History assignment essay : China’s History
Introduction:
The paper talks about China’s history from the time period 1839 to the present. Full overview of key changes been presented in the paper that have taken place during the cold wars and economic reforms in the country. The paper has presented each aspect and reason of its changing relationships to various countries. The key factors of Chinese opium war have also been highlighted in the paper which delineates the work of Lin, the commissioner of China during the opium war. Next, it discusses about the cold war and has explained the central position of China in the cold war which occurred from 1949-1989. During the war, protest and violence took place and the youth came forward to take initiative in country’s improvement.
The history after 1989 also has been explored in the discussion which has highlighted some of the key reforms which were made in China in terms of economic, social and environmental factors. This year was also known as the fourth June incident in the history of China. In this, urban workers, students, scholars and other intellectuals participated in the protest and demanded their rights from the government; this resulted in the appointment of youth members in the government. They made changes in government ministries and agencies so that major concerns of the country could be addressed with priority.
Next part of the paper discusses about the rise of Chinese economy and its implications for both Australia and the United States. At this stage, modem and corporate systems were introduced so that both rural and urban areas could be considered equally. Hence, it resulted in job growth for unbans and tax reforms for rural people. The conflicts and opportunities for Australia and U.S also have been defined separately. The further portion of the paper has attempted to make an analysis of trade and security between Australia and China. In this regard, the concept of ANZUS, ASEAN, and APEC have been discussed talking about the relationship of these nations with China and Australia. Finally, the report has analyzed the conflicts, tensions and opportunities arising out of these relationships and has presented the consequences of ANZUS.
History of China:
This segment of the essay talks about the history of China from 1839. Beginning from here, the age period of 1839 to 1900 is referred to the Qing dynasty’s decline period. In the beginning of 18th century, opium chests started making an entry into China that was more than five thousand in numbers. This number reached up to forty thousand by 1838. The main fact behind the opium entry in China was not acceptable because it had to be purchased with silver. After such issues Chinese Commissioner Lin Zexu joined Canton in 1839. After his joining in Canton, he ordered to mobilize the local officials so that the trade of opium could be eliminated or reduced in China. For that, Lin created an academy and tried to find out whoever was involved in the trade of opium and tried to arrest him moreover attempted to know the quantity opium traded. Therefore, this year is also known as the period of opium war (Chow, 2012).
At first, Lin policy achieved great heights and had an impact on the trade of opium. Lin Zexu became strong enough to compete with that opium war and successfully stopped the legitimate opium business. Apart from this, Lin also became competent to stop the war eventually with Britain which was on full scale at that point of time in China. Even, British at Canton did not have any clue about the plan made by Lin which made him implement that successfully. The authorities made them believe that there would no serious opposition to them irrespective of who is in charge. Not only British but also Elliot could not believe that Lin could go so far for his entire victory over opium trade’s issue in China (Hsin, Pao, 1964).
Besides, in the beginning of 1898, one of the great emperors named Guangxu came into power and attempted to rule China after few wars that he fought. He introduced some new and reformed schools and colleges in the country for the betterment of Chinese people. Moreover, the government budget was improved by him in terms of the empire that he was running with the rules and any of the corrupt officials were straight away dismissed from the court. In addition to that, many youths joined the revolutionary parties in order to give their hand to the improvement of their country. Furthermore, there was one of the movements May fourth movement which ended the war which occurred from 1914-18 (Jake, 2012).
Colonization:
The history of China’s colonization can be described in terms of its immigration to Victoria, Australia, US and UK. First, most of the Chinese rushed to Victoria and 7% of the population by 1861, was comprised of Chinese. But in 1850, government policy restricted the colonization of Chinese in other countries. But on the other hand, one of the acts immigration restriction in 1901 which is also known as White Australian policy reduced non-Europeans’ entry also including Chinese. This all was made possible with the support of a dictation test and in sum conditions with subject to residency were also controlled significantly (Museum Victoria Australia, n.d.).
