China's Future Democracy

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Thesis:

In viewing China’s political background, as well as the current state of affairs, it is reasonable to predict that China will eventually become a democracy.

History

Looking back in history, one of the most dominant figures in Chinese politics in the 1930’s was Mao Zedong. Mao is very well known as the leader of the CCP as well as a dictator. Mao was inspired by revolutionary potential of peasantry and wanted to create a revolutionary strategy that would rely on their strength. During the First Five-Year Plan, a period between 1953 and 1957, some of the goals of the communist Chinese government were to increase heavy industrial production, collectivize light industry and retail enterprises, and create agricultural communes. These goals seemed to be set forth to create a more collectivized culture with a single ideology. And although there was resistance, most of these goals were achieved by 1957. But once those goals were realized, moderates within the CCP were beginning to grow tired of Mao and his ideas, and wanted to overthrow him. Mao fought back his opponents with the Hundred Flowers Campaign.

The idea of the campaign, was intended to calm down his challengers by allowing free speech, as the campaign stated “let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” This lasted for a very brief period of time, because soon after, Mao went after those who had seized this opportunity to criticize the government, party and policies, and imprisoned them. Because of the failure of the 100 Flowers campaign, Mao introduced the “Great leap forward.”

A young Chinese student regarding his parents stated, "They would often bring up the topic of the Great Leap famine and tell how bad things were during that ...

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...hts Foundation). But it isn’t enough to rely merely on theory. Some strategies seem to have already placed a seed for the birth of democracy.

Strategies already taking place…

One of the strategies to democratize China relies on moving China’s democratization efforts in Asia. Asia Times, points out that the main drive for democratization in China lies in the hands of activists. Japan has helped become a part of this movement by hosting and holding a number of China-related democracy activities such as the GSDCA as pointed earlier. Currently, much of the “support” for China-related democracy activities comes from individuals in Non-governmental Organizations (NGO’s) governments, and parliaments (Dr. Gomez). With more continued support in Asia and China’s close surrounding areas, it is quite true to believe that democracy does in fact have a place in China.

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