To what extent are the experiences and attitudes of Yang Digong and Li Zucui typical of life in modern China?

History Coursework.

Question 1

To what extent are the experiences and attitudes of Yang Digong and Li Zucui typical of life in modern China?

As the question asked states ‘to what extent are the experiences and attitudes of Yang Digong and Li Zucui typical of life in China’, I feel it is wrong to be comparing these two very different people of such dissimilarity. I will be analyzing both their experiences and attitudes whilst comparing them to one another and their typicality.

The experiences of Yang Digong are typical but only to a certain extent. There are numerous accounts that show he acted and lived like a typical Chinese person in modern China. Yang, like millions of the Chinese public, took part in many demonstrations, one of these being the Shanghai protest in which he was punished by exile. In this public manifestation, alongside thousands of his fellow students, he was protesting for the lack of personal freedom and democracy, with the hope to try and change China. By acknowledging this demonstration it is obvious that Yang was previously interested in politics and trying to maintain equal rights and liberation. As we can see from source C he now works as a bond dealer and dines in Chinese restaurants claiming he is “not interested in politics but in getting a good job.” His strong views on freedom and democracy have now been abolished by money and power supplied by the government who now claim that ‘At 33, Yang is exactly the role model the Chinese government would like to promote.” In the source it confirms that Yang follows the ‘one child policy’, which again shows that he has taken a different route in terms of his views on politics, had it been a few years back that was the type of thing he would have been protesting against.

The living standard of Yang Digong is very typical in his ‘upper-class group’ although the group itself is not typical in comparison to the lower class (peasants) and middle class (average working people) groups which over rule it. Digong lives in the city with his wife and son. He is a typical businessman that now is suspicious of all things Western, which is typical for Yang’s generation.

In contrast to this I feel that Li Zucui is more typical. To start off with she was brought up in a lower class family who lived in the countryside and was obviously very poor. The evidence I have used from the text to show that she was born into a poor family is that fact that she was the victim of an arranged marriage whereby she was sold to a man she didn’t even know for a mere 2.300 Yuan (177 pounds.) This proves what little importance Li was to the family. Life in modern China was hard enough for women as they were treated as second-class citizens and faced discrimination and poverty; in fact if a woman knew she was pregnant with a female baby then the foetus was immediately aborted. Li, being illiterate, somehow managed to send a letter to a woman’s magazine explaining her many problems, without her husband’s knowledge. In the letter, sent on July 28th, she says how she tried going back to her family and told them of how her husband would use violence against her, but they harshly said that is she did not return to him they would disown her.

This is a preview of the whole essay

It is the famous quote from Mao Tse-tung that states ‘women hold up half the sky’, which means women have an equal role to play alongside men. This is ridiculous as 600 million of Chinas women are still facing discrimination and poverty. One-third of all women are not able to read or write, it is a fact that women do sixty per-cent of the farming, women’s salaries are significantly less than men’s and many women are sold to man as their brides or trapped in the marriage payment system, this does not seem like equal rights. Almost two thirds of Chinas populations are facing poverty so Li’s living standards are typical. Like many in the younger generation she also faced discrimination, poverty, was sold as a bride and had to deal with extreme violence from her husband, this was also typical.

So, by analyzing both these two people I can see that Li’s attitudes and experiences are much more typical than Yang. Li lived in poverty, like millions of the Chinese public whereas Yang leads a good life in which he earned enough money to support his family and dine in restaurants. Li was not interested in politics, mainly due to the fact that she was illiterate and did not tend to follow those types of things. Yang, in his younger days, was interested in politics and was concerned about how China was run but now he is apolitical and only worry about supporting his family. They are both typical in their own ways.

Question 2

In October 1999 President Jiang Zernin visited the UK. There were a number of demonstrations about human rights in China and China’s treatment of Tibet. Do you think these protests were justified?

To answer this question I will have to take into account both sides of the argument, my perspective and the Chinese’s, otherwise it would be unfair and prejudice for me to only discuss one side of it.

On October 19th 1999 president Jiang Zernin visited the UK, although it did not go as well as he may have hoped due to demonstrators staging a noisy protest outside his hotel. Their motive for this disrespectful behavior was their anger over China’s abuse of human rights and its occupation of Tibet. The public were so outraged that a member even labeled him ‘the butcher of Tibet’.

Although the Chinese government claimed they provide the public with religious freedoms to believe in or worship whatever religion they want I am able to prove that this is not the case. A religious sect called ‘Falun Gong’ which is a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism, whose practices involve breathing and meditation, are one of the victims of the religious discrimination that took place in China. On July 22nd 1999 hundreds of thousands of books and leaflets, made by the Falun Gong were thrown into bonfires and burnt whilst a type of witch-hunt was in progress. The government blamed this outrageous conduct on the fact that they thought the sect’s leader was planning to suppress the communist party. In my point of view I think this accusation is ridiculous as the members of the Falun gong are all middle class, law abiding, upstanding members of the public who have probably never been on the wrong side of the law. If I were to put this argument into the perspective of the Chinese government then I think that in their point of view they see the leader of the sect deceiving people into worshiping him like a God. I feel that the treatment of political opponents in China is unacceptable.

The law in China is very unfair and no one is ever allowed to claim defense. It is tradition to hold public executions and an example of this is the tragic death of Wang Jianye who was accused of taking bribes. This has been the case for many government officials and senior employees as well. He was horrifically shot once in the back of his head three days after Christmas in font of a crowd of 5,000. Neither Wang nor his lawyer had the chance to present arguments in his defense. I think the reason for public executions is that it’s a way of the government trying to show the public what will happen to them if they were to break the law. There is never any chance for anyone presenting defense and in China death sentences are never commuted. The law is so strict and unquestionable that sixty-eight offences are now punishable by death and some of them include fraud, bribery, hooliganism, smuggling and tax evasion. It has been said that more people in China are executed than in the rest of the world put together.

