Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
that the principle would apply to Taiwan when it eventually reunified
with the mainland. Taiwan could retain its own military, its own form
of government, and its own economic system. What was required of
Taiwan was that it lower its Nationalist flag and recognize itself as
being a part of China. Taiwan, however, understandably remained
skeptical of Beijing's trustworthiness on this matter and sought
reassurance from Washington that the United States would not stand
idly by in the event of an attack on the island from the mainland.
EVALUATING AND SUCCEEDING MAO
In the early 1980s Deng moved to clarify his attitude toward Chairman
Mao. Deng and his moderates could not completely condemn Mao
without undermining their own legitimacy as ruling members of
the Communist party, so they issued an official judgment of Mao as
70 percent good and 30 percent bad (about a C+ on a standard academic
marking scale). This is nowmore or less the official evaluation of Mao in
China today. Hua Guofeng could see by this time that his time was up;
the 70 percent verdict was not a strong enough foundation on which to
base his claims of being Mao's successor and the leader of China. That
position and honor would clearly go toDeng Xiaoping, andHua stepped
down frompower. Unlike Mao, Deng never became party chairman, but
that no longer mattered in China; what mattered was influence, and
Deng had plenty of that.
With the new liberalization and openness came some challenges for
Deng's government. Many conservatives growled about “spiritual
pollution” (Western popular music, discos, sunglasses, pornography,
immodest dress, human rights concerns, demands for multiparty
democracy, and so on), and a campaign against it was launched in
1983. Worse yet, the problem of governmental corruption, never much
of a problem during Mao's days, raised its ugly head in the 1980s. As
the decade progressed many Chinese people came to resent the cul-
ture of corruption in government and the perks and privileges enjoyed
by high-ranking party and government officials.
Inflation and uneven economic development were creating tensions
in China by the mid-1980s, and this in turn led some people to con-
clude that the political system in China needed reform in order to gov-
ern over a more market-oriented economy. Astrophysicist Fang Lizhi
became a leading dissident figure. He argued tirelessly for sweeping
political reform, and he developed a strong following among Chinese
students. In 1986 large student demonstrations demanded political lib-
eralization at campuses in Shanghai and several other major Chinese