Nonetheless, the protest was made by the Chinese community against prejudice and they demonstrated their contributions to economy and society. Therefore in 1970, policy through which the non-Europeans’ migration were restricted was lifted. Besides, the business link with China was also reinforced. Hence, the Chinese population became more than twenty thousand in Victoria in 1986-1991. Currently, according to census’ report, this number has crossed the expected limit and many of the Chinese doctors, businessmen, scholars, professionals and scholars has moved to Victoria.
Afterward, a little street Bourke which is located at Melbourne in Australia also attracted Chinese and they also made a colony there for cultural and business activity. Some of the Chinese also established their grocery stores and moved toward a setting up of vegetables and fruit hawking business in the towns of Melbourne. Not only, grocery business, Chinese people set up, but also operated a number of businesses such as import-export, medicine businesses, cabinet making and also cabinet making. It had started happening in 1850 and it is still there till today (Jonjayray, 2007).
The colonization of China can also be categorized in three periods. First from 1849 to 1882, then from 1882 to 1965 and finally from 1965 to present. Chinese people started arriving to America because they had a point of view that they would be able to send money back to their poor families or will go back to China with new acquired wealth. In addition to this, there was another reason that America allowed them the power of freedom and not to be based upon one’s point of view. Another reason was the over dominance of British over Chinese people because they defeated China in the war of opium which had taken place in 1839-1842. At very first, Chinese immigrants started supplying labor to American industry because they were more of importance to California during civil war (Luo, 2005).
Internal conflicts:
Internal conflicts took place after the war and the protests occurred in China. Many of the government and communist party officials were arrested and declared corrupt which led to the internal conflicts in the country. The appointment of youth members in the government also created an environment of conflict and raised the point of mismanagement. Afterwards, it was noticed that the urban layoffs and the issues of rural hardship led to conflicts between rural and urban societies because urban were taken care of more rather than rural societies (Wong, 2009).
Cold war 1949-1989:
The history of China’s cold war started from 1980s. The cold war was started between two countries the United States. China had a central position and role in the cold war due to its enormous population. Being a country having largest population and territory through the entire world became a factor in the cold war that the superpower countries involved could not ignore it (Zhaoyun, 2009). The entry of Mao’s China taking tactic association into consideration with the Soviet Union threatened the United States at the end of 1940s and at the early stage of 1950s. To avoid such threats from Soviet or communist’s side, the United States got involved in the wars of Korea and Vietnam and received support in terms of confronting Soviet camp globally (Jian, 2001).
Moreover, the situation was getting worsened with the division of China from Soviet Union and thus they reproached the United States for further support. This all happened between the time period of 1960 and 1970. After this, Soviet union grew weaker in confronting both west and China at the same time and its empire got collapsed finally in the late period of 1980s and at the early time period of 1990s (Gurtov & Hwang, 1980).
Opening up post 1989:
The history after 1989 talks about Tiananmen incident occurred in China. It started from the violent confrontations taking place between armed forces and the groups those were large in number and was making a voice against government. This incident is also called as the incident of fourth June. It was basically a protest held in 1989 which was the accumulation of Chinese communist party’s ex-members, thinkers, scholars, students, Trotskyites and urban workers. In this context, it made an impact on China because main concerns of urban workers were regarding both inflation and job insecurity which had taken place due to economic reforms in China. On the other front, intellectuals, scholars and thinkers had the prospect for political reforms and in that context they were demanding freedom of individual’s turn of phrase. Similarly, the students had demanded to curtail the corruption and to punish those government and communist party’s officials who were corrupt (Minqi & Li, 2006).
Impact:
These protests had a great impact on China and the government as well. After this protest, the communist party of China started maintaining its position and severely criticized the government. The government of China brought the condition of inflation under control just after the protest. In addition, cases were filed against the corrupt officials and some of the officials were hanged to death due to financial crimes made by them. All these changes and reforms brought a new life to the country and put forward a great example before the youths. Apart from this, government made the right to property official which has been acknowledged officially and the doors were opened for those who have become prosperous through the programme of economic modernization (Rosenzweig, 2011).
