WHY HAS CHINA EMBRACEMENT OF CAPITALISM BEEN A POLITICAL CHOICE

With regard to the question of why China embraced capitalism, it is important to note that in Mao’s time, the Soviet Union and China were allies Mao’s China was a communist country, but it was still very much in the midst of a revolution China saw the Soviet Union as a revolutionary ally, and Mao had always been an admirer of Joseph Stalin, who was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time The Chinese saw the Soviet Union as a potential guide in the revolutionary process Mao’s China was a communist country, but it was still very much in the midst of a revolution But there were also critical differences between the Soviet Union and China The Chinese had always been more radical than the Russians During the Cultural Revolution, Mao had attacked Soviet revisionists and accused them of trying to undermine the Chinese revolution What this meant was that Mao’s China was in a different stage of development than the Soviet Union The Chinese revolution was still in the midst of its own revolution, while the Soviet Union was a consolidated state-capitalist regime China was not ready to embrace capitalism, but it was still a revolutionary country However, the country’s economic development was not going anywhere When the Chinese leadership saw what happened in the Soviet Union, it became clear that if China did not embrace capitalism, the country’s development would stagnate So in order to take the country forward economically, the Chinese leadership decided to embrace capitalism HOW DID THE CHINESE EMBRACE CAPITALISM? After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping became the leader of China Deng had been a member of the Chinese Communist Party since the 1920s He had played a very important role in the Chinese revolution, and he had been very close to Mao But by the 1970s, Deng had become critical of the way the Chinese revolution was being led This was the background to his rise to power When Deng took power, he realized that Mao had made many mistakes in the way he led the revolution Deng opened up the country to foreign investment, and he abolished many of the socialist institutions that had been put in place And he went about it very shrewdly