After Mao's death in September 1976 Hua Guofeng was quickly confirmed as party chairman and premier. A month later, Hua, backed by the army, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "Gang of Four" that organized the Cultural Revolution.
In December 1978, the Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee) adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. Hua was forced to resign at this time, leaving Deng as top leader.
Deng focused on market-oriented economic development. By 2000, output had quadrupled, population growth ended (by imposing a one-child policy), and good relations were secured with the West.
After 1978, Mao's successor [[Deng Xiaoping]] constructed a market-economy system, while still remain de facto control over the land by imposing the length of usage of the land, and by 2000 output had increased, population growth ended (by imposing a one-child policy), and mediocre relations were secured with the West. For much of the population, living standards have improved and the material choices are growing, yet totalitarian rule and the ownership of the Internet still firmly gripped.
China's economy changed from a centrally planned system that was largely closed to international trade, to a more market-oriented economy that has a rapidly growing private sector and is a major player in the global economy.
In 1989, the [[Tiananmen Square democracy protests]] were inspired by an explosion of democracy protests worldwide, resulting in the [[Fall of the Berlin Wall]], the Czech [[Velvet Revolution]], and the collapse of Soviet Communism. The Chinese protests however were quashed when the so-called "People's Liberation Army" killed over 10,000 Chinese people. The Chinese Communist Party then established a registry of social organizations, in order to head off political upheaval. Falun Gong, a revival of pre-Maoist Cultural Revolution traditions, registered with the Chinese government in 1992. It soon attracted “tens of millions of adherents,” the political-science professor Maria Hsia Chang writes in ''Falun Gong: The End of Days.''' Falun Gong started holding enormous gatherings; by the mid- 1990s, there were more than two thousand Falun Gong practice sites in [[Beijing]] alone. Troubled by the possibility that a large part of the population was becoming more loyal to Falun Gong than to the Communist Party, the government began cracking down on groups and banning sales of Falun Gong publications.
By 1999, the CCP estimated that the group had seventy million adherents; that year, more than ten thousand of them staged a silent protest in Tiananmen Square. An arrest warrant was issued for Li Hongzhi, the group founder, who had by then immigrated to Queens, New York. The Chinese National Congress subsequently passed, and began [[violent]]ly enforcing, an "anti-cult law".<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20101127131821/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/16/world/china-expels-53-foreign-falun-gong-followers.html</ref>
====Post-Deng China====
Deng's health deteriorated in the years prior to his death in 1997. [[Jiang Zemin]] gradually assumed control of the day-to-day functions of government. In November 2002, [[Hu Jintao]] was selected leader. In 1992, he had been designated by Deng Xiaoping as the "core" of the fourth generation leaders. On March 14, 2013 [[Xi Jinping]] was "elected" as new president.<ref>https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9929619/Xi-Jinping-elected-Chinas-president-Telegraph-dispatch.html</ref>
[[File:National Stadium, Beijing.jpg|thumb|300px|National Stadium, Beijing.]]
China's "economic miracle" since it was granted [[Most Favored Nation]] (MFN) status by the U.S. Congress in 2002, and access to the U.S. consumer market, led to unprecedented economic growth and better living conditions for millions of Chinese. It also strengthened the grip of the anti-democratic [[Chinese Communist Party]] over people's everyday lives, and the loss of manufacturing jobs for consumer products in the United States.
China's investment climate changed significantly. In the early 1980s, China restricted foreign investments to export-oriented operations and required foreign investors to form joint-venture partnerships with Chinese firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) grew quickly during the 1980s, but stalled in late 1989 in the aftermath of Tiananmen. In response, the government introduced legislation and regulations designed to encourage foreigners to invest in high-priority sectors and regions. Since the early 1990s, China has allowed foreign investors to manufacture and sell a wide range of goods on the domestic market, and authorized the establishment of wholly foreign-owned enterprises, now the preferred form of FDI. However, the Chinese Government's emphasis on guiding FDI into manufacturing has led to market saturation in some industries, while leaving China's services sectors underdeveloped. China is now one of the leading recipients of FDI in the world, receiving almost $80 billion in 2005 according to World Bank statistics.
Despite the CCP's human rights abuses in the Tiananmen massacre, no trade sanctions were ever leveled by Western Powers and globalists. China was rewarded for its human rights abuses in 2001, despite the absence of reforms, by being welcomed into the [[World Trade Organization]] with full membership and a year later granted [[Most Favored Nation]] trade status by the [[U.S. Congress]].
