20 century China Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

20 century China - Essay Example Deng Xiaoping’s era was marked as the â€Å"decade of reform† as it effected a total revamp of the legal system,brought in more democracy at government and party levels, gave more freedom for the people for self-government and became a new era of hope for the Chinese republic.A transformation from communism to socialist democracy was visible in all spheres. This change brought about also the development of a socialist political civilization. It was a time when writers, a group of Marxist theoreticians, scientists and their disciple-students were lining up for democracy and forming a network.They had a vision that, in order to nourish democracy, a limit has to be drawn on the powers of the ruling Marxist Party.Deng era was also an era of legal reforms. There was a steady reform process going on to establish a socialist legal system. A more independent judiciary and freedom of press evolved through this. In this way, the political reform in China was coming of age by effe ctive changes in administrative and legal systems and policies. In this way, the reform era marked the establishment of a full-fledged legal system, where laws were enacted and codified and a regular network of courts started functioning.The reach and effectiveness of judiciary was considerably increased with effective monitoring and punitive provisions wherever pitfalls were seen. The reforms included, giving more self-determination powers and self rule provisions to ethnic groups and regions, more democratic election process at party-level and government-level and more centralized administration of remote regions of the nation. Multiple candidates were allowed in the elections for the people’s congresses and this was for the first time after revolution (Goldman, 13). Also secret ballot system was introduced (Goldman, 13). In 1987, the elections to the Central Committee were held in the 13th Party Congress, allowing multiple candidates (Goldman, 13). Soon after taking charge of the nation, Deng removed all intellectuals from the category that comes under the term, ‘bourgeoisie’ (Goldman, 30). Elections were allowed for deciding the administrative heads of professional and scientific establishments (Goldman, 30). All these initiated a new vigor in Chinese political scene. The proclaimed slogan of Deng-era had been â€Å"political democratization† (Goldman, 35). All these reforms have been successful when viewed from the side of democracy but they resulted in the lessening of the power of the party. If viewed from the side of the implementers of these reforms, it can be seen that the reforms did bring in more democracy but also weakened the existing domination of the party. The most important aspect of reforms has been that a well-defined system for scrutinizing and recording social situations was established and also a space was provided for public discourses and grievance-hearing onsocial issues. All these changes together saw the b irth of a new socialist China where people had more rights and more freedom. 2. What are the basic element and goals in Deng’s economic reform agenda? What are the major obstacles to successfully completion the economic reform process? Deng’s economic reform agenda looked forward to correcting the anomalies in China’s economy and helping it grow. But despite the few benefits harvested from the reforms through privatisation and new tax system, major sectors like agriculture, industry, finance and foreign trade failed to reap the promises of the reform. The focus was on a socialist economy which could only be developed through extensive industrialization. The major aspect of economic reform in Deng-era was the decentralization that was initiated (Shen, 9 of preface). The key elements of the reform were, â€Å"readjustment, restructuring, consolidation and improvement†