The Communist Revolution

When Empress Cixi died in 1908, she bequeathed power to two-year-old Puyi (Aisin Gioro Puyi), China’s last emperor. But the Qing dynasty, battered by years of war and internal power struggles and with little control outside Beijing, was about to collapse. The revolution of 1911 paved the way for the Kuomintang (or Nationalists) to take power, and the Republic of China was declared, with Sun Yat-sen as president. That made precious little difference to China’s parlous state, as warlords continued to carve up huge swaths of the country, while the foreign powers controlled important economic zones in major ports like Shanghai and Tianjin.

Crippling poverty and splintered rule were a recipe for further rebellion. Beijing’s students were at the forefront of protests and it was at Peking University that a young librarian named Mao Zedong (1893–1976) began reading the works of Karl Marx. The Chinese Communist Party emerged and joined with the Kuomintang to wrestle power from the northern warlords. A year later (1927), the Kuomintang turned on the communists, who fled into China’s vast interior. The Chinese civil war was under way.

The Japanese takeover of Beijing in 1937 saw the Kuomintang fleeing the city too and resulted in an uneasy eight-year truce with the communists. But after Japan’s defeat in 1945, hostilities resumed and this time there would only be one winner. In 1949 the communists marched into Beijing and Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, while the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, along with China’s gold reserves and many of the Forbidden City’s treasures.

AFTERMATH

Beijing underwent huge changes in the first decade of communist rule. The mighty city walls were pulled down, and hundreds of temples and historic buildings were demolished. The turmoil continued in the 1960s, when Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. Though this wasn’t the most costly of Mao’s mistakes in terms of lives lost, the period between 1966 and his death in 1976 was still catastrophic for China.

Chaos ruled, as Mao incited the masses to rid China of the bourgeois elements he claimed were holding back the revolution. Red Guards, Mao’s youth army, roamed the streets, the education system collapsed, neighbours informed on neighbours and families were split, as hysteria about ‘capitalist-roadsters’ saw millions persecuted.

A great deal of damage was done to Beijing’s ancient temples and other historic buildings, the scars of which can still be seen today. It’s ironic that the HQ of the Cultural Revolution in Beijing was at a site now occupied by a swish shopping plaza that houses the popular nightclub GT Banana.

After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping, his one-time protégé, launched the economic reforms that have led to China’s emergence as a global superpower. The country began to open up and Westerners started to visit. Temples and monuments were restored, while in Beijing thousands of ancient hutong (alleyways) were bulldozed to make way for skyscrapers and apartment blocks.

China’s leaders had embraced capitalism, but they had no intention of changing politically. In 1989, the pro-democracy student demonstrations in Tiananmen Sq ended in hundreds of protestors dying at the hands of the army. Today, political dissent has been consigned to a subterranean level, with those who publicly oppose the Communist Party harassed or arrested.

Staging the hugely successful 2008 Olympics was the cue for Beijing to be transformed again. Infrastructure has been vastly improved, new buildings have changed the skyline and Beijing is now a true world city. Nevertheless, the conflict between economic freedom and the absolute power wielded by the Communist Party presents huge challenges for the future. After all, many a dynasty has risen and fallen in Beijing.

FENG SHUI

Literally meaning ‘wind and water’, feng shui is a collection of ancient geomantic principles that sees bodies of water and landforms directing the cosmic currents of the universal qi (energy). Feng shui guidelines create a positive path for qi, which can maximise a person’s wealth, happiness, longevity and fertility. Ignoring the principles and blocking the flow can spell disaster. Temples, tombs, houses and even whole cities have been built in feng shui fashion to harmonise with the surrounding landscape. Within a building, the order of rooms and arrangement of furniture can also inhibit or enhance qi flow.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14