Rise of China’s economy:
As far as China’s economy is concerned, it has gone through four key changes of economy. First change took place in 1980; China allotted both land and animals to the farmers of the country and in turn established a management framework which was created with the modern shell. In addition, they also built up coastal regions that were developed as small private systems. The basic reason for their establishment was to grow business and finance globally. Protests and hostilities were carried out throughout this decade and ended at Tiananmen Square as the farmers were being totally supported by price inflation which was market-driven at that point of time. On the other front, urban residents were hurt because their purchasing power was reduced (Kiedel, 2008).
Next after this during 1990s, China worked in the area of profit incentives’ reinforcing and restructuring of established modern management. This resulted in the progress of those corporate systems which were privatized. These reforms were made possible in terms of political acceptability with the support of controlled prices on food in the country but on the other front, this led to the rural poverty. Moreover the situation of urban layoffs and poverty in rural region affected the social rest at an extensively. In this context, the government of China had to meet with the new social safety system for urban, insufficient efforts for rural compensation, interference of well-funded police, arrest warrants against the ringleaders, protestors and some officials who were violent and corrupt (Rawski, 2011).
Furthermore, the third phase of China’s economic reform was from 2001 to 2007. Throughout its economic rise in its third phase, China made an entry in market place with some institutions. In total, it made an overall growth of more than ten percent by making investments and consumption at domestic level and entering into the World Trade Organization. Moreover, Urban had started getting better jobs and had no tension of their job insecurity. On the other hand, there were reforms with respect to tax for the people residing in rural societies. Alternatively, increasing population and incomes exaggerated pollution in the environment of China which led political parties’ attention to social and environmental aspects (Adelman & Morris, 1997).
Finally, the fourth phase of reform in China came in 2008. At this stage, youth leaders were appointed and a new government group was framed in China. After new group began working toward the country’s economic, social and environmental protections, they promoted the overall growth and achievement of other important goals (Keller & Rawski, 2007).
Implications for Australia and US:
There are some strategic interests and shared political beliefs and values that tie Australia to U.S crosswise the Pacific in similar way. Despite the lock derived by Beijing between Canberra and Washington, China has not shown success, as the relationship between Australia and the United States has enlarged globally in a partnership. In this context, on the basis of analysis it can be pointed out that the relationship of these three countries has made a radical shift over the time period from 1949 to 1996. At the early stage of this period, Australia and U.S were associated with each other and China on the other. But in the beginning of 1970s, a big break entailed three of the countries to work in partnership against Soviet Union (Malik, 1969).
Based on this analysis, it has been stated that U.S, China and Australia, three of these countries had made a shift to trilateralism from bilateralism during the period of 1970. On the other front of their relationship, the policy of Australia was little more flexible towards China than America till 1955. Afterwards, Australia had started business with China, whereas there were total restrictions in the United States until 1969 (Rudd, 2012). Besides, Australia on a government level was more rigid as compared to U.S in the early time period of 1970s. Nonetheless, the Prime Minister Nixon of U.S visited China in 1972 and did not establish good and strong relationship there with PRC while on the other hand Whitlam made this possible as soon as he was appointed as Australia’s Prime Minister in 1972 (Asia link The University of Melbourne, 2012).
Conflicts and opportunities/benefits:
One of the reports reveals that the slowing nature of China’s economic growth affects Australia’s economy and other important and relevant aspects. The strong relations between China and Australia established with demand for minerals from China and the plentiful supplies from Australia (Perrin, 2011). But this has started creating tensions and conflicts between both the countries as China’s economic growth is slowing down and in turn Australia looks forward to secure their interest vested with investments from elsewhere. Australia is not interested anymore trading with China on account of not being collapsed with respect to trade. On the other hand, the sudden decline in the demand for iron ore and coal from China brought down the Australian price for these commodities (Pubarticles, 2012).
