hu Yaobang, even admitted in 1980 that the living standard of Tibetans had declined since 1959 and that the large Chinese presence was an obstacle to development. China's policies in Tibet do not even receive full support from Tibetan cadres, let alone the Tibetan people. China has never found a trustworthy Tibetan to serve in a key government post in Tibet. For the past 21 years, The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government In-Exile have offered a number of proposals for negotiations for the mutual benefit of Tibet and China. All have been ignored or rejected by China.

 

[amoy]

only to update the latest evolvement of Hukou system in China, in which Chengdu is a pilot

Chengdu to Reform Urban-Rural Hukou System 2010-11-17 15:05:24 CRIENGLISH.com

Urban and rural residents in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, will be subject to the same rules regarding their household registration, or hukou, by 2010, the Youth Daily reported Wednesday.

Chengdu plans to integrate its urban and rural household registration systems in order to eliminate the differences and inequality generated by these two separate ID classes, according to a local official.

Rural residents will be able to register according to their actual place of residence and to update their registration if they move, according to a document published by the local government's information office on Tuesday.

It also declares that farmers will not lose property rights on their rural land after moving to urban areas.

In addition, Chengdu plans to set up an integrated resident information management system so that urban and rural residents can enjoy the same public services and social welfare benefits.

A detailed plan is expected to be released by the end of this year.

China's hukou system was set up in 1958 to control the movement of people between urban and rural areas. Rural residents who move to cities cannot change their hukou status and therefore are not eligible for health care, education and social insurance offered in cities.

 

[Ray]

The correct move is being taken by the Chengdu Administration.

That is the right way to go.

What about the latest on the Danwei system?

Wish you gave the link to the article.

 

[badguy2000]

The correct move is being taken by the Chengdu Administration.

That is the right way to go.

What about the latest on the Danwei system?

Wish you gave the link to the article.

Ray,there is new tendency in china,which is reverse-urbanizaiton.

that is ,because rural hukou can bring one share of rural land ,more and more Chinese people give up urban Hukou and select rural Hukou.

 

[jazzguy]

I don't want get involved in Tibet debate. One thing I want to point out that "The Tibetan History of Tibet" written by Dalai Lama team does not agree with the view of all the world powers. Otherwise, how can we explain that the governments of US, Russia, India, etc all said that Tibet has been part of China. From the history you written, we can clearly know that China was very weak between 1840 to 1949. Tibet was de facto in independent status. Actually, Qing Dynasty lost control in many parts of China including Tibet. Like Pakistan and Bangladesh, if India did not sign the partition they can only be called de facto independent countries.

 

[Yusuf]

I don't want get involved in Tibet debate. One thing I want to point out that "The Tibetan History of Tibet" written by Dalai Lama team does not agree with the view of all the world powers. Otherwise, how can we explain that the governments of US, Russia, India, etc all said that Tibet has been part of China. From the history you written, we can clearly know that China was very weak between 1840 to 1949. Tibet was de facto in independent status. Actually, Qing Dynasty lost control in many parts of China including Tibet. Like Pakistan and Bangladesh, if India did not sign the partition they can only be called de facto independent countries.

Power mate power.. China is a big power. a nuke power.. All initial opposition died down.

 

[Ray]

we can clearly know that China was very weak between 1840 to 1949.

And now Tibet is weak.