Comparative politics
Answer of question no. 1
Major combat in the Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil Wa ended in 1949 with the Communist Party of China in control of the mainland, and the Kuomintang retreating to Taiwan and some outlying islands of Fujian. On October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, declaring “the Chinese people have stood up”.[10] Red China was a frequent appellation for the PRC (generally within the Western bloc) Major combat in the Chinese Civil War the Kuomintang Taiwan of Fujian October 1, 1949 Mao Zedong Western bloc used from the time of Communist ascendance until the mid-late 1970s with the improvement of relations between China and the West.
Following a series of dramatic economic failures (caused by the Great Leap Forward), Mao stepped down from his position as chairman in 1959, with Liu Shaoqi as successor. Mao still had much influence over the Party, but was removed from day-to-day management of economic affairs, which came under the control of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, which would last until Mao’s death a decade later. The Cultural Revolution, motivated by power struggles within the Party and a fear of the Soviet Union, led to a major upheaval in Chinese society. In 1972, at the peak of the Sino-Soviet split, Mao and Zhou Enlai met Richard Nixon in Beijing to establish relations with the United States. In the same year, the PRC was admitted to the United Nations, replacing the Republic of China for China’s membership of the United Nations, and permanent membership of the Security Council.
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Flag of the People’s Republic before a modernizing Shanghai.
After Mao’s death in 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping quickly wrestled power from Mao’s anointed successor Hua Guofeng. Although Deng never became the head of the Party or State himself, his influence within the Party led the country to economic reforms of significant magnitude. The Communist Party subsequently loosened governmental control over citizens’ personal lives and the communes were disbanded with many peasants receiving multiple land leases, which greatly increased incentives and agricultural production. This turn of events marked China’s transition from a planned economy to a mixed economy with an increasingly open market environment, a system termed by many “market socialism”. The PRC adopted its current constitution on December 4, 1982.
In 1989, the death of pro-reform official, Hu Yaobang, helped to spark the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, during which students and others campaigned for several months for more democratic rights and freedom of expression. However, they were eventually put down on June 4 when PLA troops and vehicles entered and forcibly cleared the square by opening fire on protesters, resulting in numerous casualties. This event was widely reported and famously videotaped, which brought worldwide condemnation and sanctions against the government.
President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, both former mayors of Shanghai, led post-Tiananmen China in the 1990s. Under Jiang Zemin’s ten years of administration, China’s economic performance pulled an estimated 150 million peasants out of poverty and sustained an average annual GDP growth rate of 11.2%. The country formally joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
Although China needs economic growth to spur its development, the government has begun to worry that rapid economic growth has negatively impacted the country’s resources and environment. Another concern is that certain sectors of society are not sufficiently benefiting from China’s economic development. As a result, under current President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, the PRC have initiated policies to address these issues of equitable distribution of resources, but the outcome remains to be seen. For much of China’s population, living standards have seen extremely large improvements, and freedom continues to expand, but political controls remain tight
Political changes
While the PRC is regarded as a Communist state by many political scientists, simple characterizations of China’s political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible. The PRC government has been variously described as authoritarian, communist, and socialist, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably in the Internet and in the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of reproductive rights, and freedom of religion. However, compared to its closed door policies until the mid-1970s, the liberalization of the PRC is such that the administrative climate is much less restrictive than before, though the PRC is still far from the full-fledged democracy as practiced in most of Europe or North America, according to most observers internationally.
The country is ruled under the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. Its incumbent President is Hu Jintao and its premier is Wen Jiabao.
The country is run by the Communist Party of China (CPC), who is guaranteed power by the Constitution. There are other political parties in the PRC, referred to in China as “democratic parties”, which participate in the People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress. There have been some moves toward political liberalisation, in that open contested elections are now held at the village and town levels, and that legislatures have shown some assertiveness from time to time. However, the Party retains effective control over governmental appointments: in the absence of meaningful opposition, the CPC wins by default most of the time. Political concerns in China include lessening the growing gap between rich and poor and fighting corruption within the government leadership. The support level that the Communist Party of China has among the Chinese population in general is unclear since there are no consistently contested national elections. According to a survey conducted in Hong Kong, where a relatively high level of freedom is enjoyed, the current CPC leaders have received substantial votes of support when residents were asked to rank their favourite leaders from the PRC and Taiwan.
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Economy
Beginning in late 1978, the Chinese leadership has been reforming the economy from a Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economy that is still within a rigid political framework under Party control. The reforms replaced collectivization of Chinese agriculture with privatization of farmlands, increased the responsibility of local authorities and industry managers, allowed a wide variety of small-scale enterprises to flourish, and promoted foreign investment. Price controls were also relaxed. These changes resulted in mainland China’s shift from a planned economy to a mixed economy.
