Why Was China's Central Government So Focused on Sustaining an Annual Growth Rate of 8% for the Foreseeable Future?

1) Why was China's Central government so focused on sustaining an annual growth rate of 8% for the foreseeable future?

--> only with such levels of growth, could china continue to develop its industrial prowess, raise its citizens' standard of living, and redress the inequalities that were cropping up across the country.

2) What was the central government's primary concern about loosening the reigns on the fixed exchange rate and controls on current and capital markets? Was their concern justified?

--> The main concern: as of 2004, china's state-own enterprises were still only partially reorganised , and its banks were dealing with the burden of over $205 billion in non-performing loans, monies that had little chance of ever being repaid.

--> Their concern was justified since if they had loosen up, the economy would have had collapsed. A lot of State own companies would have had no funds to maintain the business and all state owned banks with non-performing loans would have been in big troubles as well.

3) Was emperor Qin Shi Huang's formal system imperial bureaucracy justified given the stability it brought to the country? Why or why not?

--> Yes it was.

Divided the estates into smaller private plots, and undertook great public projects such as Great Wall. Qin also established a formal system of government that linked the villages to central provinces and thens directly to the emperor.

4) What role did Confucianism play in Chinese society during the two millennia following the Qin Dynasty?

The whole china was largely agricultural society, bound and nearly defined by Confucianism, a body of political and moral philosophy that taught the supreme importances of social stability.

On a daily basis, order was maintained by the imperial bureaucrats, civil servants who were simultaneously a manifestation of the Confucian order and the physical means by which this order was preserved.

5) What were the key events that transpired between the beginning of the Opium Was in 1840 and Mao Zedong's establishment of the PRC?

--> 1840: beginning of the Opium Wars

1842: The emperor reluctantly capitulated. China ceded Hong Kong to the British and agreed to open five additional trading ports. This was "Unequal Treaties"

1898 Guang Xu emperor launched a last ditch effort at reform. but he only succeeded in offending his enemies was swiftly deposed by the Empress Dowager Ci Xi, who declared herself regent and rescinded all reforms.

1931, Japanese forces invaded Manchuria, destroying any semblance of a unified Chinese state.

1937: KMT and the communists joined forces.

1945: Japanese surrendered. Maos' CCP expanded its areas into the areas previously under Japanese.

1949: The CCP captured so much KMT equipments and recruited a lot of KMT Soldiers.

Oct 1 1949: PRC was established.

6) How did Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution impact Chinese citizenry?

--> Great Leap Forward:

+ Agricultural collectives were reorganised into enormous communes where men and women were assigned in military fashion to specific tasks.

+ Adopted communal kitchens, mess halls, and nurseries.

+ Wages were calculated along the communist principle of "to each according to his needs" , sideline production was banned.

+ established "backyard steel furnaces" to help overtake western.

--> Great Leap forward was a giant step backwards.

+ Over-ambitous targets were set., falsified production figures were produced, and chinese officials lived in an unreal world of miraculous production increases. STeel were mostly useless.

--> Cultural Revolution

+ "Destroy 4 olds": universities and schools were closed.

+ Mao's red guards were sent to villages to make revolution , beating and torturing anyone whose rank or political thinking offended.

+ Intellectuals were considered as the "stinking ninth class", any sign of capitalism was forbidden.

--> the country (1969) had descended into anarchy

7) What pragmatic policies did Deng Xiangpeng put to work in his quest to bring China back from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution?

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