Taiwan - Reunification

Despite the belligerence of the threats to liberate Taiwan and China's insistence on sovereignty of Taiwan, the more conciliatory approach of a process of peaceful reunification has been tabled on and off since the mid 1950s. Various CCP leaders have extended proposals for reunification over the years. Such peaceful initiatives were accompanied by the production of posters that stressed that the Chinese and Taiwanese peoples were one, usually by indicating that the two basically were united by blood ties. Those Chinese outside of China that were supportive of the idea of the unity of the Chinese nation were considered as patriots and seen as part of a patriotic United Front.



After the adoption of Deng Xiaoping's modernization program, China embarked on a new course that resulted in the so-called 'nine principles for peaceful reunification' proposed by Ye Jianying in 1981. The principles, which would turn Taiwan into a 'special administrative region' of China, were upheld for more than a decade and continue to be upheld until the present, although later some modifications were made. The late 1980s witnessed the historic moment when delegations from both sides started official negotiations about possible reunification.

Deng Xiaoping's formulation of the 'One Country, Two Systems'-paradigm in 1983, considered an encapsulation of the 'nine principles', has laid the theoretical foundation for China's resumption of sovereignty over a number of territories that had been under foreign rule. According to Deng's paradigm, there is one country (China), but within this country, multiple social and/or economic systems can and will exist for a given period of time in certain areas – special administrative regions, next to and in harmony with the social and economic systems that prevail in China. The principle was first put into practice in Hong Kong, and subsequently in Macao. In the eyes of the Chinese leadership, these two cases already have proven that Deng's paradigm can be an excellent vehicle to bring about the future reunification with Taiwan. The Chinese even expressed their willingness to expand the conditions of the principle to accommodate the Taiwanese: no time limit on the period of autonomy; no disbanding of Taiwan's military, etc. Jiang Zemin in particular was seen as a proponent of a quick Taiwanese adoption of Deng's principle. Such a reunification could serve as an eminent opportunity to guarantee him a lasting place in history. The Taiwanese leaders, however, continue to have a different opinion on this matter.

Despite the fact that the 'One Country, Two Systems'-principle contained many opportunities for a solution of the Taiwan conundrum, the Taiwanese leadership continues to see as problematic the definition proposed by China that there is one China and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of it. Although the Taiwanese do not deny the fact that ethnically they are Chinese and are part of the cultural complex that is named Chinese civilization, they do object to the possibility that they will simply be swallowed up and incorporated into a political system they reject. That same Chinese culture has been rediscovered by the CCP elite itself, and is now being hailed by Beijing as an important basis for reunification.
At the same time, the negotiations about eventual reunification should not take an eternity and are backed up by regular threats of force. A period of fifty years was deemed adequate. In February 2000, the PRC warned in a White Paper on Taiwan that indefinite refusal to start negotiations would constitute grounds for a military solution.

Taiwan - Liberation

Already before the mainland was 'liberated' officially in 1949, plans existed to invade Taiwan in the process as well. Although the population at the time was already prepared for military action thanks to forceful propaganda, the plans came to naught.

Intervention of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait in 1950 and the subsequent conflict in Korea caused the immediate liberation plans to be shelved. The American support for the GMD-regime played an important role in the anti-imperialist propaganda that at the time made heavy use of the 'paper tiger' imagery.

The Chinese were given to understand that their own struggle against imperialism would result in the liberation of what was called their tongbao 同胞, compatriots. Moreover, much was made of the alleged maltreatment of the Taiwanese – who were, after all, Chinese – at the hands of Americans. There was some veiled racism implied in these posters.







During the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1954-1955, the PLA bombarded two islands off the coast of Fujian Province, Quemoy (Jinmen) and Matzu (Mazu), both administered by the Taiwanese. Taiwan retaliated in kind by bombing the mainland. In 1958, when the Great Leap Forward unfolded and Mao Zedong was convinced that the 'East wind was prevailing over the West wind', the bombings of Quemoy and Matzu were resumed with a vengeance. In both cases, the bombings were designed as a first step in the campaign to take the island.

