"Later, the Red Army contributed greatly to the 1945 rout of Japanese invaders, earning a reputation as determined and selfless guerrilla fighters and beginning the process of finally ending what the party refers to as China's "century of humiliation."

The Red Army does not have a good record of fighting against and especially diminishing foreign threats. It delayed encounters with the Japanese for as long as possible, whereas the Guomindang fought valiantly in Shanghai. It actively encouraged Soviet control over the North East of the country in the immediate aftermath of WWII, which later led to tension that nearly resolved itself in the Soviet Union's nuclear bombing of the PRC. It foolishly incurred the US's decades long justified suspicion for its cynical invasion of Korea. The South stands free defying everything the PRC intended.

The party does have a good record of fighting against its own people, however. The Changchun massacre of 1946 was a real victory for the party!

As for the baby born in Shanghai today...the old adage about smoking comes to mind. Does he really live longer, or does it just seem longer?

> Deng Xiaoping..., he invoked the specter of "bad influences from the West."

That sounds a truth to me, judging from America's hobby of toppling disliked regimes...

Justification?

The Chinese Communist Party was critical in the repulsion of the invading Japanese forces. While the "CCP" focused on "winning by outlasting"; their operations were much more successful than those of the Nationalists, which favored "magnetic warfare". The CCP initially played safe by targeting the rail lines and mines in the territory the Japanese had already taken and would take while the Nationalist made brave, but costly, stands. Once the CCP had bolstered and reinforced it's ranks; and the Japanese had been weaken by their sabotaging of infrastructure, the CCP took the offensive. The Seo Nationalists, by this point, had retreated and were loosing ground at ferocious rates. The CCP then stepped up and drove their offensive strike into the heart of Japanese conquered Manchuria as the Nationalists pulled back into their central Chinese base. While the Nationalists did win decisively at the Battle of Changsha, they could not have won the war without the CCP. Also, the way the CCP treated the Chinese civilians when being hosted in a city or village was much different than that of the Nationalists; with the CCP being much more virtuous and refraining from stealing and ill behavior under Mao's order.

The Chinese communists have brought back the people and society to much the same place, if not exactly the same, where Chiang Kaishek left them about sixty years ago.

They have arrived where Chiang's natonalists were after a long, long march of bloodshed and deaths of the revolution, purges, the Anti-Rightist Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, the Great Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square Protest.

I admit, though, that there has been improvment in Chinese social life. But the communists did not start from zero; they had taken over what had been achieved until their coming to power in 1950.

Whatever improvment there has been made in China comes not from the Chinese communist rule as the Beijing Government try to make the people believe, but essentially from the fact that China has given up its traditional, arrogant, self-centered idea that it can manage its affairs without the outside world; the improvement comes from its contact with the outside world. Unnan City, Japan

It is NOT strange at all.

Actually world history will record last forty years as the most momentous for the very fact that balance of power has started to shift from West to East because of West’s leader embracing China to counter Russia in 1972.

While Russia could NOT make Communism to work, China rose to super power status precisely because of Communism and Nixon offered a one hell of an opportunity to China to make economic progress possible in return for China temporarily shacking up with U. S. to checkmate former Soviet Union.

Afterall China was a pariah country in the world just like today’s North Korea until Nixon’s 1972 visit. All the West European and East Asian countries stayed away from China following the US lead until 1972 and embraced China after Nixon’s visit. While US would not give MFN status to Soviet Union (remember Jackson-Vanik amendment?) unless Russia shed Communism, it had no problem giving it to China’s Communist dictators with a capitalist mask. Trade with China expanded by leaps and bounds during 12 years of Republican rule beginning in 1981. After campaigning against butchers of Beijing in 1992 elections, even Bill Clinton became enthusiastic supporter of trade with China once he took lessons in foreign policy from Nixon in early 1993 during a special Whitehouse-arranged meeting. US also promoted China to a super power status by accepting it as a permanent UNSC member.

Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s rise to super power status would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

As such U. S. has strengthened Communist Party’s hold on Chinese society by embracing Mao’s China - that embrace has afforded Communist Party to create millions of jobs for its hungry masses, replacing the frustrations of poverty that could ignite mass revolt. Even 1989 Beijing massacre did NOT stop democratic U. S. to divorce Communist China, China had already become that important to U. S. economy by that time.

