Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
runway to authentically classless society and communism. (It was this
confidence that led him to launch the Great Leap Forward in an
attempt to see communism realized in China during his lifetime.) But
today, the Party holds that Mao was wrong about this and that China's
progression through the five stages must proceed and unfold in an
orderly and natural manner, with no more artificial shortcuts or mad-
cap mass movements launched in vain attempts to accelerate or do
end-runs around orderly historical progression.
So where in the five-stage progression is China today? It is transi-
tioning from capitalist society into the preliminary stages of socialism
and socialist society. Thus, with China at this stage of socioeconomic
development, capitalist economic activity is not simply permissible
or tolerable: It is necessary—it is quite essential. (There are, accordingly,
no real ideological qualms about allowing successful entrepreneurs to
join the Party today.) When socialism will have matured is anybody's
guess—perhaps by the middle of this century? And the advent of a
classless communist society, if it is envisioned at all, is relegated to
the very distant and unforeseeable future—perhaps many centuries
from now.
Thus, internally and doctrinally, the Party is still communist, or
more precisely Marxist-Leninist, in its basic ideology. It has simply
corrected a few of Mao's ideological errors or deviances. The Party
does not crave much public legitimacy because that is not very impor-
tant at this historical stage of socioeconomic development. But the
Party does occasionally fret about its public “crisis of faith” and envi-
sions a time when its ideological legitimacy with the Chinese public
will once again become very important and necessary. But not for now.
So, is China still a communist or socialist country today? The answer
really does depend on who is asked.
How did China develop economically to the point that its very exis-
tence as a communist or even socialist country is now a point of dis-
cussion and contention? The trajectory of China's economic growth
over the past three decades, even in piecemeal, incremental format, is
indeed breathtaking. But while contemplating China's economic
growth with some awe, it is essential to remember this: China recently
surpassed Japan to become the world's second largest economy. In
termsofpercapitaGDP,Chinahasaverylongwaytogobeforeit
can equal the advanced industrialized democracies of the world. In
per capita GDP China lags behind even Belize, Botswana, and Brazil.
Chinese economic development, along with earlier economic devel-
opment in Japan and South Korea, has helped alter the center and focus
of the world's economy from a trans-Atlantic one to a trans-Pacific one.