After these two crises, something of a military stalemate developed until the late 1970s, although both China and Taiwan continued with small-scale armed skirmishes: China continued some of its bombings on odd numbered days, while Taiwan sent commando raids to strike at Chinese targets. Even the Cultural Revolution period was a relatively quiet one, although the posters at the time very much gave the impression that military action was imminent.

The Chinese did try to spread the words of Mao on Taiwan. The poster below shows how copies of the Little Red Book, sealed in little plastic bags, were set overboard fishing vessels. This propaganda offensive, presented as a magnanimous Chinese gesture to spread the gospel among the compatriots, clearly was intended to win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese, but did not succeed.

In the 1980s, the live ammunition used in bombarding Quemoy and Matzu was traded in for shells filled with propaganda materials, which the Taiwanese reciprocated in kind. The resolution of the Taiwan issue has been high on the agenda of the successive generations of military and civilian PRC-leaders, including Ye Jianying and Hua Guofeng. The 'One Country, Two Systems'-principle developed by Deng Xiaoping is often mentioned as the framework for reunification. The earlier application of the principle in the hondovers of Hong Kong and Aomen (Macao) has convinced the Chinese leadership of its relevance.

However, the threat of a military option is invoked regularly until the present day in order to avoid Beijing's ultimate nightmare: Taiwan's declaration of independence. In 1995-1996, the PLA was involved in naval and missile exercises off the coast of Taiwan in an attempt to influence the first presidential elections then taking place there. And when Chen Shui-bian, the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in which the GMD-opposition has been united, was elected as president in 2000, tensions in the Taiwan Straits flared up again. In 2002, the Taiwanese were urged to reach a prompt decision on China's demands for reunification to avoid a military showdown.

The PLA in particular is seen as the faction that is pressing for a military resolution of the problem. Not without reason, military representatives have warned for a loss of the nation's credibility when the promise of reunification fails to materialize after so many years of threats and cajoling. A military option might include a naval blockade to strangle the Taiwanese economy, rocket attacks and a full-fledged invasion. The largest unknown factor in a military solution continues to be the reaction of the United States, which on the hand 'understands' China's claims over Taiwan without explicitly recognizing the 'one China'-principle, but at the same time continues to provide military support for Taiwan. The fact that the US explicitly opposes Taiwan's steps towards independence, thus supporting the status quo, has not made the situation any clearer.

Macao

Macao has a long colonial history, as it has been ruled by Portugal for over 400 years. Compared with Hong Kong, however, its importance to China is rather small. It is dwarfed not only in territory and population, but also on the financial and economic scale. Twice, Portugal offered to return of the territory to China, in 1967 and 1974 respectively, but was rejected each time. The first took place after the "December third" incident in 1966, when Red Guards had demonstrated violently against the Portuguese authorities over the closing of a school, and many had been killed by troops. The second opportunity was in 1974, when Portugal was shedding itself of its colonial possessions worldwide and withdrew its garrison. Beijing, however, at the time was still engaged in internal struggle, and declined the offer.






After the successful conclusion of the negotiations with the British over Hong Kong, the talks about Macao's future were reopened and an agreement over the resumption of Chinese sovereignty was reached in 1987. The Macao Handover, or Aomen huigui 澳门回归, which took place on 20 December 1999, was a much more subdued affair than its Hong Kong predecessor. This may have had to do with the fact that is was marked with less spectacular (foreign) media attention and speculation about economic consequences and the imminent trampling of human rights as had been the case with Hong Kong in 1997. The Chinese government did publish an impressive series of posters to commemorate this historic occasion, but did not invoke Deng Xiaoping. On the other hand, more generic looking posters, such as the one shown below, were also produced.

The Hong Kong Handover

To commemorate the return of Hong Kong (香港回归，Xianggang huigui) to Chinese sovereignty on 1 July 1997, a number of striking images were published. They included a poster featuring Deng Xiaoping, the intellectual father of the 'One Country, Two Systems'-paradigm, extolling the virtues of the principle under which Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule while maintaining "a high degree of autonomy" for a period of at least fifty years. Deng is surrounded by the 'images of China' (Tian'anmen, the Great Wall and others) that have become so popular in 1990s poster art, while looking down on the Hong Kong office of the Bank of China and the new Foreign Ministry building.






