Hey McCormick,

You do realize that the founding date of the CCP (1921) and its ascension to power (1949) are not the same, right??

So, it's 62 years of Communist rule, not 90!!

Does FP have editors, or is it every columnist for himself?

What's really interesting is that Deng Xiaoping had a larger role in making China an economic superpower over Mao, yet still Mao is adorned and beloved in all of China, except Formosa of course. Statues and paintings are all of Mao, and all Deng has is a few bill-boards and about two statues. I understand it's all about Mao' cult of personality and Deng's humble attitude, but they should put Deng a bit more in the limelight!

Not to mention his reign was extremely successful and didn't result in the death of millions like Mao.

Or that his policies brought economic boom, instead of social and economic stagnation like Mao.

Deng was just that great.

If the party is a patronage network that offers members access to good jobs in government and the state sector, it is impossible for the Chinese economy to be the ascendancy in the world.

Like it or not, but Mao or Deng could not have fathomed in their wildest imagination 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.

Ironic as it is, Chinese Communist Party succeeded where Russian Communists failed, precisely because the leader of the capitalist US, 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 rise to super power status to challenge US is a fitting monument to the much-celebrated foresight of Nixon-Kissinger to embrace China to counter Soviet Union in 1972 just as 9/11 attacks is a fitting monument to the Reagan embrace of Islamic fundamentalists to counter Soviet Union in 1980s Afghanistan.

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. 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.

Many people are against the Communist Party of China. But quite often they are on the outside looking in. Many of my Chinese friends are not so against the party but for them growing up in China I guess they are conditioned to think like that.

My wife who is from Beijing says they are doing a good job and she does not see why you need to have an election where the people elect the government.

As she has lived in Australia for more than ten years she just sees a democratic election as a nuisance, especially as here the voting is compulsory.

She thinks a lot of things are easier in China and stuff just gets done. Her parents had a kitchenrenovation done back in Beijing and they just paid the workmen and it was done in a matter of days. They got what they wanted. Compare that with a similar exercise that we went through and there were approvals to get, you pay through the nose to get qualified tradesmen and labour costs are much higher.

Other things that seem much more easily done in China are capital works. Here in Canberra we had essential roadworks blocked for years as a small group where not happy with what was planned. The project got held up while court action was taken and that cost tax payers millions as the extra time taken added to the overall cost.

The same situation in Beijing just saw the road getting built and if you didn't like it then tough luck.

Which system is better? It is hard to tell. Perhaps if you could conduct a survey that took in millions of people from China and the USA you could get a good answer. The US government is not so good at running their country. You have mega rich and so many people struggling.

Anyway happy birthday to the Communist Party. Will they be around to celebrate 100 years?

How dare you

The picture with Mao in the 1960s driving through Tianamen Square next to his supporters seems so different from today.
That picture and what we see in China today is truly the best evidence of Chinese success I have seen in this article

It is with disbelief that I can't find any explanation for the non-sense behind the idealistic view of some Western admirers of communism, least of all the Chinese version of Maoist ideology. To quote the American convert that Mao's communism "“ used to be a moral presence representing a vision of the future and a set of ethics for today..." without once mentioning in this article that Mac. Sent millions to their death in his pursuit of his vision of the future, that is beyond any understanding.

A set of ethics for today, they allegedly had, while Mr. Rittenberg was a Maoist between 1946 and 1979? But not anymore, says he, and here comes the absolute pearl of wisdom karmaloop codes : "The party has made “undeniable achievements” for its country in economic terms, Mr. Rittenberg points out. “But the leaders’ core view is ‘après nous, le deluge’ [after us, the deluge"] and you must not challenge the Communist party’s absolute right to rule.”
Duh! As if Mao used to welcome a good challenge to that absolute right to rule!

Good photo essay, but just one question:

Why don't you mention that the guy behind Zhao Ziyang in the picture taken in Tianamen Square is Wen Jiabao?
The Chinese premier standing right in the middle of the picture should at least be mentioned.

