27 September 2009
It is a moment seared forever into Geng’s memory, and which the nation of 1.3 billion people will celebrate on Thursday with a military parade and carefully choreographed mass performances in Tiananmen Square.
“Everyone was clapping, waving red flags, and chanting ‘Long live Chairman Mao, long live Chairman Mao,’ said Geng, 79, making sweeping hand gestures as he described the “grand” scene.
“We had been liberated. How could we not be happy about the founding of the People’s Republic of China?” Geng said, sitting outside the tiny brick home in one of Beijing’s historic neighbourhoods where he has lived for 69 years.
China has launched a massive security operation for this week’s National Day festivities amid rising social and ethnic unrest, and it continues to face criticism over its human rights record and lack of democratic politics.
But for those who remember the old days, pre-1949, the holiday remains a cause for celebration, offering insight into how the Communist Party continues to command strong support among China’s vast population.
Like countless millions of Chinese before the communist “liberation”, Geng and his family struggled to survive in a traumatised, war-shattered country, and life was full of hardship for the low-paid electrician.
His father and younger brother had died of illnesses they could not afford to treat. Food shortages were routine.
Post-1949, he beams, the Communist Party came through with jobs, a social safety net and medicine for the masses.
“So before liberation our lives were very difficult. But after liberation, there was no comparison,” he said.
Wu Pei, now 81, also was at Tiananmen on October 1, but, as a destitute 21-year-old labourer worried about where his next meal would come from, thoughts of political change were far from his mind.
“At the time, the prices of commodities could change eight times in one day. There was a long waiting line every day when I went to buy rice,” he said.
“We knew that after liberation our lives would be better, but we didn’t think much about the country — just our own lives.”
Wu made about 50 yuan (seven dollars at today’s rates) a month in 1949. Thanks to the party, his retirement pension today is 2,000 yuan per month — much more than he needs, he boasts.
Like other witnesses to the events of 1949, he is full of pride over rising living standards in China and the country’s re-emergence as a global economic, military and political power.
“The changes have been great, earthshaking,” said Wu.
“We could not have foreseen that things could have turned out like this. We only thought it would be better, but never this good.”
For those who witnessed China on its knees, even dark times such as the social chaos of the Cultural Revolution and disastrous Communist economic policies are dismissed as bumps in the road that had their upsides.
The Cultural Revolution, for example, was the impetus for Deng Xiaoping’s momentous economic reforms that restored China’s strength, Wu said.
“(The Cultural Revolution) created huge waste in society, and brought much misfortune. But it helped to liberate our thinking,” Wu said.
But not everyone will be celebrating on October 1.
Dissident Bao Tong was a 16-year-old budding party cadre in Shanghai in 1949 when the news of Mao’s proclamation was broadcast.
He remembers rushing into the streets with crowds of others to rejoice.
“We were all so thrilled. A light rain came but everyone kept celebrating very happily,” he said.
Bao later became a close aide to former Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, but was dragged down along with him when he was purged for opposing the use of force on the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.
“In 1949, I thought the Chinese people had really been liberated. We were freed, and would not be oppressed anymore. Everyone would be able to speak their minds, and to work, and to eat,” Bao said.
“I was very excited. But in the end, I realised it was not to be.”