One of the elements of Hong Kong's new political structure as a Special Administrative Region was that it would be governed by the Hong Kong people themselves. The new cabinet, consisting of often unknown administrators, was presented to the people from China and from Hong Kong in the poster below.

Other images to mark the occassion included a series of educational materials specifically designed for use in middle schools. They show the bauhinia, the 'new' national flower of Hong Kong; Jiang Zemin shaking hands with Tung Chee-hwa (Tong Jianhua), the 'chief executive' who was handpicked by Peking to replace the British Governor; pictures of Hong Kong's famous and spectacular sky-line and shopping malls; and, of course, the crack PLA-units which have been sent down to defend this newly acquired part of the sacred motherland.

Reunifications

Deng Xiaoping's formulation of the 'One Country, Two Systems'-paradigm has laid the theoretical foundation for China's resumption of sovereignty over a number of territories that had been under foreign rule due to historical developments. According to the paradigm, there is one country (China), but within this country, multiple social and/or economic systems can and will exist for a given period of time in certain areas, next to and in harmony with the social and economic systems prevailing in China.

In the case of Hong Kong, where the theory was first tested in practice, this resulted in agreement over a high degree of autonomy under which Hong Kong's social and economic system would continue to exist for a period of (at least) fifty years, even though the territory had become a Special Administrative Region of China as of 1 July 1997. In other words, decisions regarding foreign policy, security matters, certain legal procedures, etc., fell within the authority of Peking. A similar agreement was put into place for Macao, which reverted to Chinese sovereignty on 20 December 1999. In the eyes of the Chinese leadership, Deng's paradigm already has proven to be an excellent vehicle to bring about the future reunification with Taiwan. Jiang Zemin in particular saw such a reunification as an eminent opportunity to guarantee him a lasting place in history. The Taiwanese leaders, however, continue to have a different opinion on this matter......

After Mao

When Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976, the country was in shock. This was partly the result of the keenly felt loss of a semi-divine leader, but also caused by the enormous uncertainty about what the future held in stock for China and its people. The power struggle between Jiang Qing and the Gang of Four on the one hand, and Mao's designated successor Hua Guofeng on the other, which had been smoldering for some time, was about to be fought out in public. Some of this uncertainty is visible in the tenseness of the faces of the persons in the poster below. However, on 6 October 1976, within a month after Mao's death, Hua had the Gang of Four arrested. This bold move was supported by various old Party cadres and Army men, including Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen.



Two days after the arrest of the Gang, the highest organs of the party and the state decided that a Memorial Hall would be built as a permanent tribute to the founder of the People's Republic. On 24 November 1976, the foundation stone for the gigantic building, located to the south of the Monument to the People's Heroes on Tian'anmen Square, was put in place. Both Hua and Ye, the strong men of the immediate post-Mao era, were prominently present at the ceremony.

The construction went on day and night, and the building was finished on 29 August 1977. On that same day, Mao's body, which had been embalmed and placed in a crystal sarcophagus, was moved to the Hall. On 9 September 1977, a ceremony was held to commemorate the anniversary of Mao's death and the completion of the Hall.


In December 1983, four memorial rooms were added to the Memorial Hall, which serve as reception rooms for important guests. Aside from the one to the left of the entrance hall, which is dedicated to Mao, the others are dedicated to his former colleagues of the First Generation of leaders, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De. For many artists and designers, contributing works to the Hall is seen as a mark of distinction, proof of them being in tune with the national mood. One of these contributing artists is Liu Yuyi, known for his huge canvasses that commemorate landmarks in recent Chinese (and world) history.

Although the Hall is open to the general public, it tends to be closed for maintenance purposes for extended periods of time. For precisely these reasons, the Hall was closed in the Summer of 2007 in preparation for the Olympic Games of 2008. It is unclear whether this maintenance is needed for the upkeep of the building, or for Mao's remains. Nonetheless, the Hall still draws large crowds of visitors, many of whom lay flowers at the foot of a marble statue of a sitting Mao, located in the northern entrance hall.

