The People's
Republic of China
In the year 1950, China intruded in the
Korean War to help the North Koreans from getting removed off the
map by the South Koreans. Though this war ended up by 1953, but the
two are still in collision with each other over certain terms. In
1958, Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward to get the peasants
increase the production of crops and using more of labor into
production of steel. This led to huge man-made famine in the history
so far. The period 1958-1960 saw about 30 million people starving to
death due to poor management and bad planning, but the government
then accused bad weather as the reason behind it.
By 1962, China got rid of the Great Leap
Forward, but in 1966, Mao launched the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, by calling students to revolt against authority by
forming units of Red Guards. There was chaos in the entire country,
leading to schools and offices being shut down, and difficulties in
transportation as well. The year of 1967 witnessed huge riots in
Hong Kong and Macau. After Maos death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping became
the paramount leader in 1978, who then launched his own economic
reforms. He started off with making of agricultural reform programs
and gradually expanded to the entire China. In 1982, Britain Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher went to Beijing to meet him and discuss
the issue of Hong Kong. After she left, the United Kingdom and the
Peoples Republic of China (PRC) signed off an agreement concerning
the handover of Hong Kong to China from the United Kingdom,
regardless of what the people of Hong Kong say. Later in 1984, this
agreement was converted into a formal document called the Joint
Declaration. There are many Chinese residents in Hong Kong who have
British citizenship but are not permitted to live in Britain, while
people with British National (Overseas) passport were regarded as
the PRC nationals after 1997.
The progress of economic reforms was stopped for three years after
June 1992 in China. In 1993, when Deng Xiaoping visited Special
Economic Zone of Shenzhen and gave his approval, the Chinese economy
detonated and was only recently brought to some reasonable levels,
one of the latest developments being the death of Deng on 19
February 1997. Since Deng had already transferred his powers to
Jiang Zemin, there might be some new changes in Chinese political
system. China is expected to emerge out as a leading industrial
power in the next century with its close allies being East Asian
countries.
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