China at 60: Mao, Marx, and Military

China marked the 60th anniversary of Communist rule on Oct 1, with a big parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Almost a week after, analysts across are still trying to decipher the significance.

2009 is also the 20th anniversary of the student protests in Tiananmen Square. This is also the 20th year since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which signalled the beginning of the collapse of Soviet Union and the Communist empire.

With protests in Tibet last year, in Xinjiang province this year, and the drastic drop in Chinese exports due global economic slowdown, it was perhaps not a surprise that the Chinese leadership sought to return to their roots.

"Only socialism can save China and only reform and opening up can ensure the development of China, socialism and Marxism," said President Hu Jintao, who swapped his dark business suits for the charcoal-grey button-up tunic favoured by Mao Zedong, reported the Financial Times.

In the Olympics opening ceremony last year, film director Zhang Yimou was able to inject style and imagination into this tradition to fashion a vision of a modern China - a sort of hi-tech and creative authoritarianism. In contrast, Thursday's parade represented a retreat into Communist slogan and kitsch. Many of the floats looked like relics from the 1950s, with mottos such as "Socialism is Great".

The commemoration of the Communist revolution was an annual feature in the first decade after Mao took power. After the Party marked the occasion in a big way only on the 25th and 50th anniversary. No doubt China today is very different from the days of Mao. At the same time, while showcasing the power and glory of the revolution, the parade also ended up highlighting the deep undercurrents. The People's Republic, celebrated the occasion, sans its people!

central Beijing was completely deserted after unprecedented security measures kept the public away and ensured no unexpected incidents ruined the parade. Ordinary citizens were told to watch the show on television and blocked from getting anywhere near the festivities.

I could not but think of all the official parades in India, during various times of strife and conflict, where either people came to fill the stands despite security threats, or on other occasions, officials went out of the way to try and get people to attend.

The contrast was particularly glaring, when one remembers the modern, high tech, and synchronised brilliance that was on display at the opening of the Beijing Olympics just one year ago.

The celebrations began with a military parade of goose-stepping soldiers that showed off 52 new weapon systems, including what the state new agency called the "trump card", an anti-ship ballistic missile. Chinese fighter jets flew over Beijing in bright blue skies free from the thick smog of the past two days.
The military were followed by a civilian procession of 180,000 performers, grouped around floats representing all the country's provinces, its important industries and key concepts such as 'socialist democracy'.
The content of the pageant was a visual reminder of the contradictions inherent in modern China, as it moved swiftly from paeans to Marxism, Mao Zedong thought and socialism to lauding the nation's economic rise and the unleashing of market forces over the past three decades. (Reported the Financial Times.)

Another report in the Financial Times, reminded the readers

Sixty years ago, few would have believed Mao Zedong's Communist party could have come so far. It owes its survival to its ability to adapt. Mao took the country down several blind alleys. Millions died through famine in the Great Leap Forward or were brutalised in the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping loosened the state's hold on the economy, unleashing China's extraordinary potential. But the party never loosened its grip on power. When students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square threatened to spark widespread rebellion, Deng had no hesitation in sending in the troops.

Xingyuan brought these two items from Financial Times to my notice.

Uneasy Engagement: China rises, Region worries

In a new series of articles in the New York Times, titled "Uneasy Engagement", reporters have been looking at the rise of China, and the worries that many in the region are beginning to share. This is a contrast with India's experience, where India's economic growth has not sparked any particular concern even among its immediate neighbours. India's uneasy relationship with some of its immediate neighbour seems to be rooted more in history, rather than in economics.
In the first article, in this series, "Australia, Nourishing China’s Economic Engine, Questions Ties", NYT provides a glimpse of the sentiments in Australia.

China has become Australia’s biggest trading partner, one of its biggest tourism customers, the largest single buyer of its government debt, a major buyer of farmland and real estate...

China’s hunger for steel gobbles up half of Australia’s iron ore exports, and its textile factories buy more than half of Australia’s wool. Over 120,000 Chinese students throng to Australian schools and universities...

Three state owned Chinese companies said they would buy stakes in Australia’s storied mining industry totaling $22 billion — as much as China’s entire investment here in the last three years — some of this nation’s 21.3 million people have reacted with aggrieved nationalism...

Nor is Australia alone. From the Philippines to Vietnam, China’s neighbors are recalculating the benefits — and potential deficits — of life in the shadow of a newly dominant nation...

In the second of the series, "China and India Dispute Enclave on Edge of Tibet", NYT visits the predominently Buddhist area of Tawang in India's north eastern province of Arunachal Pradesh, and experiences the tension between China and India over this part of the border.

This is perhaps the most militarized Buddhist enclave in the world...

Though little known to the outside world, Tawang is the biggest tinderbox in relations between the world’s two most populous nations. It is the focus of China’s most delicate land-border dispute, a conflict rooted in Chinese claims of sovereignty over all of historical Tibet.

In recent months, both countries have stepped up efforts to secure their rights over this rugged patch of land. China tried to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank on the grounds that part of the loan was destined for water projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the state that includes Tawang. It was the first time China had sought to influence the territorial dispute through a multilateral institution. Then the governor of Arunachal Pradesh announced that the Indian military was deploying extra troops and fighter jets in the area.

The growing belligerence has soured relations between the two Asian giants and has prompted one Indian military leader to declare that China has replaced Pakistan as India’s biggest threat.

Economic progress might be expected to bring the countries closer. China and India did $52 billion worth of trade last year, a 34 percent increase over 2007. But businesspeople say border tensions have infused business deals with official interference, damping the willingness of Chinese and Indian companies to invest in each other’s countries.

Many of us believe that open trade and commerce is one of the key factors in building peaceful relationship between communities and countries. But China's economic rise has generated admiration as well as triggered apprehension.