Mao Pop

Under the political clampdown after the Tian'anmen Incident (1989), many avant-garde artists felt hampered to express their socially critical side. Painting with a cynical attitude, they recycled images from propaganda posters and from the Cultural Revolution in their works. Mao Zedong became a frequent and favored subject of what came to be named Political Pop, or Mao Pop. The phenomenon echoed the sudden enthusiasm for Mao relics and Cultural Revolution songs (set to a discobeat) in Chinese society.



The image above, The Last Banquet (laser prints, pages of the Red Book and acrylic on canvas, 1989), is one of my favorite examples of Mao Pop. It is not a poster, and it is not in my possession. The artist, Zhang Hongtu, has graciously given me permission to use it in these pages. Many more samples of Hongtu's art (both Mao Pop, which includes the Mao Zedong acupuncture chart, and other works) can be found on his excellent webpage MoMao.

Mao in Silk

At the height of the cult surrounding him, Mao's image was reproduced on practically every medium imaginable. Porcelain, ivory, gypsum, rock, wood, leather, paper (both as papercut and as poster), embroidery, scrap metal, and even silk fabric bore images of the Chairman.




These silks reproduced well-known images of Mao and Party history. They were manufactured by the Hangzhou "East is Red" Silk Factory and could be framed or mounted as scrolls.



The veneration of Mao continues to the present day. In Reform China, his image is no longer woven into silk. Department stores still carry the Mao-brand, produced with the most advanced techniques on artificial fibres.

Sloganeering

The Mao cult involved a lot of sloganeering that served to bolster the myth surrounding the Chairman and to ascribe super-human qualities to him. During the first reception of millions of Red Guards on Tian'anmen Square on 18 August 1966, Chen Boda first used the slogan of the 'Four Greats', with which he termed Mao as the great teacher, the great leader, the great (or supreme) commander, and the great helmsman. The image of Mao as the great helmsman not only inspired poster designers, but gave birth to a song, "Sailing the seas depends on the helmsman, waging revolution depends on Mao Zedong Thought".



Other slogans revolved around the people's loyalty that Mao deserved. Particular mention must be made of the 'Three Loyalties', which called for boundless loyalty to Chairman Mao, loyalty to Mao Zedong Thought and loyalty to Chairman Mao's revolutionary line. The Chinese character for loyalty, zhong (忠, visible on the sunflower below), played an important role in the images devoted to these slogans.


These and other slogans ('The Four Boundlessness', 'Long Live ...', 'Eternal Life ...') were shouted in public by leaders and led alike, used in the print media and wall papers, and became part of everyday speech.

Chairman Mao's Mangoes

In August 1968, Mao Zedong received a delegation from Pakistan, headed by the foreign minister. At that occasion, he was presented with a basket of mangoes. According to some stories, Mao actually disliked mangoes, but the fruits were given an important and symbolic role in the complex political situation of the Cultural Revolution. For Mao did not eat the mangoes himself, but presented all seven of them to a corresponding number of Worker-Peasant Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Teams that were active in the capital. These Teams had been sent to universities and factories to restore order and bring an end to the intense and bloody factional struggles between various groups of Red Guards. The media at the time reported that the gift was intended to mark the second anniversay of Mao's own big-character-poster Bombard all Headquarters. In reality, the mangoes served to indicate that Mao had become dissatisfied with the Red Guards, and henceforth would support the Teams. The Red Guards subsequently were sent to the countryside to learn from the Poor and Lower-Middle Peasants in the Up to the mountains, down to the villages-campaign.



The factories and universities that received the mangoes were overfilled with joy at this Great, Greatest, Happiest of Events. Many became obsessed with the question how to preserve the gift. In one case, the mango was put in a small glass box, engraved with an inscription and an image of Mao with rays of sunshine emanating from his head. The Beijing People's Printing Agency, on the other hand, decided to place the mango in a jar of formaldehyde, to preserve it for all eternity (according to later reports, this particular mango unfortunately turned black and shriveled). In still another case, the mango was put in a huge tank of water; all employees of the factory were given a small amount of that water to drink and to be literally filled with the spirit of Mao. Although the media had a field day, although pages were filled with mango mania and even posters were published, there is no mention anywhere of someone actually eating one of the fruits. After all, nobody would have been worthy of this privilege but Mao himself. But the fact of the gift itself was celebrated and commemorated.

