Winner
New Tales of the Great Wall
Ka Ho Cheu
or years China has been considered as a mysterious, weak and decayed country. After the World War II,
China had lost tragically in the war and underwent countless political reforms. Despite the fact that the
world’s eye had been looking down on this Asian country, China has become one of the strongest
countries in the globe during the recent decade, and succeeded in several aspects with flying colours.
How is it possible for a dragon to be reborn from its fatal failures and became one of the greatest modern
legends? How strong is she? What role is she playing or planning to play in this international arena?
ng, Group 4: Non-Fiction, Po Leung Kuk Centenary Li Shiu Chung Memorial College
F
Before I started answering these questions, I had asked myself a quite simple question worth-investigating,
“What exactly is China?” According to some research, most foreigners from Europe and the U.S. can only tell
that China is one of the Asian countries. By definition in Chinese, China is the country in the middle of Asia. In
her long history for the past three thousand years, the land of China has constantly been changing. Generally,
under inspiration of Confucianism, Chinese physiologists tended to think that by convincing and teaching
foreigners to learn the Chinese Han manners, foreigners can become Chinese, in terms of manners and
ideologies. By that way, people from neighbouring countries can become Chinese as well. A Chinese-ideology-
oriented society has therefore evolved.
In terms of Science, Mathematics and logic, China did not have a well-developed foundation, compared
with Greece and England. Chinese did not stress these aspects. Yet, in most dynasties of China, the empire
adopted an examination system which focused on poems and famous books about manners, literature and others.
This resulted in a pile of literary creations including kinds of poems, rhyming and writing as well.
In the late 20th century, China fell into Manchu’s hand. Man Empire did not make any progress on science,
logic, philosophy or military. The Empress Dowager Cixi, spent most of the money on her private garden and
believed in some tricksters who claimed that they could defeat the westerners’ invasion, which turned out as a
failure. Manchu’s attitude towards war was compromising. China showed weakness to others. Such a weak
empire ended up collapse.
Since then, reforms and wars were still on fire. People fought for what they believed in and parts of China
were colonised or were under the control of western countries. After long conflicts, a political party, the
Communists, finally took control of the land of China. Nevertheless, it still took them years to figure out how to
rule the country effectively, after being through countless famines, conflicts, and economic depression. Apart
from that, China underwent Cultural Revolution and Economic Adjustment as traditional values and traditions
were criticised and denounced. China stopped foreign affairs and isolated herself from the western countries,
economically, socially and politically.
So we understand how China accumulated its culture and received its failures. But what exactly has China
achieved? Does she really deserve such a place?
How did she manage to revive?
Economy
It all started from ‘reform and opening-up’. The Communist Party of China (CPC) settled the land and its
people, and set up the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Under ruling of Mao Zedong, things stopped
worsening, yet the economy, had not recovered. Political power and others were not yet restored back to the
level it had once been. Things did not seem to work out, Deng Xiao–Ping suggested and launched ‘reform and
opening-up’, and organised plans to strive China’s situation. People at that time suffered from diseases and
famines, due to backward medical treatments and slow economy. The reform aimed to resolve such critical
problems of China. Deng at the Conference once said development was the only way, and the core principle to
follow. By adopting the Four Modernisations (Industrial, agricultural, national defence and technology) and
Socialism with distinctive Chinese characters, Deng hoped to achieve the goal of improving Chinese people’s
living standards, or to be more precise reaching a comparatively better standard of living.
Things changed drastically for China’s economy. At the early stage of reformation, China took its first
initiative by actively promoting agricultural reform. People’s commune system was replaced by the household
responsibility system, where all people needed to work for themselves in order to get paid. Under the People’s
Commune System, which gave workers their salaries no matter whether they had finished their tasks or not,
would only bring down the spirit of Chinese workforce. The household responsibility system, however, did not
