Wednesday, February 8, 2012

China's History (In Brief)


Before we jump into recent Chinese international affairs I think an overview of China’s global upcoming would serve justice (for those who aren’t as familiar). Before the modern People’s Republic of China (PRC) was formed in 1949, China was a string of dynasties and political turmoil.  

CASE I: The Qing Dynasty
The last dynasty was the Qing Dynasty that fell in 1912. In the late years of the Qing Dynasty it was politically weak. So it came to no surprise to many people when the Republic of China (ROC) substituted it.

Reasons:
The Qing Dynasty could no longer centralize power nor did anyone take China seriously anymore. The Western powers (Russia, UK, Germany, etc.) started to divide China into districts for themselves and made the rule of the Qing Dynasty illegitimate. As a result, many of the unfair treaties (like loosing Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Shanghai) that hindered humiliations of China were the legacies that are present even today are arguably things China continues to attempt to correct.

CASE II: The Republic of China (ROC)
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty the ROC governed China. However, similar to the previous government, the ROC was weak. Reasons that attribute to this failure are its inability to gain support internally. Consequently, China went through a spiral of internal chaos. The division of regions divided between areas ruled by landlords and government officials took China to a similar era in the USA known as the “Wild, Wild, West.” Therefore, the ROC in the long run (to make this story short) due to the ROC’s infectiveness they get displaced by the PRC.

Reasons:
The ROC unfortunately was a weak experiment of new model of governance in China, which explains a lot of their ability to govern. Since China had a history of long dynasties. Later the ROC got their act together (partially due to Western support, who as some scholars say used the ROC as a puppet government). This angered many Chinese patriots who wanted to fix the ills from the Qing Dynasty and so people go their arms up and attacked the ROC for being on the side of the imperialist. To who to some respect were the ones who destroyed China’s order. Consequently, the ROC gets expelled to Taiwan (after the ROC and PRC fought for years). So now you now know why there are two Chinas (yay).

CASE III: People’s Republic of China (PRC)
In the beginning of the birth of the PRC in 1949, the PRC was trying to fix everything that ever went wrong since the Qing Dynasty until now (but it was a lot and they also realized they were poor). So with no money they realized they were still dependent on foreign assistance. And it only made it worst that they saw Japan becoming everything they wanted to be.

So you may ask yourself, what did the Chinese do? Well the Chinese before they can arguably fix how imperialist countries wronged them they had to get in a position of power. So over the decades China worked hard to create a new world order and at the same time integrate themselves in how you play the game (similar to being around the popular kids and you just got to learn how to play their game and once you are a member you can change it). Even though, China keeps using a lot of language saying they are all about peace it is noticeable to the world that their agenda are to correct how someone in their minds exploited them.

Reasons:
I have come to this conclusion with China demanding Hong Kong to revert back to China (taking it away from the UK) in 1998. A long with China infiltrating the IMF, UN, and other international institutions. Now most recently China is in a position of power so they have the world at their fingertips. So China can either take revenge upon everyone who wronged them or forgive and forget. This is where we are at (in a nutshell), where will they take their position of power? 

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