Chairman Mao swims across the Yangzi River

One of Mao Zedong's early articles, "A Study of Physical Culture" [体育之研究，Tiyu zhi yanjiu], published in the influential journal New Youth [新青年，Xin Qingnian] in 1917, was devoted to the benefits of regular exercise and swimming to make the Chinese people physically strong.




All his life, Mao would follow his own prescription and swim wherever he could. Moreover, Mao's penchant for water made swimming an accepted physical activity for many Chinese. In 1956, Mao swam in the Yangzi for the first time. It inspired him to compose the poem Youyong (游泳，Swimming], which turned the dip into a memorable feat.

On 16 July 1966, a great Crossing-the-Yangzi event was organized in Wuhan to commemorate the event. Mao showed up to stress his support for this exercise and plopped down from his boat to float downstreams for over an hour. During his dip, he exchanged jokes with the masses and taught a woman how to perform the backstroke swim. The happening was covered extensively by the Chinese mass media. It was widely interpreted as a demonstration that Mao, although residing in Shanghai, far removed from the locus of power, still was physically fit and able to continue to lead China on its revolutionary course. This played a major role in his bid to regain power during the Cultural Revolution.

Mao's swim became a major yearly event of commemoration, giving thousands the opportunity to express their boundless devotion to the Chairman. They would jump enthusiastically in the water to do their bit. Not only in Wuhan, at the very spot where Mao had entered the waters, but also in the sea and in various rivers and lakes across the country. On the first anniversary, in 1967, there were 50,000 swimmers in lakes all over Beijing alone.

The posters shown here were published at the tenth anniversary in 1976, just a few weeks before Mao would die.

Quotations from Chairman Mao

The Quotations from Chairman Mao, the Mao zhuxi yulu (毛主席语录), 426 in total, were culled from the numerous writings in which Mao had set out to sinify Marxism-Leninism over the years and which had been brought together in the four-volume Selected Works of Mao Zedong. Already in Yan'an, Mao was styling himself as the sole theoretician of Chinese communism, on a par with and later even superseding, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. As a result of Mao's (re-)interpretations of the Marxist Classics, his writings became known as Mao Zedong Thought. The Quotations were first published in 1961 for use in the People's Liberation Army under Lin Biao.

In the early 1960s, and during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, the PLA played a major role in the popularization of the Quotations. According to Lin, "Everything that Mao Zedong says is the truth; every statement he utters is worth 10,000 sentences." The more wide-spread the study of the book, the more devastating the effects that were ascribed to it. In 1960, Mao Thought was seen as an arrow aimed at the target of revolution; by 1965, the Quotations were seen as a mighty "ideological weapon" in the struggle against imperialism, revisionism and dogmatism. One year later, Mao Thought had grown into a "spiritual atom bomb" of infinite power.

Although printed in staggering numbers (some 740 million by 1968), the "Little Red Book", as it became known in the West, was not the only medium through which Mao Zedong Thought was spread. The Renmin ribao (People's Daily), the mouthpiece of the Party, carried a daily changing Mao-quote printed in red in its masthead, to supplement the abundant number of quotes in boldface which peppered the articles. A number of quotes were reproduced on posters and these were given the place of honor wherever they were displayed.

Regularly, so-called Chairman Mao's Latest Instructions were published. These utterings of profound wisdom were to be welcomed with great fanfare, with gongs and cymbals. All work was stopped, and people were even told to get out and hail their arrival in the streets.

Only in the early 1980s, when the official, negative, verdict of the Cultural Revolution was formulated by the CCP, it was decided that the ideological repository originally attributed to Mao was—in reality—the crystallized wisdom of all the leaders of the Chinese revolution.