Is China falling apart?

On 1 October 1949 Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. On Tiananmen Square that day was Li Shenzhi, together with tens of thousand of other young, idealistic and excited Communists. “China”, wrote Li when later he was to describe this day, “had said farewell forever to the past … to backwa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:CME Working paper series 2012
Main Author: Isachsen, Arne Jon
Format: Article
Language:Norwegian
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:On 1 October 1949 Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. On Tiananmen Square that day was Li Shenzhi, together with tens of thousand of other young, idealistic and excited Communists. “China”, wrote Li when later he was to describe this day, “had said farewell forever to the past … to backwardness, to poverty and to ignorance, and had set out on a completely new road, to liberty, equality and fraternity”. But this is not how it turned out. “The nearly thirty years of the People’s Republic up to 1976 could thus be said to have been a reign of terror”, wrote Li Shenzhi in 1999 – 50 years after the establishment of the People’s Republic.