People's Republic

The installment of Hanban Confucius Institutes in Universities and secondary schools across the globe is allowing thousands of students to obtain a deeper understanding of the language and culture of one of the world's biggest superpowers, The People’s Republic of China. Many people oppose the instalment of these ‘classrooms’ or ‘institutes’ because it is a clear cut way for the Chinese Communist Party, or the CCP, to inject soft power into nations by seducing the younger generation to explore…

During the early 1900s, two separate nations were experiencing a revolution. The Russian Revolution began in 1917 as a result of the people’s dissatisfaction with the czar. Czar Nicholas II was overthrown by his subjects when he decided to enter World War I, despite Russia being unprepared to fight its powerful and industrialized enemies. Communist leaders within Russia soon started to gain more control. A similar event occurred in China in 1911, when revolutionaries overthrew the Qing Dynasty.…

“It will be like that until someone decides to change it. All of it. But how did you change an entire culture? Revolutions were about politics, not perceptions, weren 't they?” (“A Quote from Infidel”). I believe this quote really defines what the Cultural Revolution was all about because the Cultural Revolution started with one man with a vision to shape China’s future, and that man was Mao Zedong. He wanted to spread his ideologies across China and impose his beliefs. He paved the way for the…

Victory of the Chinese Civil War This historical study will define the themes of peasant nationalism, Maoist Marxism, and the Second United Front in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War. The civil war between the Kuomintang (KMT) of the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1927 to 1950 involved lengthy battle between capitalist and communist forces. The KMT often relied on “modernization” in a primarily urban focus in contrast to the CPC’s focus on…

Analyzing the Book War by Wang Ping No one knows how being controlled by the government feels like, until you experience it. In the Book War memoir, Wang Ping is a writer that grew up in China in the late 1960’s in which there was a chaotic “Cultural Revolution”. Ping didn 't grew up reading or even seen fairly tales. She didn 't know about them until she found her neighbor outside her house reading The Little Mermaid. A book she had always wanted to read completely, yet if the government found…

Mao Zedong His advocates say he was a visionary who transformed China into a modern nation. The others say he was a tyrant who’s responsible for millions of deaths. Mao Zedong was born on December 26, 1893 into a wealthy farmer’s family in Shaoshan village. This peasant boy soon grew up to be the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, recorded today as one of the most brutal dictators. Communism Even from a young age, the ambition inside Mao was recognizable. He enjoyed reading “historical…

June 4, 1989 is a day remembered in numerous parts around the world as a dark and somber tragedy that disregarded the most basic values of freedom and democracy. Yet this event is often viewed in the narrow lens as a failure of an attempt to democratize. Through this lens, the historical contexts and following consequences are severely oversimplified, which results in an inadequate and biased perspective of the event itself. The China today is still shaped and molded by the memories of the…

Generally believed by many, international trade advances economic growth and internal political changes. Since the 1980s, China has gradually shifted from a closed society based on planned economy and communist authoritarianism to a semi-open socialist society adapted to Chinese conditions. In order to further develop the country, the central government of China has taken steps to join the World Trade Organization, which arranges trade negotiations, establishes trade agreements, and resolves…

Historically, Chinese parents preferred larger families; often parents gave special treatment to their sons over their daughters. Dodge and Suter explain that this preference is on the grounds that males are able to carry on the family name which is important due to the cultural traditions of paying respect to ancestors (17). Another study states that “only boys can continue the patrilineal family line, girl babies are seen as financial burdens” (Liisanantti and Beese). Ling acknowledges that…

The U.S. and China seem to have got off on the wrong foot from the very beginning because of ideological differences. Sino-American relations have been stressed since Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China in 1945. The U.S. and Chinese conflict over communism led to lack of communication until Ping-Pong Diplomacy in 1971. Since then, China-U.S. trade relations formed with the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 and these relations have grown, but there has been conflict as well.…