Why does the Chinese government at the start of the twenty first century refuse to give its people democratic rights despite encouraging private enterprise in industry, commerce and agriculture?

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Why does the Chinese government at the start of the twenty first century refuse to give its people democratic rights despite encouraging private enterprise in industry, commerce and agriculture and how do you see this situation developing in the next few years?

Over the past century, China has undergone many changes in terms of power, economy, politics, prosperity and population. However, despite these changes that has occurred, the Chinese Government still refuse to give its people democratic rights. The arrival of Deng Xiaoping's to power in the Chinese Communist Party has brought new private enterprise to China. With this new wealth and freedom given to the people, many have wondered what will happen in China's future and mostly whether China will turn capitalist and accept the grant of democracy.

A definition of a paradox is, 'a statement that seems self-contradictory but contains a truth'. China's encouragement of private enterprise and its refusal to grant its people democratic is paradoxical. This is due to private enterprise being a Western and capitalist idea which is associated with Western Europe, America and democracy. China still has communist ideas and maintains communism in the country and refuses to grant any form of democracy, at the moment at least.

Until December 1911, China was ruled by a succession of Emperors, which was traditional way of ruling the country and was widely accepted. The tradition of Emperors in China goes back over 2000 years where the Chinese were the most advanced civilisation in the world. During rule under the succession of Emperors, China was an authoritarian country, i.e. everyone was to obey one ruler. An example of a succession of rulers was the Manchu Dynasty, coming from an area now known as Manchuria. During these times, the wide acceptance of this system amongst the people showed that it would be hard to enforce a democracy on them.

The aims and beliefs of Confucianism was to sustain a well ordered government, to benefit people's liberty, to make people respectable and conventional but still limit the freedom of individuals and to focus on the city dwellers. These ideas were based on teachings from ancient religions written by Confucius. These teachings supported ideas used by the Emperors since it was based on hierarchy with the ruler at the top and peasants at the bottom. Like the tradition of the Emperors it had existed for years an accepted by many. This would be another reason why democracy would be hard to implement since many accepted that there should only be one ruler of the country. Another problem that faced introduction of democracy was history of anti-foreign attitudes by Chinese people and the use of Western democracy would be unpopular.

During the years between 1900 and 1949 China was in anarchy, caught up in a civil war and faced problems from foreign interventions. At the start of the 20th Century the Manchu dynasty ruled China, but because of European influences the Chinese Empire had grown weak, (e.g. military force against China, compelled to sign unequal treaties, transformation of Chinas ports to treaty ports and the division of China into spheres of influence). Unsurprisingly western foreigners became unpopular and the Manchu's have been for allowing China to be 'over-run by Europeans', likewise they were made just as unpopular and faced much opposition such as in the Boxer Rebellion.

In 1908, after the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, the successor as a ruler was passed to her two year old nephew, the dynasty was weak and in trouble. The power to rule was passed on to Prince Chun; however he disliked changes and replaced many powerful and able officials. In 1911 China had entered a period of difficulty and discontent, there was huge crop failure, which caused distress among the peasants, taxes increased to pay for the New Army and disapproval of government plans for building railways using foreign aid. Also in 1911 the Wuchang rebellion began, when police opened fire on demonstrators against the government. The Manchus dealt with this and recalled Yuan Shikai as Commander in Chief of the armies and Prime Minister. However, instead of defeating the enemy he promised to help them overthrow the government in return for support.

In 1912, Yuan Shikai became president of China, but in 1913 when Sun Yatsen's People's National Party or Kuomintang (KMT) became won the largest amounts of seats in the National Assembly, Yuan failed to co-operate and was not interested in sharing power. Yuan intended to govern China as a dictator, not as a democrat and the idea of democracy failed to be affectively introduced, In 1915, he made himself Emperor of China but later on he was forced to carry out the Japanese's Twenty-One Demands or go to war. He died in 1916. However, there was no one to become the successor. Instead China was divided and shared among the warlords; small civil wars were common as they fought other to capture each other's land.
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After WW1 many movements and protests took place to enforce captured land to be returned and to remove many unfair treaties on China but none of these actually happened, this was known as the May Fourth movement. In 1918, a Beijing librarian, Mao Zedong and others formed the 'Society for the Study of Marxism' and later in 1921, the Chinese Communist Part (CCP). Meanwhile, Sun Yatsen was reorganising the KMT and based them on Three Principles; National freedom, democratic government and the people's livelihood. He was helped to do this by help from Russian diplomat Abraham Joffe, with ...

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