BRENT RAMSEY
China has existed for thousands of years. But since 1949, its name has not been China. The country is the People’s Republic of China (PRC). That is a very important distinction.
Post-World War II, China experienced a brutal and bloody civil war with more than seven million dead, and what emerged in victory in 1949 was the infant PRC. That civil war, won by Mao Zedong’s forces, determined that communism would be the political system in China. Yet China under Chiang Kai-Shek and through WWII was an ally to the West. In 1949, China was weak, and its new government was in its infancy. It had suffered greatly in WWII at the hands of Japan. Despite this weakness and the chaos of years of war, Mao and other Chinese leaders had a vision for China unknown to the West.
The Chinese historically refer to themselves as the Middle Kingdom. With a culture that goes back thousands of years, a culture that dominated Asia, a culture with a rich history of invention and innovation, the Han Chinese see themselves in both historical terms and culturally as superior to all others. Mao embraced this ideology of Chinese superiority and, combined with communism and brutal methods, thus began China’s modern rise to greatness.
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