Chinas modernization : a historical survey

LI Hongtu East Chinese Normal University, Shanghai

Today, we are together to discuss Chinas past, present and future, for the themes of this conference are Tradition and Modernity in China. As a research worker in the field of history, I hope to express my idea with a historical survey. This means that if we wish to understand the Chinas modernization better, we must consider it as a process, a process of change, of long-term transformation from one state of affairs to another. As far as Chinas modernization is concerned, this is a process of transformation from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society. At the same time, we must read Chinas modernization in a certain environment or milieu, which is also called context. When we talk about the concept of the modernization in China, many people regard it as a new concept. This is wrong. In reality, the concept of modernization first appeared in 1919, during the May Fourth Movement, when some intellectuals began to talk about Chinas future. They used this concept of modernization, and expressed their hope of realising the modernization in the China. By this, they meant a transition from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society like the modern West. From then onwards, modernization became a keyword in the newspaper and

145

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

journals of the time. Later, this concept disappeared and went out of use for 30 years, when Japan invaded China. In the early sixties, when some American scholars researched the theory of modernization, we took note of this theory, but we didnt introduce it into China, and criticized it as the theory of capitalism. In 1975, Primer Zhou Enlai clearly used this concept in his government report, and called on the Chinese to realise Four Modernization, in the fields of industry, agriculture, national defence, science and technology. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, we started to use the concept of modernization again as a slogan and as a task to be achieved. It then became a popular concept in the nineties. Many scholars began to study the theory of modernization, giving thought to the relations between tradition and modernity, and to the ways in which modernization could be realised in China. The government also used all its resources to develop the economy, as expressed in the slogan development is a hard necessity. As you know, the first country in the world where modernization began was Britain. It was the Industrial Revolution in England in the latter part of the 18th century that touched off the whole movement of change, from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial society. This movement was later called Modernization or the Great Transition. After the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain sought to set up commercial relations with the court of Peking, but it was not successful in fulfilling this plan. In 1840, Britain defeated China in the first Opium War, and China was forced to open her doors to Great Britain and other western countries. China was greatly affected by its defeat in the Opium War, for the Chinese had to

146

LI Hongtu

face a situation where China was no longer the centre of the world and no longer enjoyed its former strength, while Britain and other western countries were the powerful nations. How could the country be saved? Modernization was the best solution to Chinas problems. So China began to open up to the world, and to learn knowledge from the West with an aim to develop industry, communications, and technology. We call this modernization, or Chinas modernization. To come back to the historical process, I may divide Chinas modernization into four periods, or suggest four different models of modernization for each period. Let us trace these tricky treads and varying processes. 1) 1840-1910. This is the first period, and the beginning of Chinas modernization. Its aim was to save the country from Western invasion. After being defeated by the West, China began to realise that in order to defeat the West, and make the country strong, the only solution was to learn from the West. The Qing dynasty thus decided to launch a reform, and began to develop industry and technology. During this period, the Qing built many factories according to the Western models, in a short time. We call this self-strengthening action the Yang Wu Movement. Here, we must remember that this was only a reform carried out under the leadership of the Qing dynasty. The reformers hoped that China would be stronger than before under the traditional regime. 2) 1911-1949. This is the second model of modernization, corresponding to a change from reform within a federal dynasty system, to a bourgeois revolution. The Qing dynasty had

147

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

adopted Western technology and developed her industry during the first period of modernization. Yet Chinas navy was defeated by her neighbour Japan in 1894-1895 in the Chinese North Sea. This failure was a great shock to China: how could a large country that had been developing for fifty years be defeated by a small island country? Some reason had to be found for this. One of the reasons that came up was that the Qing dynasty had only carried out reforms within the federal dynasty system, while the reformers did not really want to change the ancient regime. Defeat against the Japanese had shown that it was impossible to make China strong under the ancient regime, and that the Qing dynasty could not lead the way to modernization. The radical group also became convinced that revolution was an absolute necessity. This meant the old regime of the Qing dynasty had to be changed and that a new political system should be established. Then they turned from the Japanese model to the French and American models, hoping to change traditional China by revolutionary means. Before long, in 1911, Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) led a Xinghai Revolution Movement, overthrew the Manchu Empire, proclaimed the Republic of China and organised elections for the first Parliament in the history of China. Although nothing in the social structure had changed, this political revolution altered the direction of Chinas modernization. This was a reform of the political system, founding a modern political system adapted from the French and American republican system. This also marked Chinas entry into the modern capitalistic society. During this period, after constructing the new political system, the Guomindang made some efforts to build the State by introducing a modern system of economy, finance, foreign trade, and establishing a stock exchange, fol-