Farmlands in Hebei province. Hundreds of millions of Chinese still depend on the agricultural sector for their livelihood.
China became a member of the World Trade Organization in 2001 China’s accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a goal achieved after nearly fifteen years of exhausting negotiations carrying many legal, political and social implications for all parties. China was finally able to convince WTO members that without China, the WTO is only partially a worldwide trade organization. The road to the signature of the final agreement of accession was long, but these difficulties pale in comparison to the problems that have not yet been tackled in terms of achieving real implementation of its provisions throughout the territory of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). China’s accession surely presents the world trading system with opportunities, but also poses the challenge of integrating a market with strong structural, behavioural and cultural constraints.
The government emphasizes personal income and consumption by introducing new management systems to help increase productivity. The government also focuses on foreign trade as a major vehicle for economic growth, which led to 5 Special Economic Zones (SEZ: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen, Hainan Province) where investment laws are relaxed so as to attract foreign capital. Since the 1990s, SEZs and similar concepts have been expanded to major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing. The result has been a 6-fold increase of GDP since 1978. Chinese economic development is among the fastest in the world, and has been growing at an average annual GDP rate of 9.4% for the past 25 years. At the end of 2005, the PRC became the fourth largest economy in the world by exchange rate, and the second largest in the world after the United States by purchasing power parity at US$8,158 trillion. But with its large population this still gives an average GDP per person of only an estimated US$8,000 (2006), about 1/5th that of the United States.
Mainland China has a reputation as being a low-cost manufacturer, which caused notable disputes in global markets. This is largely because Chinese corporations can produce many products far more cheaply than other parts of Asia or Latin America, and because expensive products produced in developed countries like the United States are in large part uncompetitive compared to European or Asian goods. Another factor is the unfavorable exchange rate between the Chinese yuan and the United States dollar to which it was pegged.
On July 21, 2005 the People’s Bank of China announced that it would move to a floating peg, allowing its currency to move against the United States dollar by 0.5% (effective 18 May 2007, which was earlier 0.3%) a day, while 3% a day against other currencies. Many high-tech American companies have difficulty exporting to China because of U.S. federal government restrictions, which exacerbated the trade gap between the PRC and the US, widespread software piracy and illegal copying of intellectual property (a major US export), and perceived low quality of US goods. On the other hand, China runs a trade deficit with Taiwan and South Korea, importing more from those nations than exports. China runs a large but diminishing trade surplus with Japan (slight deficit if Hong Kong is included).
There has been a significant rise in the Chinese standard of living in recent years. Today, a rapidly declining 10 percent of the Chinese population is below the poverty line. 90.9% of the population is literate, compared to 20% in 1950. The life expectancy in China is the third highest in East Asia, after Japan and South Korea. There is a large wealth disparity between the coastal regions and the remainder of the country. To counter this potentially destabilizing problem, the government has initiated the China Western Development strategy (2000), the Revitalize Northeast China initiative (2003), and the Rise of Central China policy (2004), which are all aimed at helping the interior of China to catch up.
China is undergoing major reforms in its financial sector, which has been plagued by nonperforming loans made in the 1980s and early 1990s to inefficient state-owned enterprises. The government has spent five years and more than US$400 billion cleaning bad loans off the books of the big four state-owned banks, helping prepare them to become shareholder corporations. By the end of 2006, China had restructured three of its four largest banks and listed them publicly. China’s largest bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in October 2006 raised US$21.6 billion in the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. ICBC is now the world’s second largest bank in market value, after only Citibank. These highly successful IPOs have helped ease the government’s burden and spur further structural reforms in China’s nascent banking industry.
Refrences
1 Ma Xiaoying; Leonard Ortalano [May 2000] (2002). Environmental Regulation in China. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
2 Sinkule, Barbara J., Implementing Environmental Policy in China, Praeger Publishers, 1995
I expect the CCP to continue in China but there are a variety of opinions about the Communist Party of China, and opinions about the CPC often create unexpected political alliances and divisions. For example, many chief executive officers of Western companies tend to have favorable impressions of the CPC,[citation needed] while many revolutionary Maoists and other Marxists have strongly negative opinions. Trotskyists argue that the party was doomed to its present character, that of petty-bourgeois nationalism, because of the near-annihilation of the workers’ movement in the KMT betrayal of 1927, which was made possible by Stalin’s order that the Communists disarm and surrender. This slaughter forced the tiny surviving Party to switch from a workers’ union- to peasant guerrilla-based organization, and seek aid of the most heterodox sources, from “patriotic capitalists” to the dreaded KMT itself, with which it openly sought a coalition government even into early 1949. Chinese Trotskyists from Chen Duxiu onward have called for a political revolution against what they see as an opportunist, capitalist leadership of the CPC. Opinions about the CPC also create very strong divisions among groups normally ideologically united such as conservatives in the United States.
