It is customary to apply the notions of destiny and fortune to chart the milestones that individuals achieve along the timeline of their life. But perhaps entire communities, peoples, even nations, are also subject to their peculiar destiny.
And if both the success and suffering of a nation should be preordained, written in the stars if you will, then there is no greater example to occupy ourselves with than that unique march of civilization from the coalition of suspicious clans on the banks of the mighty Hwang Ho to the declaration of the People’s Republic of China.
Because, dear reader, who would have imagined that power could be wrested and refashioned by a motley group of plebeians who, from the depths of a hierarchical society anchored in unwavering Confucian obedience to the divinity of emperor and empire, forged a new nation, a feat that represents arguably the most radical political transformation of the 20th century?
History resounds with the names of emperors, empresses, kings, queens, regents, and dictators who have sought to embellish and engrave their legacy permanently on the collective record and memory of the generations yet to be born. But history also reveals that there are leaders and there are great leaders, because it is the genius of great leaders that they are possessed of vision that permits them to “see” deep into the future and accurately anticipate the evolution of their society.
And so it was with the shared belief of Prime Minister Nehru and Chairman Mao that political power in the absence of economic self-sufficiency was a meaningless, even pyrrhic, victory. For a new China seeking relevance in the comity of nations whose survival hinged on the basic contentment of its citizens, the lamp of hope had to illuminate the road to potential prosperity, laid on the bedrock of three square meals, comprehensive secondary education, and a respectable livelihood.
In the aftermath of military success in the middle decades of the 20th century, the young republic was confidently poised to pursue the grandiose schemes of economic advancement.
In keeping with the first principles of their people-oriented program, the landholdings of wealthy peasants and landlords were appropriated and distributed to the impoverished of the agrarian community in the immediate wake of the onset of the republic. The need for self-sufficiency, economic independence, and rapid industrial modernization found shape in the Great Leap Forward, unveiled by Mao in January 1958 in Nanjing.
And as for the Communists with their mania for collectivization, the Great Leap Forward was a gargantuan Marxist innovation with the objective of rapid and parallel development of China’s agricultural and industrial sectors. The dream was to industrialize and multiply agricultural yield at breakneck speed by putting to work the endless supply of cheap labour to do everything that should otherwise have been done by expensive and imported heavy machinery.
One cannot help but ponder on the terrible similarities between the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the China of our times. The great leap was fated to peter out in a feeble hop, skip, and jump in the face of Mao’s belief that the solution to poverty and economic advancement was political rather than dependent upon the expertise of the technocracy.
Scheduled to run for the course of the Second Five Year Plan, from 1958 to 1963, the program ground to a halt in 1961 in the disastrous backdrop of over-inflated statistics and the death by starvation of millions, as the forced herding of the hapless Chinese into communes was instrumental in causing the Great Chinese Famine of 1959.
The blitzkrieg against India in 1962 was therefore a useful deflection to the human catastrophe wrought by a high-level plan devoid of any planning executed by a bumbling bureaucracy intent on saving their skin, lest they invite the full force of the wrath of the Communist emperor.
This would be followed by the political catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution, or the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, launched in 1966 by Mao with the avowed aim of preserving Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society and, crucially, to re-impose Maoism as the dominant ideology in the republic. The Chairman was fighting for political survival, and his hubris may well have resulted in the death of many more millions.
If Mao represented the viability and consolidation of the young republic, then surely the credit for the first blueprint for modernization must go to Deng Xiaoping, the quintessential survivor whose name shall forever be associated with the opening up of China to foreign technology and capital.
Combining, indeed harmonizing, socialist ideology and free enterprise, Deng positioned globally a country traumatized by institutional disarray and disenchantment with Maoism, demonstrating that China, Inc was a viable and profitable proposition while remaining true to the founding principles of the republic.
In short, Deng put China on the map, aggressively mending bridges and seeking new investment and new relationships. Modern China, with its towering edifices of glass and steel, owes a lasting debt of gratitude to the diminutive man and his herculean efforts at establishing the relevance of a damaged republic in the eyes of the world.
And so it was that many millions of citizens were sacrificed in the formative years on the altar of political and economic expediency. Perhaps this is the unavoidable destiny of a militarily and economically powerful modern nation struggling to achieve their version of world dominance.
What is the nature of the superstructure of the neo-imperialism that President Xi Jinping has erected on foundations built over 50 years? How successful has today’s politico-corporate leadership been in furthering the ambitions of the Middle Kingdom?
Dear reader. Let us together navigate the complexities of this new imperialism, and determine for ourselves whether it is sufficiently powerful to unseat the dominance exhibited by the traditional First World.
Perhaps it is written in the stars.
Sumit Basu is a freelance contributor based in India.