Why has your photoessay ignored his role in Chinese history?

I am finding this thread very strange. Now I appreciate it is meant to be more an historical review. However........

Reading the replies in this thread you would not have known there is a place called Tibet or of the Tiananmen Square Massacre but we would know that there is a Chinese person living in Australia who thinks democracy is a nuisance (wow not heard it called that before!) and likes the way they build their roads in China (they are good at dams I hear too - re Three Gorges Dam and forced relocation of 4m people).

Here is a more salient fact - the estimates of dead and wounded at T Square taken from Wikipedia

10,000 dead (including civilians and soldiers) – Soviet Union.[93]
7,000 deaths – NATO intelligence.[93]
4,000 to 6,000 civilians killed, but no one really knows – Edward Timperlake.[94]
Over 3,700 killed, excluding disappearance or secret deaths and those denied medical treatment – PLA defector citing a document circulating among officers.[94]
2,600 had officially died by the morning of 4 June (later denied) – the Chinese Red Cross.[87] An unnamed Chinese Red Cross official estimated that, in total, 5,000 people were killed and 30,000[clarification needed] injured.[95].

It appears that The Chinese Communist Party also regards democracy as a nuisance and went to great steps to supress it!

The Chinese Communist Party has had two escapes from its own people once in 1989 and the last this year - all achieved through the brutal use of military force and even more importantly the work of their huge secret police.

I had the pleasure of hearing Nassim Nicholas Taleb of Black Swan fame talk at a corporate event in London. His basic position is that whilst these totalitarian regimes look stable the opposite is true and a huge and skillful military & political force is needed to keep the system from imploding as we are seeing now in the Arab Spring and also saw in late 1980s in Eastern Europe. Now whilst the Chinese Communist Party's grip on China may look cast iron it is not and and here I quote

According to Professor Yu Jianrong, official statistics show the number of recorded incidents of mass unrest are "boiling ... to the point of explosion". They have risen from 8,709 in 1993 to more than 90,000 in each of 2007 through 2009. Reasons cited include an aggrieved class of dispossessed migrants and unemployed workers, a deep loss of faith in the system among many Chinese and a weakening in the traditional means of state control.[1]

The CCP only has to get it wrong once or just be slow to react or possibly just over react and their regime will implode too.....

Apologies for the slighly aggrieved tone of this post I found the air brushing a little too much to bear.

When I see all these kids in their uniforms, where UNI or same is the word to be stressed out, it reminds me of pictures I have in old albums. Pictures from my parents and uncle, who lived in the former communistic eastern Germany.

The children were also involved in an organization, which belonged to the leading communistic party and were taught specific values and a direction of how one should think and behave. My uncle who has lived most of his live in the east germany does not only see the negative sides in these whole story. He says that they also had some positive effects, like feeling more the community spirit and solidarity. After quitting school he therefore joined the army and now stil works as security escrtberlin and sometimes misses the good old times. Hes this kind of old school guy with his own conserved views. From my perspective this is hard to understand and to imagine and I am personally happy, that I do live in a more democratic (this word is always dependent on interpretation) country and do not have to visit any kind of such youth organisations.

I think Mao is still very controversial, but undeniably he led to an age of development and progress for Tavares China; albeit at an enormous human cost..

To quote the American convert that Mao's communism "“ used to be a moral presence representing a vision of the future and a set of ethics for today..." without once mentioning in this article that Mac. Sent millions to their death in his pursuit of his vision of the future, that is beyond any understanding.My uncle who has lived most of his live in the east germany does not only see the negative Stávkové kancelárie sides in these whole story. He says that they also had some positive effects, like feeling more the community spirit and solidarity. After quitting school he therefore joined the army and now stil works as security escrtberlin and sometimes misses the good old times.There is just enough honest politicians and officials for the country to make progress. It's not perfect and there is bribery, corruption and the stealing of state assets and money.On the other hand democracies also need infomed and interested voters and, likewise, there is a need for checks and controls on bribery and lobbying.