Many of the unexpected opinions about the CPC result from its rare combination of attributes as a party formally based on Marxism which has overseen a dynamic market economy, yet maintains an authoritarian political system.
Supporters of the International Tibet Independence Movement, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Falun Gong, a spiritual group, Taiwan independence, neoconservatives in the United States and Japan, International human rights groups, proponents of civil liberties and freedom of expression, advocates of democracy, along with many democratic and anti-authoritarian left-wing forces in those same countries, are among the groups which have opposed the CPC government because it is said to be a repressive single-party state regime.
In addition, the extremists within the American neoconservatives sometimes argue that the Communist Party of China is a grave threat to peace because of its authoritarian nature, its military build-up of offensive capabilities, and threats made to Taiwan.n
Some of the opponents of the Party within the Chinese democracy movement have tended not to argue that a strong Chinese state is inherently bad, but rather that the Communist leadership is corrupt. The Chinese New Left, meanwhile, is a current within China that seeks to “revert China to the socialist road” – i.e., to return China to the days after Mao Zedong but before the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors.
Another school of thought argues that the worst of the abuses took place decades ago, and that the current leadership is not only unconnected with them, but were actually victims of that era. They have also argued that while the modern Communist Party may be flawed, it is comparatively better than previous regimes, with respect to improving the general standard of living, than any other government that has governed China in the past century and can be put in more favorable light against most governments of the developing nations. However, farmers and other rural people have been marginalized, and their standard of living and national influence have been greatly reduced, as a result, the CPC has recently taken sweeping measures to regain support from the countryside, to limited success.
In addition, some scholars contend that China has never operated under a decentralized democratic regime in its several thousand years of history, and therefore it can be argued that the structure present, albeit not up to western moral standards, is the best possible option when compared to its alternatives. A sudden transition to democracy, they contend, would result in the economic and political upheaval that occurred in the Soviet Union in the 1990s, and that by focusing on economic growth, China is setting the stage for a more gradual but more sustainable transition to a more liberal system. This group sees Mainland China as being similar to Spain in the 1960s, and South Korea and Taiwan during the 1970s.
As with the first group, this school of thought brings together some unlikely political allies. Not only do most intellectuals within the Chinese government follow this school of thinking, but it is also the common belief held amongst pro-free trade liberals in the West.
Many observers from both within and out of China have noted the CCP’s gradual but sure movement towards democracy and transparency, hence arguing that it is best to give it time and room to evolve into a better government rather than forcing an abrupt change.
Many current party officials are the sons and daughters of prominent Party officials. These young, powerful individuals are referred to as the “Crown Prince Party,” or “Princelings,” and their rise to power has been criticized as a form of nepotism or cronyism.
Answer of question no.2
The three worlds during the Cold War era;
1 First World
2 Second World
3 Third world
The economist and demographer Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L’Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World in referring to countries currently called either “developing” or “under-developed”, especially in Latin America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia, that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War (1945–1989). Today, Third World is synonymous with all countries in the developing world, regardless of their political status
Third World was a reference to the Tiers État, the (Third Estate), the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution — opposed to the priests and nobles who composed the First Estate and the Second Estate. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the Third World has nothing, and “wants to be something”, implying that the Third World is exploited (as was the third estate) and that its destiny is revolutionary. Moreover, it conveyed the second concept of political non-alignment with neither the industrialised Capitalist bloc nor the industrialised Communist bloc.
The problematic definition of “The Third World”
In academic circles, the countries of the Third World are known as the “Global South”, the “developing countries”, and the “under-developed countries”; and are called, by economic development workers, the “Two-thirds World” and “The South”. Some developers disapprove of the “developing countries” term, because it implies that industrialization is the only progressive way.
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History of Third World countries
The economically under-developed countries of Africa, Asia, Americas, and Oceania considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, uncontrolled high birthrates, and economic dependence upon the advanced countries tended to be former European colonies.
After World War II, the capitalist Western and the communist Eastern blocs fought to expand their spheres of influence to the Third World. The military and intelligence services of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. worked secretly and publicly to influence Third World governments, with relative success.
