Gregory Gouvin

February 2nd, 2017

Mr. Barile
Modern China Essay
Chinas economic growth has substantially advanced them into a powerful world leader. In fact,

by 2026, China will lead in GDP globally by surpassing the U.S (Business Insider), and over the past 30

years the Chinese economy has witnessed double digit growth. While China begins to improve overall,

factors such as communism and government censorship halt the growth in China. The One-Child

Policy rule has also affected China in a negative manner because the meaning of it is to stop the growth

of life, which can be viewed upon as something against Gods will. Therefore, as Chinas welfare

increases positively, its society faces issues that have a negative impact on the culture.

Since 1947, China has been under a Communist power. From leaders such as Mao Zedong to

current Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, the Peoples Republic of China favors Communism and Socialism.

Although, there has been movements towards Westernization, the country struggles from abandoning the

idea of Communism. The vision seen by Mao Zedong to have Communism in China began in 1927, as

he took power of the Communist Party of China. After defeating the Nationalists, Mao Zedong had full

empowerment of the land, therefore making him capable to fulfill his vision. He was known to be a

controversial leader, he was viewed as a great contribution to how China formed into the powerhouse it

is today, but is also thought of as a harsh leader by using the his power against the people. Some of laws

and actions he took developed China into a Communist country, such as giving people very little rights.

An example of how society was treated under the rule of Mao Zedong is said in an article written by

Stanford.edu,They followed the example of the soviet model of development through heavy industry

with surpluses extracted from peasants. Consumer goods were left to secondary importance.

According to Business Insider, Chinas first act of Westernization was in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping
envisioned the country to have more capitalist methods. He believed it would boost economic growth

and wanted to bring confidence into the party. Deng then launched economic reforms to allow private

sectors to run their own businesses. He also built four economic zones in hopes to attract foreign

investments. These acts only symbolize part of what China has done to become capitalists, the citizens

of China still face the same issues with communism as they have before. Unlike from America, the

people in China do not own any land, they do not own banks, in fact, most everything in China is owned

by the government. The media is also owned by the government, which means everything read in China

has been tweaked or fixed by authorities. It wasnt until 1989, when pro-democracy protesters flooded

the Tiananmen square to take a stand against Communism. The Chinese government saw this as a

threat, and because China is communist they own the people, therefore to remove the threat one must

kill it, which is the action the government took. As you can tell, Chinas economic stance appears to be

capitalist but the government still owns the idea of a communist society.

The reasons why the events that occurred in the Tiananmen square are clear, the people of

China wanted more political freedom. Granted, after the writing of the new constitution in 1982, people

in China had some human rights, but it was not enough to contain the uproar of citizens who asked for

more rights or for death. One of the current ongoing issues throughout the Chinese society is censorship

of the media to the people. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, China's constitution gives

its citizens freedom of speech, but the opacity of Chinese media regulations allows government to crack

down on news stories by claiming that they expose state secrets and endanger the country (CFR).

Government censorship in China, which is also known as The Great Firewall of China, serves as a

problem because it does not allow citizens to read events like the Tiananmen Square Massacre which in

turn could allow history to repeat itself. Weirdly enough, Chinese people's attitude towards their
government has changed in short time. People who live with this issue in China appear to be fine with

the government censoring information from the public. One of the reasons that they are alright with

censoring is because most do not even know it is occurring. According to a former professor at Hong

Kong Universities, Andrew Lih stated, It just looks like a technical error. So a lot of users in China

aren't quite aware of the Chinese government actually explicitly censoring certain websites (NPR).

Beijing resident, Ms. Wan Jen Fu stated, So sometimes, if I want to see a website on a book, I may try

to check it up and then go to that website, but oftentimes, I cannot open it. I'm not really sure why that

happens. Maybe the connection is not very good, or it was reset (NPR). As you can see from these

examples, people in China appear to be okay with limitations set upon them now than during times such

as 1989.

The third issue amongst the Chinese society is the One-Child Policy. A very controversial policy

because of factors such as, Chinas population is still expanding, there is an unhealthy ratio of males to

females and unborn babies are being aborted. According to an article written by Occupy Theory, The

country still has more than 1.3 billion people inside of it. In the last three decades since the policy was

implemented, there have been over 12 million people born and that is the population of Greece

(Occupy Theory). As you can see from the text, Chinas policy of one child has not fulfilled the goal of

what it was meant to do, the population is still growing at an alarming rate. Not only is the policy a

waste because the population is increasing, but it is also killing unborn lives; according to Seeker Daily,

336 million abortions have been performed in China over the past 40 years. 336 million lives have

been killed over 40 years, this number is equivalent to the population of the United States. Lastly, the

One-Child Policy has proven to be inadequate because of the unhealthy ratio of males to females.

According to Occupy Theory, There are approximately 50,000,000 more males than there are
females, which is detrimental to the society as a whole. A normal ratio of males to females, according

to Occupy Theory, is 106 to 100. These numbers prove to be unnatural for China which could cause

issues later on. For example, with less amounts of women, some men may never find a partner which in

turn could lead to depression which factors into ones lifestyle. Based on three key factors, Chinas

One-Child Policy is a disappointment to the country and is one of their biggest failures.

In conclusion, modern China has shown its militaristic and economic strength, but has also

shown its societal issues. Three main issues in the Chinese society include communism and socialism

throughout China, the amount of human rights citizens obtain, and the One-child Policy. Because of

these three reasons, Chinas society has errors that affect the type of country it is today.
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Holmes, Frank. "How China went from communist to capitalist." Business Insider. Business

Insider, 10 Oct. 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Chu, Ruven. "Communism and Computer Ethics." Communism: In China. N.p., n.d. Web. 15

Feb. 2017.

Holodny, Elena. "China's GDP is expected to surpass the US' in 11 years." Business Insider.

Business Insider, 24 June 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

Beam, Christopher. "How communist is China, anyway?" Slate Magazine. N.p., 26 July 2010.

Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

"How Do Chinese Citizens Feel About Censorship?" NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

TestTubeNetwork. "Why China's One-Child Policy Failed." YouTube. YouTube, 31 Oct. 2015.

Web. 15 Feb. 2017.

"List of Pros and Cons of China One Child Policy." OccupyTheory. N.p., 13 Jan. 2017. Web.

15 Feb. 2017.