【明報專訊】On 1 October 1949 a 300,000-strong crowd gathered in Tiananmen Square (天安門廣場) and witnessed Chairman Mao's (毛澤東) uplifting proclamation of the establishment of the new China. They erupted in celebration, few knowing the hardship awaiting them.
The background
The Communist Party of China (CPC, 中國共產黨) was established in 1920, when Marxist ideas (馬克思思想) had captured the attention of many Chinese intellectuals. At the behest (指示) of the Soviet Union government many Chinese Communists joined the Kuomintang (中國國民黨), which was founded by Sun Yat-sen (孫中山).
But soon the two parties came into conflict, and, after a purge by the Kuomintang, the Communists broke away. The two parties cooperated during the Second Sino-Japanese War (抗日戰爭). But after Japan's surrender (投降) in 1945, they came into military conflict again.
Abhorred (厭惡) by the people for its gross corruption, the Kuomintang (led by Chiang Kai-shek, 蔣介石) was defeated in the civil war. It retreated to Taiwan.
The new China
The Communists decided to re-name the country the "People's Republic of China (PRC)" after its victory in the war. On 1 October 1949, Mao Zedong took up his position as Chairman of the Central Government. Zhu De (朱德), Liu Shaoqi (劉少奇), Soong Ching-ling (宋慶齡) and others were made Vice-Chairmen. Zhou Enlai (周恩來) became Chinese Premier.
At 3 pm that day the proclamation ceremony commenced. As most countries in the world still maintained diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (中華民國), now based in Taiwan, they didn't dispatch their representatives to the ceremony. But it was attended by diplomats from other Socialist countries like the Soviet Union.
Chairman Mao, standing high over the heads of the crowd, uttered the words that had them trembling with excitement, "My compatriots, the Central Government of the People's Republic of China has been established today!" He also read aloud a public announcement denouncing the evils of the Chiang administration and calling on other countries to build ties with the nascent government.
Subsequent events
The PRC was engaged in war less than a year after its proclamation. It sent nearly 800,000 troops in support of North Korea in the Korean War (韓戰), and suffered heavy casualties.
In pursuit of a Utopian (烏托邦式的) society free of class inequalities and trying at the same time to purge (清洗) the party of his political rivals, Chairman Mao took a series of disastrous policies to the huge suffering of the Chinese people. These included the Anti-Rightist Movement (反右運動), the Great Leap Forward (大躍進) and the Cultural Revolution (文化大革命), which altogether caused tens of millions of deaths.
Mao's death in 1976 marked a new beginning for China. Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平, right), having taken the reins of leadership, embarked on a series of economic reforms. The central government's brutal suppression of the 1989 pro-democracy movement led to wide international condemnation (譴責). But the country emerged as a world power as Deng's reform efforts started to bear fruit.
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