When people think of China, they immediately have certain images or ideas that come to mind. They think of Confucianism, the Forbidden City, and a civilization that is among the oldest in the world. However, people doubtlessly think of Communism. What I hope to achieve in this serious of blogs is to clear up the misunderstanding that China still subscribes to this ideology. This blog will hopefully define, albeit in a shallow fashion, what Communism is.
In order to show that China is not Communism, we must first examine aspects of the system. Communism is, as described by political science, a branch of political systems under the totalitarian type of political system. More specifically, it is the end result of a “socialist revolution” or “an uprising of the working class” as described by Karl Marx. Once the utopian state of being is achieved, the country can then claim to be a Communist state.
In practice, many countries initiated this revolution by governing with expanded state presence into society. As was the case in China and other states during their periods of Communism, there is very little room for social gathering – in fact, it was illegal in most Communist states, who emphasize that the people ought to participate solely in state matters.
Economically, Communism is typified by a centrally-planned market system. Under this system, a section of the expanded government takes the role of planning every aspect of the economy – how many public good to makes, what kind, how to spend public funds. They try to gauge public demand and order the supply to follow suit.
Another aspect of most Communist nations is the use of the private citizen in mass mobilization in political campaigns from the nation’s leaders. During China’s Communist regime leaders at the top, such as Mao Zedong, would emphasize the need to rid Chinese society of certain ills, such as those with Rightist ideologies, businessmen, landlords, etc. With each Maoist campaign, the Chinese leaders would mobilize the citizens in bringing down their political targets. In Communist states, this kind of mass mobilization is a common occurrence, with the nation’s leaders determining the political targets.
The last aspect of communist states according to political science is the presence of “charismatic leadership”, which essentially means that leaders can persuade their way into circumventing national law and assert control over the nation.
Now that we have a greater grasp of what Communism is, I will explain in the next blog how China emerged from its Communist legacy.
Chris Buchheit was born under the hot Floridian sun during some year in the 1980s. There he studied school matters until moving to North Carolina in 1999. Possibly due to the fact that his mom had enough of him being inside all the time, he quickly got involved in community affairs via the Boy Scouts of America, where he learned the values of citizenship, morality, duty to God and country, and that the biggest kids get to boss around the smaller ones. Chris attained the rank of Eagle Scout in 2004, and still values the rank as one of his proudest achievements. Beginning in 2006, Chris began attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he quickly learned the value of basketball and poplar trees. Since attending UNC, Chris has been double majoring in Asian Studies, with a concentration in Chinese, and Political Science. When he isn’t slaving over his honors thesis, looking up a bunch of Chinese Characters, volunteering, or mindlessly browsing the same websites over and over, Chris enjoys writing short stories and novels. Much to his roommates’ annoyance, he also spends his free time learning to play the guitar. Above all else, though, Chris values God, his family, and his friends. For the future, Chris plans to apply to Georgetown to further his studies in Political Science, hopefully with a concentration on China. Pending acceptance into Georgetown, Chris would like to study while gaining professional experience in a government job in Washington DC.
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