Major events in communist China’s history 1940s: October 1, 1949: Mao Zedong declares the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. 1950s: 1956-57: An estimated 500,000 intellectuals are sent to labour camps, despite having been urged by Mao to criticise the Communist Party. 1958: Mao launches the Great Leap Forward, demanding massive rises in industrial production. The resulting economic catastrophe causes a famine which kills an estimated 30 million people. March 1959: Chinese troops crush a rebellion in Tibet. Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his followers flee to India. 1960s: October 16, 1964: China detonates its first nuclear bomb in the western region of Xinjiang. May 1966: A power struggle between Mao and other leaders prompts the Cultural Revolution, a decade of chaos in which predominantly youthful radicals wage a campaign of terror against “counter-revolutionaries”. 1970s: October 23, 1971: Beijing takes Taiwan’s seat as the officially recognised Chinese government at the United Nations. September 9, 1976: Mao dies. Hua Guofeng takes power and the Gang of Four, including Mao’s wife Jiang Qing, are arrested. 1978: Deng Xiaoping becomes supreme leader and begins tentative economic reforms. 1980s: April 15, 1989: Death of ousted party chief Hu Yaobang, a reformer, sparks pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. June 3-4, 1989: The army crushes Tiananmen Square protests, causing hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths. 1990s: March 21, 1990: Deng steps down from his last official post, but remains supreme leader from behind the scenes. March 1993: Jiang Zemin becomes president. February 19, 1997: Deng dies. July 1, 1997: Hong Kong returns to Chinese rule. 2000s: December 17, 2001: China joins the World Trade Organisation. November 15, 2002: Longtime heir-in-waiting Hu Jintao becomes Communist Party general secretary. March 15, 2003: Jiang steps down as president, handing over to Hu. October 15, 2003: Yang Liwei becomes China’s first man in space. March 14, 2008: Anti-Chinese riots explode in Lhasa and spread to other Tibetan populated areas around China. They are crushed by security forces. March 15, 2008: Hu is given another five years as president and Wen Jiabao begins his second term as prime minister. May 12, 2008: A devastating earthquake strikes southwestern Sichuan province, leaving nearly 87,000 people dead or missing. August 8-24, 2008: China hosts the Olympic Games in Beijing July 5, 2009: Ethnic unrest erupts in mainly Muslim Xinjiang. Nearly 200 people are killed, most of them Han Chinese, according to the official toll. Key facts and figures about China GEOGRAPHY: China is the world’s fourth largest country, stretching out over 9.6 million square kilometres (3.8 million square miles) of central and eastern Asia, with 14,500 kilometres (9,000 miles) of coastline. It borders a total of 14 countries — Russia and Mongolia to the north, North Korea to the northeast, and Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Vietnam to the west and south. The climate varies from tropical in the south to subarctic in the north. POPULATION: Around 1.3 billion people. A majority (55 percent) still live in rural areas. There are 56 ethnic groups, including the majority Han Chinese, and minorities such as the Tibetans, mainly Muslim Uighurs, and Mongols. Life expectancy is 70 years for men and 73 years for women, according to the latest official figures in 2000. The literacy rate is high in China — 91 percent. CAPITAL: Beijing, 17 million people. LANGUAGE: Mandarin Chinese (official), Cantonese, Shanghainese, as well as a host of other dialects around the country. RELIGION: Officially atheist. Of those who practise religion, most are Taoist or Buddhist, three to four percent are Christian, and between one and two percent are Muslim. GOVERNMENT: Communist state, one party. Parliament is the unicameral, 2,898-strong National People’s Congress (NPC), which meets for a full session once a year. President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have been in office since March 2003. Both the president and vice-president (currently Xi Jinping) are elected by the NPC for a five-year term, and are eligible for a second term. The premier is nominated by the president, and confirmed by the NPC. ECONOMY: World’s third largest economy after the United States and Japan. In 2008, GDP was 4.4 trillion dollars — a growth of nine percent from a year earlier. The financial crisis has seriously impacted China’s exports, but a 580-billion-dollar stimulus package has helped boost domestic demand and economic growth is expected to hit about eight percent this year. Resources include coal, iron ore, oil, uranium and the world’s largest hydropower potential. The currency is the renminbi. Urban unemployment was 4.2 percent in 2008, although this could be much bigger as the official figure does not include migrant workers and university graduates. Trade surplus reached 15.7 billion dollars in August. China also has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves at 2.13 trillion dollars. ARMED FORCES: With 2.3 million soldiers, the People’s Liberation Army is the world’s largest military. China’s defence spending rose 15.3 percent in 2009 to 69 billion dollars, according to a budget submitted to parliament in March.