China's merchandise exports totaled $969.3 billion and imports totaled $791.8 billion in 2006. Its global trade surplus surged from $32 billion in 2004 to $177.5 billion in 2006. China's primary trading partners include Japan, the EU, the United States, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. According to U.S. statistics, China had a trade surplus with the U.S. of $232.6 billion in 2006.
China has taken important steps to open its foreign trading system and integrate itself into the world trading system. In November 1991, China joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group, which promotes free trade and cooperation in the economic, trade, investment, and technology spheres. China served as APEC chair in 2001, and Shanghai hosted the annual APEC leaders meeting in October of that year.
China formally joined the WTO in December 2001. As part of this far-reaching trade liberalization agreement, China agreed to lower tariffs and abolish market impediments. Chinese and foreign businessmen, for example, gained the right to import and export on their own, and to sell their products without going through a government middleman. By 2005, average tariff rates on key U.S. agricultural exports dropped from 31% to 14% and on industrial products from 25% to 9%. The agreement also opens up new opportunities for U.S. providers of services like banking, insurance, and telecommunications. China has made significant progress implementing its WTO commitments, but serious concerns remain, particularly in the realm of intellectual property rights protection.
While accession does not guarantee smaller trade deficits, full implementation of all WTO commitments would further open China's markets to—and help level the playing field for—U.S. exports. China is now one of the most important markets for U.S. exports: in 2006, U.S. exports to China totaled $55.2 billion, almost triple the $19 billion when China joined the WTO in 2001 and up 32% over 2005. U.S. agricultural exports have increased dramatically, making China our fourth-largest agricultural export market (after Canada, Japan, and Mexico). Over the same period (2001-2006), U.S. imports from China have risen from $102 billion to $287.8 billion.
Export growth continues to be a major driver of China's rapid economic growth. To increase exports, China has pursued policies such as fostering the rapid development of foreign-invested factories, which assemble imported components into consumer goods for export, and liberalizing trading rights. In its eleventh Five-Year Program, adopted in 2005, China placed greater emphasis on developing a consumer demand-driven economy to sustain economic growth and address global imbalances.
The United States is one of China's primary suppliers of power generating equipment, aircraft and parts, computers and industrial machinery, raw materials, and chemical and agricultural products. However, U.S. exporters continue to have concerns about fair market access due to strict testing and standards requirements for some imported products. In addition, a lack of transparency in the regulatory process makes it difficult for businesses to plan for changes in the domestic market structure. The April 11, 2006 U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) produced agreements on key U.S. trade concerns ranging from market access to U.S. beef, medical devices, and telecommunications; to the enforcement of intellectual property rights, including, significantly, software. The JCCT also produced an agreement to establish a U.S.-China High Technology and Strategic Trade Working Group to review export control cooperation and facilitate high technology trade.
By 2017, the imposition of [[tariff]]s by U.S. President [[Donald J. Trump]] began to redress the imbalance. China's economy was developed over those early decades of the 21st century as a coastal, manufacturing economy entirely dependent on exports. Young people left their home villages in the countryside to seek work in coastal factories. The prosperity was all built on access to the U.S. consumer market, and Americans' appetite for cheap manufactured goods. Scant attention was paid to developing a domestic service sector economy, while the vast interior remained impoverished, and increasingly so as young people abandoned rural agricultural work for urban factory work.
====Military developments====
The establishment of a professional military force equipped with modern weapons and doctrine was the last of the "Four Modernizations" announced by Zhou Enlai and supported by Deng Xiaoping. In keeping with Deng's mandate to reform, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which includes the strategic nuclear forces, army, navy, and air force, demobilized millions of men and women beginning in 1978 and introduced modern methods in such areas as recruitment and manpower, strategy, and education and training.
[[File:Mao corona.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Chinese communists suppressed news of the covid outbreak for two months, arrested doctors who posted on social media about it, and did not advise the people of Wuhan until after the virus spread throughout the world.]]
Following the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, ideological correctness was revived as the dominant theme in Chinese military affairs.
The Chinese military is in the process of transforming itself from a land-based power, centered on a vast ground force, to a mobile, high-tech military eventually capable of mounting limited operations beyond its coastal borders.