On a different matter I feel that the Tibetans are a cause of concern as they are treated very badly. If China wanted to overpower Tibet and take over than I think they should at least treat them as equals to their own country. The Chinese people have a much higher standard of living compared to Tibetans as they find it difficult to access food or clean water. The majority of them are illiterate owing to them not being fortunate enough or given the opportunity to attend school or get some kind of education. Tibet is a very small county as it is with a sparse population and just after the early years of Dalai Lama there were many nuns and monks murdered when they left Tibet. Dalai Lama was the religious and political leader of Tibet who was thrown into exile. He was working for the freedom of Tibetans and has established Tibet’s government in exile, which is based in northern India. Observing this I think that Dalai Lama is a good example of treatments of non-patriotic religions.

I think that it would be unfair for me to answer this question only looking at it from my point of view. Looking at Chinese perspective I would have to take into account that fact that Chinese people have never experienced democracy like we have. There is a tradition of a strong authoritarian rule and if we look back at different leaders you will notice there has been no tradition at all of criticizing leaders. In our democratic country there is much more freedom and we have the right to freedom of speech. Public executions have always been a known custom in China as well. The Chinese see democracy as defending the working class although there is more freedom in China than there ever has been. Human rights in China are seen and pin pointed to affecting the whole of China as a country rather than the individual in comparison to Britain who is more interested in individual freedom.

In conclusion to this question I have decided that the protests about human rights in China and Chinas treatment of Tibet were fully justified. The reason I say this is because I think that the government were in fact treating the Tibetans in an un-orderly manor and they did not allow religious freedoms at all. This is not right and I think that the protest was fully justified in that sense. I also think that the abuse of human rights was unacceptable and that law and order in China is and outrage and it is correct for those protesters to have demonstrated in the way they did.

Question 3

How successful has the 1949 Communist program been implemented?

Before I answer this question I think that I should analyze all the things that communist have done in favor of China and things that have caused problems for them. Then it will make it easier to interpreter the question apposed so I can see clearly how successful or unsuccessful they were.

Mao Zedong made a speech on October 1st 1949 stating everything that the Chinese communist party should accomplish. By going through the list I can see what they have actually done and what they haven’t. The first thing that Mao said is that ‘The people’s Republic of China strives for independence.’ If I look back at what the communist have done I will see that independence is an element that they have achieved. China is no longer reliant on foreign devils or Western powers. They stopped trading with the West at one stage because they were in fear of their communism so they only traded with the Soviet Union who was another communist country. They now trade with the West but only along the terms of it being to increase the efficiency, strength and economy of China. The capitalist benefited this, but I think that the state also does because they have joined enterprises.

Democracy is one element that they have not established as far as we know. There is only one party, the communists, in which the public votes for different chairmen in that party that they want to elect and make leader, this is not what you would call democracy. Although I must take into account the Chinese perspective and looking at the way the country has been run in previous years, what they have now is the closest thing to democracy that they have ever experienced. This is classed as democracy to a lot of China but to others who oppose communism it is more of a dictatorship.

I think that peace which was another thing that Mao said would be accomplished, was accomplished. There now is a greater understanding of the West and in a way they trust them a lot more than they used to. An example of peace brought out by China is ‘The Korean War’ which took place in the 1950’s and ‘The Vietnam War’ in the 1960’s. I think the reason China has found peace is mainly due to the people being more comfortable with China and the government not being as strict. Although China is very strict on numerous things it is not as bad as it used to be. The Chinese has also attained unity, I think this has happened because China has been held together and has stayed like that without parts of it leading off and becoming separate. It has held down the minorities and separatists. China has stayed as one and hasn’t collapsed into different states. The county itself has gained unity from communism because communism is all about the growth of the country and making improvements, which I think it has achieved.

China has definitely gained prosperity as it has managed to overcome all the problems that it has previously faced. Some of these include the failure of early economic plans and the boom of the 80’s and 90’s with Dengs ‘4 M’s’. Both of these problems were overcome reasonable quickly by the government who I feel dealt with it well.

Grasping this information I think that China would be a good place to live as long as you observe and agree with the governments methods. If people criticize the government then this is where a problem would occur as many of the previous presidents, government officials or politics are extremely sensitive to criticism of any kind. An example of this is chairman Mao Zedong’s launching of the hundred flowers campaign and Deng Xiaoping democracy wall, both of which were closed down, as criticism got too personal and offensive for them.

I think that the 1949 communist programme has been reasonably successful. They made quite a lot of mistake through out their time yet somehow managed to clear them up. As I mentioned before they have kept China together as one, which is a very good thing as many large counties have collapsed and separated into smaller parts. I think that they were successful but only to a certain extent as communism is about the growth of the country and trying to improve it and I think that they have accomplished that. The communist party tried to make sure everyone was treated equally and fairly and I think that this worked because when the great leap forward was launched everyone was paid exactly the same amount and had the same living standards as each other, although the great lead forward was actually unsuccessful. The thing that I dislike about communism was that fact that no one had the choice to vote for anyone else in opposite parties, as there was only one party to vote for in political elections and the government claimed to be running the country on behalf of the workers which in a way I think is untrue. This answers the question opposed, which asked how successful the 1949 communist programme was.