Why Our World Is: China
By: Abhijay Bhosale
China is a country whose history is rarely referenced that far past modern day, usually reported on in the 2000s and after. The only mentions of China in American schools are when talking about Japan's conquest in Asia during World War 2. And although it's important to talk about Japan's rise to power with the effects like the atrocities at Nanjing, it's rarely shown how China grew to such power on the global scale as the 1900s grew to an end. Let's see what happened.
WW2 - Turn To Communism
Many people people know that China is communist, but not that many know how it occurred. The idea that's usually first gone to is that the Communists took over the government and forced the country to become communist through propaganda and suppression. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. To understand, we have to go back to WW2. Throughout WW2 China had a lot of fighting and actually helped a lot of the allies. It was a place to jumpstart liberation campaigns and push back the Japanese in more substantial ways compared to island hopping. But even while fighting, there was local animosity. Before Japan decided to start invading China, China was already going through struggles in its government. The pre-war state of China had landlord systems that kept most of its worker population struggling and unheard. This is coming after a revolution against the Qing Dynasty (ended 1911) which had a serfdom. For a while the country was controlled by the Nationalists, but some Chinese workers started the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. 16 years after the Nationalists gained controlled from a revolution, another revolution occurred in 1927. This war went on for a decade (this part of the war is called the first part of the Chinese Communist Revolution). The fighting went on and didn't seem like ending even 10 years later, but then the Japanese attacked.
This attack brought a lot of foreign attention to China, and to fight such a powerful war machine, outside support was needed. As the war with Japan went on, the 2 parties in China (the Nationalists and Communists) agreed to fight against Japan together. Even so, there was a lot of tension and even some battles. But near the end of WW2, the war was in the Nationalist's favor. The greater Nationalist forces fighting against Japan led to many of the liberations being in control of the Nationalists. And when the war finally ended, the government of China was back in Nationalist hands.
But post-war China was in shambles. The government had a lot to rebuild. Post-war China produced only 25% of what they were previously producing. It was bad. Cheap American goods also took over the market, something that was terrible for the Nationalist government. Because the government also controlled more of the industry (70% now compared to 15% pre-war) there was a lot more corruption and instability, not to mention the hyperinflation that took over the country. The second part of the revolution occurred where the CCP came back and ended the war in 1949 after capturing Nanjing, the then-capital of China. Mao Zedong claimed power of ruling and was put into leadership in Tianmen Square, Beijing.
China's Economic Rise
China is a country whose economy is one to be reckoned with. But how did this happen? Just last paragraph it was shown how China had horrible industrialization. Well, one of the pros of a Communist government is that you can put your country to a goal and they won't stop until the government tells you to stop. First, Mao Zedong tried to get the entire country farming land and relocate the entire population. But the new land and reset along with severe droughts ended up killing more people (mainly through starvation) than the Holocaust. When this plan failed, Mao Zedong had to recover, so he decided to industrialize. And industrialize he did. He made so many factories and put so many workers that the government had one of the biggest manufacturing plants in the world. Government contracts with outside countries led to China having an impressive import to export ratio. All this profit led to China being able to grow extremely fast.
Present Day
Russia and the USA have major affects on China. To China, Russia is a friend that has to no filter and has to be covered for sometimes. This isn't an attempt at a joke, it's what's happening. A lot of comments from Russia that are threatening to use nuclear weapons are being vehemently denied seriousness by China. Their relationship has grown to an economic one, and even though it started through similar communist ideas, the 2 countries are spread apart on a wide spectrum.
As for the US, ever since Trump the feelings are mixed. In a capitalist economy, China is looked down upon by default, but its importance on a global scale gives China a bit more respect. But even since people noticed the amount of Made In China tags, it's been a driving force for the US to be more self-sufficient. Even in Europe, after the cold winter because of the natural gas pipelines in Russia being shut down, European countries are becoming more independent.
But it's not game over for China, there also seems to be more activity in Africa. China is at the point where they can start expanding into Africa and having their dependency. If you know the story of Nestle, what's happening is seeming to become obvious. African resources are given to China in exchange for China giving money for government projects (which will most likely be embezzled) and China sells refined/same products back. If not back, it will go out again on the global scale. You've heard of too-big-to-fail companies. Well, China's essentially the biggest. And they're not failing anytime soon.
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There are things that could show China's impact even further, but those will better be shown in other parts of the series.
China's involvement in the Korean War will be shown in the Korean Peninsula Edition
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