Furthermore, the economic rise in China had made significance for Australia and put across some opportunities and benefits for the country. According to one of the papers’ notification, Australia has made more than 13% increment to its GDP and contributed to its national income due to its commodity export to China. The demand from China frames the opportunity for Australia because Chinese government had started controlling inflation by lifting the interest rates in the country (Rudd, 2012). It demonstrates that resources are making near about 60% of the exports that had increased from 40% in 2005. In terms of benefits from the trade with China, Australia has observed the growth in prices from the past years as per their expectations. According to the historical standards, the terms for business with China for Australia are still very high. Besides, the increasing demand for commodities exported by Australia to the Asian country China has made a 60-year high (Fraser & Flitton, 2012).
The relationship of China with U.S is not flexible when compared to Australia-China relationship. This was a big issue for Americans as they have less trade opportunities with China. According to surveys and Chinese data, only 5% of Chinese GDP’s contribution is there in its exports to the United States and that is more than 7% according to the survey made by The United States of America. As China is the world’s second largest economy, a sudden slowdown in its economic growth has created new tensions for U.S. In this regard, China has planned to modify its policies which may benefit it getting back to its position at the cost of U.S. For an instance, China lowers down the value of its currency as compared to dollar which helped in making its export cheaper than the U.S (Goldfarb, 2011).
On the other hand, there can be a number of opportunities for the United States, for that it needs to seek the benefits from China. First U.S can play the economic game with China at an international level by seeking the opportunities and minerals it has in the country more than Australia. Next, the problem of conflicts taking place between China and the United States is not Australia’s good trade terms with China but its own policy of sclerotic trade. For that, a security perspective can be taken care by Americans to invest from the long-term prospect and by learning a lesson from Australians having strong trade relationship with China (Scissors, 2011).
Impact on regional cooperation security:
Both China and U.S are undoubtedly two most vital states that are counted in Asia-Pacific region. On the other side, Australia has good bonding with two of these states and it is always eager to enhance and grow its relationship with them. First, either there would be a mechanism of multilateral security or a cold war can take place between the United States and China which will result in more pressure on other regions including Australia. This automatically harms the regional cooperation security of the countries and to choose one future from these two (Nautilus institute for security and sustainability, 2012).
Moreover, with the quick changes in bilateral relations, some new areas have been proposed for cooperation and development. In addition, China’s has emerged as 21st century’s leading nation by receiving unexpected achievements. Since the time throughout 1978, China has lifted up and started growing continuously; Australia has considered itself as a confident power in middle. This in turn has positively affected the trade relationship between China and Australia. China is making great contribution to Australia’s prosperity (Prime Minister, 2011).
ANZUS:
ANZUS refers to the military alliance which comprises of Australia, New Zealand, and United States. Its main work to separate Australia and New Zealand, Australia and United States so that they could cooperate the domain of Pacific Ocean and could take care of defense matters (Cottrill, 2007). Additionally, ANZUS keeps strengthening the relationship in terms of dynamic and extensive security that includes sharing of technologies, training and other intelligence, cooperating and addressing issues of counter-terrorism and other related humanitarian activities. ANZUS also provides affix for engagement of the United States in the region and thus contributes to Asia Pacific’s security and affluence. Not only these activities are made by Australia, but also it maintains its strong connection with U.S by having high-level talks (Australian politics.com, 2012).
Alternatively, talking about China’s economy effect on ANZUS, it has been noticed that Australia and China has a mutual relationship with shared interests and differences. On the basis of 2010-2011 survey, the importance of China to Australia has increased with China’s economic rise and growth, and its political influence made in the regions of Asia Pacific at the global level of economy (Australian bureau of statistics, 2012).
ASEAN and APEC:
China has always considered Southeast Asia as an important part of its environment of security. For this, China Values ASEAN and APEC for their role in the realization of desired and expected vision. ASEAN refers to the association of Southeast Asian nations. One of the researches illustrated that before the time period of 1967, China was considered as a threat for Southeast Asia. But soon after ASEAN was found and established, the members of this association moved a step ahead and started working with China on good terms (ASEAN secretariat 2009).