148

LI Hongtu

lowing the Western model. Through hard work, the economy not only recovered, but also grew from 1912 to 1937. This has since been called Chinas Golden Age. But this favourable situation came to a stop when, in 1937, Japan invaded China, which abruptly broke the process of economic growth for eight years. Today, when we reflect on this period, we cannot help wonder, had it not been for eight long years of war against Japan (1937-1945), would China have achieved an economic growth comparable to that of an industrialised country? Of course, we cannot pretend to rewrite history, such is our fate as historians. Following eight long years of war against Japan came another three years of Civil War (1946-1949), in which two parties, the Guomindang and the Communist Party, fought each other. Finally the Communists won this war, and a new country was founded. It was based on the working class and the peasants, as opposed to the Guomingdangs reliance on the bourgeois, or capitalist class. This also meant that China recovered national unity and sovereignty for the first time since 1840. In a word, China entered a new era of modernization. 3) 1949-1976. This is the third model, corresponding to a change from capitalist to socialist modernization. After winning the civil war, the new leaders faced a difficult situation. China was still a poor and backward country, although its industry had developed since the middle of the 19th century. There had been no real industrial revolution like in England. If there were some signs and symbols of modernity, they were limited to large cities like Shanghai. Therefore, economic development became the first task for the new China. Which road would the Communist leadership choose in order to

149

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

achieve development? At that time, the Communist leadership dropped the Western model and opted for the Soviet model of development. The former was characterised by reliance on a market economy, the latter by the creation of a centrallydirected planned economy, by a strategy of high-speed industrialisation with priority given to heavy industry, and by a series of radical social reforms, political and literary purges. Learn from the Soviet Union, the USSR today is Chinas tomorrow were the slogans of the day. Yet history was to prove that the Soviet model had serious shortcomings; it idolised the centrally-directed planned economy, it mistakenly regarded market economy as necessarily capitalistic; it abolished private property. In short, it created socialist dogmas which later proved to be the reverse of socialism, detrimental to effective modernization. At that same time, in order to realise socialist modernization, Mao Zedong favoured a revolutionary or more radical way. He ordered the organisation of peasants into Peoples Communes, he called on the industrial workers to increase steel production by all possible means, including the most primitive. We call this movement the Big Leap Forward. In the intellectual field, he struck down many intellectuals after labelling them as right groups, meaning bourgeois factions. However, in two years, the utopian dream collapsed due to man-made blunders. Unfortunately, Mao Zedong was unwilling to draw the lessons from such poor results, and he refused to abandon his utopian and ultrarevolutionary way of thinking and doing. In 1966, Mao decided to launch the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This movement lasted for ten years, from 1966 to 1976. During the Cultural Revolution, instead of Revolution and Socialism, people lived under the reign of terror, the country was

150

LI Hongtu

in complete disorder, production slowed down, and national economy came to the brink of bankruptcy. All traditional values, Eastern or Western, were derided and thrown overboard. What remained was but the cult of one man, Chairman Mao Zedong. In September 1976, when Chairman Mao died and Deng Xiaoping was restored to power, he proclaimed the end of the Cultural Revolution. This marked the end of the socialist model of modernization. Chinas modernization entered a new era. 4) 1976-present day. This is the fourth period of modernization. The facts had shown that Maos socialist modernization or anti-capitalist modernization had no desirable results and that it was not natural. Faced with the difficulty of the situation, Deng Xiaoping took steps to reform the regime. In order to do so, he called for the Liberation of the Mind from old dogmas and a mistaken understanding of socialism. These included the belief that a centrally-planned economy was concomitant with socialism, that a market economy is by nature capitalistic, that nationalised and collective enterprises are naturally superior to private ownership, that class struggle becomes more acute as society advances, etc. In December 1978, the 3rd Plenum of the 11th Congress of the CCP was held. This conference was a great turning point. Deng declared that China was through with revolution and that it would carry out a policy of Reform and Opening-up. Economic development and modernization were the key priorities. China has changed greatly since that time: a market economic system has been founded, the economy has grown, state-owned enterprises coexist with other forms of ownership, namely collective, private, and mixed. The principle of

151

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

Rule by Law has been imposed in place of Rule by Man. Science and education are given attention as a basic means toward national revival. To sum up, during the last 25 years, we have witnessed Chinas great change. I hope that you can visit China someday, and see China in reality. Looking back on the process of Chinas modernization, we find that Chinas modernization went through four periods, experiencing different social stages, from a federal dynasty system to a bourgeois society, then to socialism, and finally to Dengs socialism with Chinese characteristics. During the process of Chinas modernization, we always focus on the problems that have not been resolved until now. Firstly, the struggle between Ti and Yong. Ti and Yong mean Chinese learning as essence, Western learning as utility. Ti refers to the system and regime of a country, for example, the political system and economic system, etc. Yong means way or method, or useful material, for example advanced technology, useful knowledge, etc. In the early stages of modernization, some of the leaders who mentioned this slogan thought that Chinas system should be the foundation, while the Western system should remain a mere utility. This meant that we would realise modernization, but without altering the federal dynasty system, and only through learning from the Wests advanced technology, useful knowledge, etc. This idea was prevalent at that time in China. However, in practice this idea was not suitable, and China did not gain strength as a result, quite on the contrary. Chinas defeat caused some intellectuals to reflect on the relation between Ti and Yong. They thought that the reason for Chinas defeat was due to keeping the fed-