Now China has US by the tail - US businesses are hooked to huge profits that cheap Chinese products generate for them as a walk through any Walmart, Home Depot, Sears and Macy’s filled with Chinese goods prove and US government is hooked to huge investments that China makes in US governmental securities from the sales of cheap Chinese products to US businesses.

China’s power is multiplying day by day and now there is NO power on earth capable to stop China, least of all U. S.

Little could Mao or Deng have imagined that by wearing a capitalist mask, their followers will beat capitalists at their own game. Lenin used to say that ’capitalists will sell us the ropes with which we will hang them’. With West selling such proverbial ropes in the form of technology transfers, Chinese Communists have proven that Lenin saying quite prophetic.

It behooves China to erect the statue of anti-Communist Nixon right next to die-hard Communist Mao in Beijing for speeding up China’s rise to super power status.

The Chinese Communist Party plays the role of an established/state church in China, the old fashioned kind of church with the power to punish and imprison but also to reward with materials gain and prestige and train a diverse population to focus on a common loyalty. It seeks outward conformity to its rites and rituals and public displays of belief in its benign nature and latest doctrinal trends. This unifying mission is more important than rooting out corruption (except when it goes too far). A certain amount of hagiography satisfies the lower classes and badly educated while not particularly offending the well educated.

Extremely important is how the Communist Party counter-balances the power of the Red Amy., the other great unifying force in China. Of course the Red Army also counter-balances the power of the Communist Party and sets limits on how far reformers can disown the myths of the past and the authoritarian statist policies of the present.

Yes, a third balancing force is needed in China: a judiciary and policing system capable of enforcing criminal law and contract law in a fair way. As in Poland China could benefit from having a small group of foreigners write effective commercial contract laws and labor contract laws for China. But that would undermine the power of the CP hacks and the military business enterprises.

While I think it is important to keep 'objective' about China and the CCP, and this article is a valiant attempt at that, it more fundamentally demonstrates the hopefullessness of such an effort. Imagine if we had a "120th Anniversary of Adolph Hilter's Birth" where a writer attempted an 'even-handed' analysis of his increasing employment and literacy rates, balanced with those little things like WWII and the Holocaust. The fact that some people will likely get upset at my making this analogy shows just how well the CCP have manipulated people into interpreting Chinese history through their twisted prism.

With regard to the article itself; even if one accepts such howlers as putting their supposed 'resistance against the Japanese imperialst invaders' as somehow being in the credit column (when the reality was that the CCP spent the war purging and executing those who didn't follow Mao's line and doing all it could to undermine the Guomindang's efforts against the Japnese) an objective read of the article can draw only one conclusion: most of the 'successess of the last 60 years have been due to issues that had nothing to do with the CCP, while all of the so-called "failures" (failure? what's 20 or 30 million dead among us friends?) were directly because of it. The only conclusion that one can reach is that China would have been far, far, better off under the KMT, who could have achieved all this progress and more, without the little matter of the mass starvation of peasants and with, certain, much less outright bloodshed, and, absolutely, none of the horrors of the Cult of Mao.

"Even despite Mao's failed social-engineering policies in the late 1950s and 1960s, life expectancy rates rose sharply during his years in power"

Are you kidding me? While tens of millions were starving to death (as the author acknowledges), live expectancy rates "rose sharply"? Where are you getting this, official CPC statistics?

I think it is very important to really be objective about the CCP and China because of the massive impact they now have on the world. We might want to ignore it but we cannot, if they were to have any issues in China it really would affect a large part of the world if not all of it.

China has used very unhanded tatics to gain the kind of economic control that they now hold. They have not always been honest in their dealings and this has benefited them in some ways and cause great hardship in others.

Having a guru masterclass to help people rebuild their lives is the best way that China can continue to grow.

China's growth has caused many countries to grow but it has also caused some hardship with jobs and manufacturing being outsourced offshore.

