People’s Republic of China ( PRC) came into being as an independent state in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Ze Deng, the man who led his communist forces to victory against the nationalist forces of Xiang Kai Sheik in the Chinese Civil War that reached its intensity as the World War 2 drew close to its end with the surrender of Japan in 1945. When Mao established a communist government in China, no one could predict that his country would go on to become a global power within the shortest duration taken by any state to accomplish such a feat. The most important thing to be noted down here is that when Mao took the reigns of the government, his country was not in a stable state. Rather, it was in shambles, politically, economically and socially.
China had passed from a very painful period of its political history which is known as " the Century of Humiliation" in which China was divided into multiple spheres of influence between the European colonial powers . After World War 1, China had to face attacks from Japan. Japan colonized Manchuria in 1931 and then went on to invade mainland China in 1937. It was only after American nuclear strikes on Japan that its career as a colonial power came to an end. After Japan's exit from China, there erupted a bloody civil war in China between the forces of Mao Ze Deng and Xiang Kai Sheik. Collectively, China lost millions of lives during this dark era of Chinese history stretching from 1839 up to 1949.
Fast forward to 2021, China is now a global power. It has already surpassed the US as world's largest GDP in terms of purchasing power parity ( PPP) in 2014. It is being expected to overtake the US as world's largest GDP in nominal terms as well by 2028. It is also expected that its defence budget will exceed that of the US by 2035. China has already started an historic development project known as BRI , which will further increase China's hard and soft powers and will make it more influential than its competitors across the world. In a nutshell, China is now on its route to establishing global supremacy in the coming decades. However, question arises that what were the factors that made China achieve success after success in a very short duration? There are three such things that did the job for China.
1 Strategic Patience:
Great nations always win without fighting. China is also such a nation. China has always been a very patient country that avoided foreign wars and conflicts. Hence, it saved its money and men which it utilized for domestic uplift and economic development. When China got independence in 1949, it has had a lot of territory related issues. However, it never tried to bully any state with which it had territorial disputes, and it always strived to solve these disputes by mutual dialogue.
Resultantly, China has resolved its territorial disputes with Pakistan, Nepal, North Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia and Myanmar. India is the only state with which China still has territorial disputes, and the reason for that is India’s stubbornness to resolve its border disputes with China. Hong Kong and Taiwan also deserve special mention here. Hong Kong has always been part of mainland China. However, during the 19th century, it was colonized by the British and they refused to hand it over to China in 1949. China, demonstrating its strategic patience once again, favored dialogue instead of confrontation though Hong Kong was physically a part of mainland China. So, China entered into an agreement with Britain in 1984 whereby Britain had to hand Hong Kong over to China by 1997. Now, Hong Kong is controlled by China. Hence, China resolved another dispute by dialogue. As far as Taiwan is concerned, China considers it its integral part and almost the entire world admits this reality too as Taiwan has not been recognized by a great majority of states. However, China has never attacked or invaded Taiwan though it could have easily capture Taiwan if it decided to do so. It says it wants a peaceful reunification of Taiwan with mainland China and it is waiting for this to happen. Hence, Taiwan issue once again underlines China’s commitment to the principle of ' strategic patience’. On the other hand, many states which got independence around the same time as China were unable to develop because they waged wars for territorial gains. The best examples of these states are that of Pakistan and India. They still seem to have learnt no lessons from China’s policies.
2 Human Capital Development:
Professor Hans Morgenthau, writer of famous book " Politics Among Nations”, is of the view that population is a very important ingredient of national power. However, it is only possible when a state's populations is well educated, skilled and healthy. Otherwise, the same population becomes the biggest disadvantage for a state to develop. Therefore, those states which do not invest in their people don't develop and prosper. China has the most population in the world. It converted its population into a useful asset by its policies aimed at human capital development. The number of students in China aging between 18 and 22 was just 1% in 1970s. So, in order to improve availability of education facilities in China, the communist government decided to increase budgetary allocations for education. Hence, policies to this end were made and implemented. Currently, China spend more than 20% of its total budget on education alone. China's spendings on R&D have also increased manifold in the previous years and now stand at 270 billion dollars. China's literacy rate is now more than 97 percent. Similarly, annual cost of education per student in China in 2012 was 6.5 USD in comparison with the US where the cost was 26.5 USD. China made similar strides in other sectors as well including health and skill development. The most striking feature of China's pro-public socialist policies was poverty reduction. China has successfully pulled more than 700 million people out of extreme poverty in just 7 decades. Hence, China's investment in its public brought great fruits to it. Abundant, cheap and skilled labor attracted huge FDI to China in the previous four decades , which helped China grow at a very high pace. Although India had better infrastructure in 1980s as compared to China , but it did not invest in its people as much as China did. This proves that development of human capital is more important than the development of physical infrastructure, and that is what China gave full attention to.
3 Leadership:
We have talked about how China succeeded in becoming a global power in just 7 decades because of its strategic patience and human capital development. However, China , like all other countries of the world, was being run by individuals who were at the helm of affairs. So, China's policies had to be formulated by these individuals which were to have long lasting implications on China's trajectory of development. Hence, China's leadership has had a pivotal role to play for China. If China avoided foreign wars and focused on economic development , it was because China's leadership decided to do so. If China invested heavily in its people, it was also because it leadership decided to do so. Hence, China's visionary leadership proved to be the greatest asset for China. Three personalities deserve a special mention in this regard. First, Mao Ze Deng, who established People's Republic of China in very difficult circumstances. Second, Deng Xiao Peng, who opened China for the external world, thereby paving the way for China to become a global economic power within just three decades of China's opening to the world. Third, Xi Jinn Ping. He laid down the foundation of Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI). It is a marvelous program. It is now spreading China's outreach and influence to almost every corner of the world. It will further increase China's hard and soft powers as well as win more allies for China in its Cold War against the US.
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