China's power-projection capability is limited but has grown. China has acquired some advanced weapons systems from abroad, including Sovremmeny destroyers, SU-27 and SU-30 aircraft, and Kilo-class diesel submarines from Russia, and continued to develop domestic production capabilities, such as for the domestically-developed J-10 fighter aircraft. However, much of its air and naval forces continue to be based on 1960s-era technology. As the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review, released February 2006, noted, the U.S. shares with other countries a concern about the pace, scope, and direction of China's military modernization. We view military exchanges, visits, and other forms of engagement are useful tools in promoting transparency, provided they have substance and are fully reciprocal. Regularized exchanges and contact also have the significant benefit of building confidence, reducing the possibility of accidents, and providing the lines of communication that are essential in ensuring that episodes such as the April 2001 EP-3 aircraft incident do not escalate into major crises. During their April 2006 meeting, President Bush and President Hu agreed to increase officer exchanges and to begin a strategic nuclear dialogue between STRATCOM and the Chinese military's strategic missile command. U.S. and Chinese militaries are also considering ways in which we might cooperate on disaster assistance relief. However, it should be remembered that the Military is still under the Party's control. It is not to be equated with the European and American Armed forces.
====Tiananmen Square massacre====
[[File:Wmr1a.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Remains The death of what used to be [[human being]]s in the Tiananmen Square [[democracy]] protests.<ref>http://www.cnd.org/HYPLAN/yawei/june4th/</ref>]]:{{See also|Tiananmen Square massacre}}Near the end of the [[Cold War]] China's Communist Party faced the challenge of large-scale protests in Beijing's [[Tiananmen Square]] and in more than 100 other cities including [[Shanghai]] between Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989, and June 4coupled with growing economic hardship caused by high inflation, triggered protests by students, intellectuals, 1989. Disagreements about how to respond split the top Party leadership and forced out the Party General Secretary at the time, Zhao Ziyangothers. The decision by Deng Xiaoping, then Chinaprotesters camped out in Beijing's Paramount Leader, Tiananmen Square to order the [[Peoplemourn Hu's Liberation Army|People's army]] death and to break up pro-[[democracy]] protests by force undermined the Party's legitimacyprotest against those who would slow reform.
In Martial law was declared on May 20, 1989. Late on June 3 and early on the months prior to the fall morning of the [[Berlin Wall]]June 4, pro-democracy movements worldwide flourished and socialism fell military units were brought into disreputeBeijing. In an object lesson about They used armed force to clear demonstrators from the duplicity streets. There are no official estimates of socialist slogansdeaths in Beijing, buzzwords, and phrases geared toward but most observers believe that casualties numbered in the youth and the naive - China's People's Army killed 10,000 of China's own people.<ref>"[https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/24/chinese-killed-at-least-10000-at-tiananmen-square-newly-declassified-documents-claim/ Chinese Killed At Least 10,000 At Tiananmen Square, Newly Declassified Documents Claim]", ''Daily Caller'', 12/24/2017.</ref> In fact, China's People's Army has killed more of China's own people than it has ever been used against any foreign enemy in its entire historyhundreds.
====WTO membership====
[[File:2018 trade deficit.jpg|thumb|500px|right|U.S. trade deficit with China. The difference between the red line and blue line represents an outflow of American wealth - [[capitalism|capital]] that could be used to create American jobs rather than jobs in China and prosperity for the [[Chinese Communist Party]].]]
Despite the CCP's human rights abuses in the Tiananmen massacre, no trade sanctions were ever leveled by Western Powers and globalists. China was rewarded for its human rights abuses in 2001, despite the absence of reforms, by being welcomed into the World Trade Organization with full membership and a year later granted [[Most Favored Nation]] trade status by the [[U.S. Congress]]. China formally joined the World Trade Organization ([[WTO]]) in December 2001.
By 2017, the imposition of [[tariff]]s by U.S. President [[Donald J. Trump]] began to redress the imbalance of a half-trillion dollar a year [[trade deficit]] and the outflow of American wealth to China. China's economy was developed over those early decades of the 21st century as a coastal, manufacturing economy entirely dependent on exports. Young people left their home villages in the countryside to seek work in coastal factories. The prosperity was all built on access to the U.S. consumer market, and Americans' appetite for cheap manufactured goods. Scant attention was paid to developing a domestic service sector economy, while the vast interior remained impoverished, and increasingly so as young people abandoned rural agricultural work for urban factory work.
No sanctions were ever leveled by [[The West|Western powers]] and [[globalist]]s for these naked human rights violations. In fact, China was welcomed into the [[World Trade Organization]] (WTO) in 2001 and granted Most Favored Nation ([[MFN]]) trade status by the [[United States]] in 2002, having made no reforms to its socialist, [[authoritarian]] and [[totalitarian]] system.