The term Third World became popular usage during the Cold War when many poor nations adopted it in describing themselves as unaligned with neither N.A.T.O. nor the U.S.S.R., but instead composed an unaligned Third World. In that context, the First World denoted the U.S. and its anti-Communist allies, concomitantly, Second World denoted the “Eastern Bloc” — the U.S.S.R. and its communist and socialist allies.
Originally, the Third World bloc comprised the countries of Yugoslavia, India, and Egypt. Many believed they could successfully court the Communist and Capitalist blocs into economic partnerships without directly falling into the respective sphere of influence. Fearing they would align with the enemy bloc, they were exploited and undermined by the First World and Second World superpowers.
The Third World’s economies are distorted by dependence upon exportation of primary products, to the First and Second worlds, in return for finished products. After liberation from colonial rule in the 1950s – 1970s, many Third World nations were illiterate, over-populated, and politically unstable. This was particularly true of Africa, where nation-states were artificially created by European colonial powers in order to control populations by imposing local, minority-rule governments, indifferent to local social and cultural reality.
For the most part, Third World did not include China. Politically, the Third World emerged at the Bandung Conference (1955), which established the Nonaligned Movement. Numerically, the Third World dominates the United Nations, but is so culturally and economically diverse that its political cohesion is hypothetical. The petroleum-rich countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, etc.) and the new industrial countries (India, Malaysia, Brazil, etc.) have little in common with poor countries (Haiti, Chad, Afghanistan, etc.).
Criticism of the term
The term Third World remains in common usage despite criticism that it is inaccurate], outdated, colonialist, and a type of Other category; more because it is an ideology rather than a reality. .
In general, Third World countries are not as industrialized or technologically advanced as OECD countries, and consequently developing nation is the current term in use in academia. Terms such as Global South, developing countries, less economically developed countries (LEDC), least developed countries, and the Majority World have become more popular in circles where the term third world is regarded to have derogatory or out-of-date connotations. Other synonymous terms include the two-thirds world (because two-thirds of the world is underdeveloped) and The South. Some theorists, such as Andre Gunder Frank and Walter Rodney have used the term underdevelopment or underdeveloped world, to indicate the active process by which the global South has been locked out of development by imperialism and the post-colonial policies of the richer nations.
Refrences
A. R. Kasdan, The Third World: A New Focus for Development (1973)
E. Hermassi, The Third World Reassessed (1980)
H. A. Reitsma and J. M. Kleinpenning, The Third World in Perspective (1985)
J. Cole, Development and Underdevelopment (1987).
Answer of question no. 4
INTRODUCTION
What is Turkey? What does this country represent to Europe? Does this territory really belong to Europe? These are some questions that have caught the international
community’s concerns. In part, geographically speaking, it belongs to Europe. By contrast, its Islamic culture and identity are completely opposite to Western civilization despite being a secular Republic. For centuries the Turkish people experienced dramatic changes: as part of the powerful Ottoman Empire in the 13th century until Atatürk’s (Mustafa Kemal) drastic reforms in the 20th century. Why study this topic? Turkey is considered a particular case because despite the fact that it belongs to Islamic civilization, it has shown to the international community a strong effort and concern to fit in the Western system. The latter, however, resists accepting Turkey as a member. Is Europe ready to admit Turkey into “the Western club” in spite of the “civilization abyss” between them?
The objective of this paper is to make clear, using Samuel Huntington’s argument: The Clash of Civilizations, that the difficulties allowing Turkey to enter the European Union are the product of cultural resistances and not based only on economic and socio-political issues. The first part will give a general approach to the Turkish situation, offering a historical and current background, to explain the evolution of the country and its particular situation within Europe. Also, it will explain the reform that the country experienced in the 20th century and that contributed even more to the idea of Turkey being considered as a Western country. The second part will talk about the European Union, tackling its evolution and the process that a country must follow to be member. All this with the intention of understanding the particular case of Turkey and to highlighted by the EU its situation. Have the different factors – economic, political and social – impeded the Turkish accession? Is this really the case or is the interaction between civilizations the real conflict?. The third part will be focused on Samuel Huntington’s argument: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. This part will explain the argument that the real conflict of Turkey not becoming a member of the European Union is civilizational and not socio-political as the European governments affirm. This argument will be supported by terms used by Huntington such as kemalism, torn country, Westernization and Civilizations that clarify the main argument of this paper. Will Turkey become a member of the E.U. despite the civilization differences or will it stay like a pariah “pseudo-European” state?
