Mao noticed that China was industrially lagging behind countries like the Soviet Union and the United States and was also heavily dependent on resources from the Soviet Union. This was the challenge that Mao wanted to fix and so he established the Great Leap Forward (GLF) and the 5 year plans. In the Great Leap Forward, Mao mobilized the entire nation to grow crops at an increased rate and make steel in order to industrialize China. However, the GLF is an example of an economic policy that Mao initiated that was not successful in ending the challenges that Mao noticed. This is because the GLF led to neglected crops and no food left in China as all of it was being shipped out of the country.
The middle and wealthy class got their land taken and distributed to the poor. He did help socially because he gave the poor a better living conditions and extended education for the poor he also gave women equal power as men 's. Mao Zedong did not make China a better society economically because he got landlords discriminated and made their economy lower, the middle and wealthy class got their land taken and distributed to the poor. In document #9, it stated that the Chinese economy was low and once Mao stop being China 's leader the economy was able to grow again. Chinese society did not get better under Mao’s rule because there was roadblock preventing the economy from growing and Mao was the problem not allowing it to thrive.
They believed collectives would increase agricultural productivity in a large scale so they launched the Great Leap Forward, where a higher production target was aimed. The production increases, however, it didn’t meet the expectations. As a result grain outputs decrease and agricultural taxes are made immoderate, leading to poor harvest and then famine. Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping (another CCP leader) then takeover Mao’s responsibility as a leader where they manage to reduce grain procurement and soon the economy gradually recover. Seeing the recovery, Mao returns and undergoes his job as a leader again where he gets rid of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
The early republic had frequent wars and changes in policies which eventually led to a collapse of central authority and economic contraction. In the republic of China, after the fall of the Qing dynasty, new industrial developments resulted in an increase in demand for Chinese goods. This demand led to an increase of profit for the industrial workers. Years later around 1931, the rural economy of China hit a Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by an overproduction of agricultural goods which led to an increase on imports and falling prices in the Chinese market.
However, it came with a high cost. I think Mao’s economic policy created more harm than good for the Chinese economy during the pre-reform period. During the economic recovery period, 1949-1952, Mao decided to recreate Soviet Union’s economic model in China. The government redistributed many lands to poor farming households. The Communist party earned supports from grass-root level farmers by implementing
China’s leader Mao implemented a program called Mao’s Great Leap Forward program this program told peasant framers when to plant crops, what to plant and how much to plant. Also peasants were required to turn over a third of their crops for taxed that was meant to feed the cities. In return the presents were made promises from the government such as the commune would provide workers with food, medical care, and other necessities. This contributed to the people starving and going to great lengths to survive such as trading children and killing and eating them, at this time famine was widespread and killing many people in China. Mao ruled for over twenty-seven years and during that time, “he had doomed China’s people to become some of the poorest on the planet”.
The consequence that were faced by the region of Japan and China were different especially in the response to Western penetration during the 19th century, but similar in some ways. Some specific consequence that China faced were the growth of population, Boxer Rebellion, and Opium war. While Japan had problem with Meiji Restoration in social and diplomatic which effects of industrialization. Both China and Japan were an isolated before Western powers was involved, both looked down on other countries and preserved their culture since they were considered a powerful country, but Western influence change everything which causes problem. The problems emerged as the population grew massive in china during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The transition of power in China changed the dynamics of post-World War II relations. For the United States, the so-called “Loss of China” was a a catastrophe, not only because the US supported Chiang Kai-shek in the last few years, but also because it seems to be a victory for the Soviet Union and the global Communism. For China, in 1949 started for the first time in its history the possibility to build foreign relations without being “suppressed by unequal treaties” by western powers. But China‘s relations to other countries remained very complicated and complex. With the Soviet Union, China had found an ideological partnership which changed in the following decades into rivalry.
Although Deng brought China to the international stage by normalizing relations with other countries and provide more options for the Chinese economy, Deng was still very firm on Mao’s thoughts. Deng acknowledged that China would not become a capitalist country. Like Kenneth Lieberathal mentioned in his book Governing China, “To develop efficiency, it was necessary, therefore, to decentralize power within the state and to permit at least part of the Chinese economy to develop outside the noncompetitive state sector of the economy
He began to lose power during the '70s because of a series of failed reforms such as the Cultural Revolution and because of his bad health. The Cultural Revolution is the name given to Mao’s attempt to reassert his beliefs in China, in fact Mao was afraid by the fact that someone else would take his role. He said that the bourgeois and the suppoters of the capitalist system have infiltrated into the government so he encourage the people to find and report these traitors. The Chinese respond by creating the Red Guard groups, militias of volunteers that spread violence across the country by arresting and killing many innocent people resulting in a failure of the Cultural Revolution. To avoid further dissent Mao created a "cult of his personality" by putting his images and famous quotes everywhere and to establish diplomatic relationship with the United States to solve economic problems.