Hua Guofeng Extended Biography
Hua GuofengExtended BiographyYou may wish to share this biography with students, or just to read it for your own information.For most of the past 2,000 years or so, China has been one of the principal economic engines of global trade and has had the largest (or among the largest) regional economies of any region of the world. But beginning around the 1820s, this situation changed and Europe, and later North America and Japan, became the principal global centers of industrial production. In China, meanwhile, informal colonialism, Japanese occupation, and internal unrest locked the local economy into a cycle of stagnation. Most of the country did not industrialize throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When the country was finally unified and the Japanese occupiers expelled in the 1940s, it was under the control of the Chinese Communist Party led by Chairman Mao Zedong. Mao focused on agrarian reform, mostly along strict communist lines. This approach centered decision-making in the hands of the central government. It was generally quite inefficient and punished innovation. But after Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, things began to change. Immediately following his death, a power struggle broke out between the Gang of Four – hardliners led by Mao’s last wife Jiang Qing – and reformers led by Deng Xiaoping who wanted a new, and somewhat more open, economy and social system. Eventually, by 1980, Deng had won. The Gang of Four had been arrested and mostly imprisoned. Deng himself never became Premier (or official leader) of China, but by 1980 was behind the new leadership including the Premier Zhao Ziyang. They put in place some new freedoms. For the first time since the Communist Party had taken power, people were allowed to criticize the government to some degree. Perhaps most importantly, a new set of policies was put in place called “the Four Modernizations”, which included economic reforms. These included “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, which meant keeping a lot of state control but allowing regions and households to make some decisions and to respond to changing incentives, including some private ownership. The result was a mix of authoritarian planning and personal motivations to make money. It was a system that was pretty flexible and responsive but also gave individuals an incentive to work hard and innovate. It was these moves that transformed the Chinese economy, and returned China to a position of global economic leadership.Deng Xiaoping is generally credited for these advances, and the Chinese Communist Party followers and disciples of Deng make sure that is the case. But in fact, a lot of evidence suggests that this ‘liberalization’ of the Chinese economy was not mainly his idea. Some credit should go to the people who worked with him. But possibly, a lot should go to the leaders who came before him, the most significant of whom was Hua Guofeng.Hua Guofeng was born in Shanxi Province in 1921, when much of China was falling under Japanese Occupation. He joined the anti-Japanese resistance in 1936 and became a member of the Communist Party in 1938. He then rose through the ranks of the party as it took control across China. Hua gained increasing power and authority the way officials across China did so during Mao’s regime – by flattering Mao. He built a memorial hall dedicated to Mao, and defended policies like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. By 1973, he had become responsible for agricultural development across China, and by 1975, Vice-Premier. By this time, the split between Deng Xiaoping’s reformers and the Gang of Four (and the sick Chairman Mao) was becoming clear. It was clear that there would be a clash between the two as soon as Mao died. Hua agreed with the reformers, but also presented himself as a choice that could satisfy long-time supporters of Mao. As a result, he managed to elevate himself into power in October 1976.
2Hua Guofeng - Extended BiographyBecause Deng Xiaoping and the reformers took power four years later, they have always depicted Hua Guofeng as a hardline communist. In fact, however, there is a great deal of evidence that Hua quietly but quickly moved towards economic liberalization. As early as 5 November 1976, a month after taking power, he pushed for improved living standards and reforms in the way the economy responded to market forces. The result was a series of national economic conferences to reform industry, railroads, banking, technology, and the capital. In many cases, it was these conferences that led to the “socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, the mix of socialism and capitalism that led to China’s economic revival in the 1980s. Most people give the credit for these changes to Deng and his cohorts, who probably do deserve some, but the role of Hua Guafeng, their political opponent, is forgotten. In fact, the policy’s success may be due in part to Hua’s ability to make it happen carefully and slowly, instead of rushing ahead as Deng would have done.“Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” has transformed China. The Chinese economy grew at an amazing 9.5% per year since 2018, the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in the history of the world. This has allowed the country to raise 800 million people out of poverty. It has also made the country the world’s largest economy and manufacturer. For many Chinese families, this has meant a much richer and better life. For the world, it has meant a political realignment as the power of China grows, for better or for worse.