TURKEY
Turkey’s unique geographic location between Europe and Asia has exposed the region to diverse influences and contributed to its historical and cultural evolution that place
Turkey as a bridge between Asia and Europe. This country has adopted diverse influences to develop its own distinctive identity. Diversity is the symbol of contemporary Turkey, in environment, people, and culture. Traditional beliefs, religion and practices interacting with a democratic secular government have shaped Turkey as a rapidly modernizing society.
Turkish History
Turks settled during the 11th century in Asia Minor establishing the sultanate of Rum that ruled central Anatolia. In the 12th and 13th centuries the territory was invaded by the Mongols. During the 14th century the Ottoman Empire reached its peak during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.1 At the end of the 18th century, certain sultans wanted to transform radically Ottoman society and institutions. With Selim III (1789-1807), the army was modernized and for the very first time in history embassies in some European countries were established.2 In the 19th century Mahmud II (1808-1839) lead secular policies opening secular schools, restricting the power of oulemas (doctors of religion) in education and forbidding the turban. In 1839, during the reign of Abdülmecid I, a new order or reform (the Tanzimat) proclaimed the inviolability of life and was applied to everybody without exception. A second reform (the Hatt-i Hümayun) declared equality and freedom of religion to all the citizens.3 Thanks to the “Young-Ottomans” (new generation of intellectuals that believed that the new reforms were needed but also in harmony with Islam) and to the “grand vizir” (prime minister) Midhat Pacha, the sultan issued a constitution in 1876. The regime became constitutional including a Parliament. Some months later, however, Abdülhamid II suspended the constitution and dissolved the Parliament. Absolutism returned and the sultan increased relations with Islamic countries, decreasing contact with European countries. He favoured the modernization of the administration, the army, the education and the transportation system of the country. In spite of all these advances, nepotism, corruption and censure prevailed in Ottoman society at the end of the 19th century. New opposition groups against the sultan like the “Young-Turks” (students of the “grandes écoles”, positivists distant from religion) and the “Ottoman Society for Freedom” appeared on the scene. In 1907 these two groups fused (Union and Progress Committee)
The dynasty disappeared in 1922. A dictatorship was established in 1913 by the Committee. At the end of World War I, as an ally of Germany, the Ottoman Empire was occupied by France, England, Italy and Greece and forced to sign an armistice (1920) declaring the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I and with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a new country emerged. The Turkish Republic was proclaimed by Mustafa Kemal focusing principally on Western and secular ideology; this represented a drastic shock for an Islamic society. and reestablished the constitution and the Parliament leaving the sultan without real power.4
Historical Evolution
In 1951, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was set up, with six members: Belgium, West Germany, Luxembourg, France, Italy and the Netherlands. The ECSC was such a success that, in a few years, the six member countries decided to integrate other sectors of their economies. In 1957 they signed the Treaties of Rome, creating the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the European Economic Community (EEC). The member states set about removing trade barriers between themselves and forming a “common market”.6 The Treaty of Maastricht (1992) introduced new forms of co-operation between the member state governments – in defense, and in the area of “justice and home affairs” – creating the European Union (EU). 7 The EU has grown in size with successive waves of accessions. Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined in 1973 followed by Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986 and Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995. The European Union welcomed ten new countries in 2004: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Bulgaria and Romania expect to follow in 2007; Croatia and Turkey are beginning membership negotiations in 2005.8
European Union Policies of Enlargement
In order to join the European Union, a state needs to fulfill the economic and political conditions known as the Copenhagen criteria. Also, according to the EU Treaty, each
current member state and the European Parliament have to agree to any enlargement. Difficult situation for Turkey since France, Austria, Scandinavia and some of the 10 new entrants don’t totally agree with Turkey’s accession.9 (Annex 2)
Membership criteria require that the candidate country must have achieved:
1. Stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities. 2. The existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. 3. The ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.10 Membership criteria also require that the candidate country have created the conditions for its integration through the adjustment of its administrative structures, as underlined by the Madrid European Council in December 1995.11 Despite all the problems that Turkey has with the accession, political and popular thrust is unlikely to surrender its aspiration to full membership. It has become the criterion of credibility for Turkey’s elite.
References
Dumont, Gérard-François. (1999). Les Racines de l’Identité Européenne. Paris: Économica.
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Preston, Christopher. (1997). Enlargement and Integration in the European Union. London: New York: Routledge.
Zarcone, Thierry. (2005). La Turquie: de l’Empire ottoman à la République d’ Atatürk. Paris: Gallimard.
Zarcone Thierry. (2004). La Turquie Moderne et l’Islam. Paris: Flammarion.
Lakhdari, Sadi. (2004). Attention Europe. Ramonville Saint-Agne: Ed. Erès; Marne-la-Vallée: OGRE