Contrary to Cold War era belief that free trade would encourage non-democratic countries to become more democratic - an argument used to sell globalization - experience ultimately proved free trade only strengthens tyrannical regimes. By 2020, the notion that [[democracy]] and free trade go hand-in-hand had been thoroughly discredited.
====Most Favored Nation status with the U.S.====
:{{See also|Most favored nation}}
*Virgil (October 20, 2019). [https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/10/20/virgil-five-takeaways-from-capitalisms-kowtow-to-china/ Virgil: Five Takeaways from Capitalism’s Kowtow to China]. ''Breitbart News''. Retrieved October 21, 2019.</ref> China uses about half of the world's steel and cement/concrete. In the 3 years from 2011 to 2014, China used 6.6 gigatons of cement, which is more than the US did in the entire 20th century.<ref>https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Concrete-in-China</ref> China also worked to isolate Taiwan diplomatically.<ref>Schmitt, Gary (September 26, 2019). [https://thehill.com/opinion/international/463290-china-is-quietly-winning-the-diplomatic-war-with-taiwan China is quietly winning the diplomatic war with Taiwan]. ''The Hill''. Retrieved September 26, 2019.</ref> China became the dominant trading partner of a large majority of the world's countries, overtaking the U.S.<ref>[https://twitter.com/MhaskarChief/status/1198862204876931072 Zeeshan Mhaskar]. ''Twitter''. November 24, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2019.<br>See also:
*Akan, Emel (January 6, 2020). [https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-rise-had-a-negative-impact-on-global-innovation-say-experts_3195603.html China’s Rise Has Had Negative Impact on Global Innovation, Experts Say]. ''The Epoch Times''. Retrieved January 6, 2020.</ref> Under Xi Jinping, China regressed back to Mao's totalitarianism.<ref>Adelmann, Bob (December 30, 2019). [https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/34470-china-s-xi-jinping-is-now-the-people-s-leader China’s Xi Jinping Is Now the “People’s Leader”]. ''The New American''. Retrieved December 30, 2019.</ref>
====2008 Repression====
{{main|Xinjiang Concentration Camps}}
In 2008 China's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas. During the year the government increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), increased detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners, and maintained tight controls on freedom of speech and the Internet. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the Olympics and the unrest in Tibet. As in previous years, citizens did not have the right to change their government. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), both local and international, continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. Other serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor. Workers cannot choose an independent union to represent them in the workplace, and the law does not protect workers' right to strike. The government continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison journalists, writers, activists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law.<ref>See [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eap/119037.htm U.S. State Department, ''2008 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)'' Feb. 25, 2009]</ref>
In December 2009, China executed a man named Akmal Shaikh for drug smuggling. There is evidence that Shaikh was mentally ill, but he was not given a psychological exam of any sort before the trial. He was not given an examination because the Chinese government declared that neither Shaikh or his family could prove he was mentally ill through documentation or family history. The British government made many requests for clemency, including at an eleventh-hour meeting with the Chinese ambassador, but they were consistently ignored.<ref>https://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-britain-china30-2009dec30,0,4153003.story</ref>
====Internet censorship====
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has criticized Chinese censorship and restrictions on the Internet, and China is pushing back since the Communist Party considers Internet control essential if it is to maintain the stability of the country. Between 2006 and 2010, Google had a censored version of its search engine in mainland China on google.cn. In 2010, Google ended its censored mainland Chinese version, instead offering a link to the Hong Kong Chinese version, which does not censor search results, but is blocked in the mainland. The Communist Party promotes Internet use for commerce, but heavily censors content it deems pornographic, anti-social or politically subversive and blocks many foreign news and social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The censorship is nicknamed the "Great Firewall of China," which is based on the [[Great Wall of China]]. However, the censorship can easily be bypassed with a [[Virtual Private Network]] (VPN), colloquially known as 翻墙 (''fānqiáng'', lit. "going over the wall").
====Doping in the Olympic Games====
''See also'': [[Irreligion and unsportsmanlike conduct]]
German news website ''Deutsche Welle'' (DW) reported:
{{Cquote|A former doctor has revealed the massive extent of doping of Chinese Olympic athletes during the 1980s and 1990s. The whistleblower has claimed more than 10,000 athletes were doped in the state-backed program.<ref>[https://www.dw.com/en/systematic-doping-of-chinese-athletes-in-olympic-games-revealed-by-former-doctor/a-41065227Systematic doping of Chinese athletes in the Olympic Games revealed by former doctor], DW</ref>}}
==References==