The author concludes his essay by quoting a Chinese proverb, an appropriate ending since he mirrors the writing style of the 100s of essays by Chinese students that I have had to plow through. Time and time again Chinese students pull out the cliche 'every coin has two sides' in their conclusive remarks as a way of avoiding taking any side of an issue. Does this same thinking style transmit itself to all those who study China for too long?
Chinese intellectuals will concede that a developing country like China has some problems, but since other countries also have problems, too, it's all balanced. And that's often the extent of the discussion. Amazingly the author takes a similar approach in his analysis. To wit, the Communist Party created some amazingly progressive laws and policies; on the other hand, they don't enforce the laws and have suppressed individuals from seeking redress based on those policies. Balance achieved!
Yes, I might be exaggerating for effect, but I do so to point out how vapid this entire essay is. This is what happens to a reader when he has read essays with the the two-sided coin in its conclusion for too long.
The debates about China's future and development that do go on domestically are full of reactionary optimism and literary allusions to avoid the ire of the PTBs. Outside of China, we don't need to contend with such issues and can hope for more direct and open arguments.

The Communist Party of China in its effort to sinicize Marxism has made many rescindable opening-up policies with soothing, stabilising Chinese corruptive characteristics and developed many fine cunning contradictions in the past 90 years, including the three practices of separating Marxist theory from Confusion practice, adhering to the mass-coercion-consumption line and deconstructing debate and democracy. Let us now re-ignite our revolutionary history and celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Party merrily, pragmatically, scientifically, economically and harmoniously with Jinggangshan Spirit, Long March Spirit, Yan'an Spirit, Two Bombs and One Satellite Spirit etc., etc. as well as the spirits manifested in the incomparable 1982 Chateau-Lafite Rothschild and in a fine Single Malt Scotch (but enough of this talk about China's unstoppable economy!)
With regards to gender inequality: Excessive male Yang elements in the politburo are leading to disintegration and division. China needs to bring in the female Ying element to harmoniously balance out the Yang aggressiveness.

the slim and sexy image of the CCP propoganda machine nothwithstanding, I am sickened nearly every day here in Shanghai by the slimy and sleazy manipulation of 1.3 billion people as mastered by the Party (can i mention my chinese party friends who hate these manipulative policies but are silenced by the cash the party doles their way?).

How can I view the present govt, much less the future one, with "objectivity" (welcome a new young revolutionary mao to overthrow this mess you started, please...) when that same party is now on the threshold of material wealth unprecedented in human history?

I am really sorry (and perhaps a bit biased being Vietnamese) but this is not a very insightful analysis and seems to airbrush over some really important facts whilst misinterpreting others.

If i can just deal with misinterpretations first. Any historical time series analysis as in much higher life expectancy in 2010 than in 1920 or much higher literacy in 2010 than in 1920 needs to be benchmarked.

What is the relevant benchmark - well how about equivalent life expectancy, standards of living, literacy in the US or Europe. How does China compare against that benchmark (and please literacy is a pathetic indicator of educational standards. College degree vs basic literacy come on!)

Now what about causality. The West has managed to achieve I suspect still higher living standards, educational standards (education is more than basic reading & writing!) & life expectancy than China WITHOUT totalitarian state control or for that matter murdering 30 million of its own people. My point is that perhaps China could have achieved still higher standards without the CCP just as the West has. Correlation is not causality

Now I appreciate you want to provide a balanced view but that is not the same thing as an airbrushing of the past and current state of China. An additional page comparing the oppressive totalitarian regime and its human rights record against a Western benchmark would have been appreciated.

Now because of China's economic power it has become convenient for a see no evil hear no evil approach to dealing with China. Apart from being immoral it is ill founded.

Whilst China looks stable it is not. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb (who I heard speak at a London corporate event) has correctly pointed our these totalitarian regimes are fundamently unstable and need a huge military & police force to hold them together against imploding from the uprising of their own people as happened in Eastern Europe and in the current Arab Spring. The CCP had a luck escape in 1989 and another brush this year. Their (very impressive and which I commend) economic liberalisation policies are also creating a strong Chinese elite and middle class who will put pressure for change on the State. Change when it comes may well be volcanic too just as elsewhere.

Not a good article in my opinion.

As China's Communist Party turns 90, its legacy continues to confound both its critics and apologists. Obviously this argument/debate will and can go on forever. Even today scholars have made the points that both of us have made, and both arguments have been used by teachers and textbook authors to this day. I suppose the truth will only be revealed when either communism collapses in China, or they attempt a Gorbachev-style reform which would likely lead to collapse as well. We could continue to ar go here It is NOT strange at all. Actually world history will record last forty years as the most momentous for the very fact that balance of power has started to shift from West to East because of West’s leader embracing China to counter Russia in 1972. While Russia could NOT make Communism to work, China rose to super power status precisely because of Communism and Nixon offered a one hell of an opportu