In this context, both ASEAN and China worked together against assault of Cambodia made by Vietnam. The 1997 financial crisis occurred in Asia brought both ASEAN and China together as China refused to devaluate its currency which was mostly appreciated by ASEAN. After this strong bond, ASEAN had a great hope of China’s economic recovery. In short, from China’s perspective, the relationship in terms of economy towards ASEAN depends on balancing economy and general political and tactical interests (Baviera, n.d).
APEC is Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. It refers to the involvement of 21 Pacific Rim countries that usually look forward to develop free trade and economic assistance in the Asia-Pacific region (APEC, 2009). On the basis of survey, it can be made a point to be noticed that having high level of cooperation in Asia-pacific region, APEC has supported Chinese leaders much and in contrast helped them in carrying out their outreach publicity. With the help of APEC, China has made an entrance in modernization of their country and has also participated in economic incorporation at regional level. APEC has provided its hand for support to China for its economic and global development. Apart from this China has fully utilized the information extracted by APEC in the areas of telecommunication, energy, environment protection, other resources protection and technologies (APEC, 2009).
Analysis of tension, consequences and opportunities:
Keating demonstrated that ANZUS made a notification that the United States of America could not win the war with China on its mainland of Asia. This created a big issue for ANZUS to resolve and to deal with Australia in this relation. The continuous failure in the wars with Korea, Vietnam, and China as well as outside Asia countries made them believe that the land of Asia is completely unwinnable for them. The major tension was that it lost the opportunity to make an area of development for the United States of America and provided a golden opportunity to Australia and other nations.
On the other hand, ANZUS created the opportunities for U.S, Australia and China. It depicted the use of economic reforms and superfluous reforms which were taking placed on a consistent basis. ANZUS made them believe that the growing economy of China and its relationship with Australia opened the door for U.S in order to take benefits by supplying minerals (Australian politics.com, 2012).
Conclusion:
On the basis of overall discussion, it can be said that China has shown a dramatic progress after 1949. First the report started defining its history from the early 1839, where it was found that the war took place due to the trade of opium in the country. The commissioner of China, Lin planned to get rid of this and put forward the strategies to solve the problems. Not only, Britain could have an idea about his plans, but also Elliot got amazed by knowing about his ideas to eliminate the trade of opium from the country. Afterward, it has been pointed out that Chinese people started making entry to other countries like Vietnam, Australia, U.S and UK for their business, job and other works due to wars occurring there. They started the grocery, fruit & vegetable farms as a business and some of them started job in companies. Their immigration to Vietnam counted 7% Chinese population in their country. Next section of the report has described the cold war of 1949-1989 which led to the protests and violence against urban layoffs and rural hardships. More of the youth started protesting and demanded for their job securities and improvement in the country.
The rise of China’s economy has been discussed in four parts dividing the periods of reforms. First of all, the price profitable area was worked upon in China, then modern and private sectors were introduced in order to provide the job security to the urban people. After it, the rural societies were also taken care and provided with tax reforms. It made some implications for Australian and the United States of America. It depicted that Australia is growing with growing economy of China as the demand is increasing from their side for minerals and coals. Australia contributed to its national income up to more than 10%. On the other hand, U.S had been less affected for their relationship with China, as Australia already had good trade bonds with China. Furthermore, the impact of China’s economy on trade security between Australia and China also has been defined. Thus, ANZUS worked well to support the trade and investment security between the two countries and throughout Asia-Pacific region.
Afterwards, ASEAN and APEC have also been highlighted in terms of good working relationship with China. The study revealed that Southeast Asia didn’t have good terms with China before 1967. But after the set up of ASEAN, the members came forward to work with China and built strong relationship. It also revealed the benefits of APEC to China in its economic growth and development.
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