152

LI Hongtu

eral dynasty system. Some Radicals therefore called for Total Westernisation. They asked that more Western learning be introduced. The two main aspects in this learning were Democracy and Science. They believed that China would be stronger only through following the Western road. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, there was a long and heated debate among officials and scholars about the proper attitude to the West, and the balance between Chinese learning and Western learning. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, China once again began to face the challenge of choosing the best way to modernise and learn from the West. The debate between Ti and Yong came up again. Some intellectuals upheld total westernisation, some spoke against it, thinking that facts had shown that total westernisation was impossible for China. It was a heated debate. Until 1992, Deng Xiaoping wisely arbitrated the debate, for the first time in modern China. He said that the market economy is not to be divided into two parts capitalism or socialism, that we must not argue about the character of the market economy, nor get tangled in the character of market economy, that we must construct a market economy in China. Now, the market economy has become the underlying system in China, although we call it a socialist market economy. Secondly: revolution or reform in culture and politics. During the process of Chinas modernization, the questions: how to realise modernization, which solution is the best, were answered in two diverging ways. One answer came from those who admired the revolution, and believed that revolution is the only way, another came from those who opposed it, and called for reform. Eventually, the revolutionary option became

153

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

dominant. Why was revolution seen as the only solution in China? The reason is simple: when the Reform Movement of 1898 failed, some people turned towards the revolutionary solution. Some intellectuals found theoretical foundation for the revolution from the Soviet Revolution and the French Revolution. Here, I want to say a few extra words about the French Revolution for it exerts a tremendous influence in China. In the past, the French Revolution was introduced into China not as historical knowledge but as a symbol of revolution. We highly approved of Rousseau and the Jacobins Club, considered them as the representatives of the peoples interest. The French revolution therefore became an important motivation in Chinas revolution. It is worth noting that there were two kinds of revolution in China: one is the Xingkai Revolution Movement led by Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen), which was a bourgeois revolution, the other is the proletarian revolution led by Mao Zedong. Maos revolution finally won because he relied on the peasants and the working class in 1949. After that, the proletarian revolution became our countrys ideology and was seen as the only way to modernisation. History has shown that the modernization of China was connected closely to the revolution until 1976. After the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping again chose reform as the basic principle for Chinas modernization, and put forward the slogan development is a hard necessity. Over the past years we, especially the Yang generation, have forgotten the revolution. Yet now, as we bid farewell to the revolution, we must ask ourselves whether we have eliminated the foundations of revolution, or whether we will witness another revolution? This revolution will be the Peoples real revolution.

154

LI Hongtu

Thirdly: cultural tradition and politic reform. As we know, China has a long history and its own cultural tradition. When China introduced weapons and technology from the West, some intellectuals adhered to the idea that China must introduce Western ideals and thought in order to realise its modernization, especially after the Yang Wu Movement failed. They thought that reform only on economic grounds could not change Chinas situation, and that to resolve more serious problems, the most important things to do was to alter Chinas cultural tradition by introducing the ideals and way of thinking of the West, because Chinas cultural tradition was seen as an obstacle to Chinas modernization. They thus saw transforming old traditional culture into a new kind of culture as important for China. Led by this idea, some have criticized traditional Chinese culture, from the May Fourth Movement, to the present day. We call this cultural radicalism. Others were opposed to a cultural revolution, considering that China cannot realise modernization if it does not change its political system. Therefore they believed that politic reform was the most important of all factors. Whatever politic system we may adopt, they answered clearly and frankly, it must be founded on democracy and be a liberal system following the Western model. The student movement in 1989 represented this direction. Today, when we reflect on the process of Chinas modernization, we can see that it is difficult for the Chinese to find the best way to realise its modernization. China has spent more than 150 years in this process of modernization; today, 150 years later, we perhaps have a better understanding of the

155

Le choix de la Chine daujourdhui

best way to achieve modernization than before. For example, 150 years ago, China was forced to open up to the West, and now China is opening to the West and the rest of the world on its own accord. We hope that China will create her own model of modernization in the future. Last month, the president of your country visited my country, including Shanghai where I live, and he made a speech to the students based on a historical viewpoint, saying that we ought to look at China in a historical process, and divide China into three periods: one is the split, another is hardship for a short time in order to vitalize the nation, and the last is the time of peace and prosperity. If this opinion is correct and China is now in this third period, we can look forward to reaching new summits. I think that the Presidents speech was correct, but whether or not China is now in the third period, we always ought to look at China from a historical perspective, so as to get a better insight of China, and understand China better.

156