Chinese civil war: causes and consequences

Everything armed conflict It begins with a series of causes and ends up bringing a series of consequences, the number of which causes what shows the greater or lesser relevance that this war has had. To talk about the armed conflict that changed the history of China forever in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we must talk about the causes and consequences of the Chinese civil war.

Before beginning to explain the causes that started the war and the consequences that the victory of the side had Communist we must talk briefly about what the war was to understand who was fighting and what was their chronology.

The chinese civil warit was an armed conflict that took place between 1927 and 1949, although it was stopped on occasion due to the conflict that existed between the Chinese and Japanese in the Second World War.

The conflict pitted the Kuomintang o Chinese Nationalist Party which was the party that was in power at that time and, on the other hand, there was the Chinese Communist Party

, that with an ideology totally contrary to the nationalist one, it sought to come to power.

The war began in 1937 with the expedition to the North that the Nationalists carried out by attacking the Communist positions, and ended with communist victory beginning the so-called People's Republic of China.

There were many causes of the Chinese civil war and it is that we must understand that the Chinese revolution started years more late that the beginning of the war had many causes similar to that of the beginning of the war, being therefore the most social, economic and political causes.

Other wars

One of the first causes of this war was the wars that occurred years before. One of these was the opium wars that pitted China against other Western powers such as the British. Defeats in these wars led to the occupation of Hong Kong, and various powers occupying Chinese ports and mainland areas. This led to the discontent of the farm workers, who saw their lands being occupied by foreigners.

On the other hand there was the war Sino-Japanese, which pitted China against Japan, and ended with the transfer of Chinese territories to Japan. On the other hand, Japan defeated Russia and thus took the Korean peninsula, which increased the discomfort of the population when they saw how the Japanese took away their old possessions.

Ideological clash

In China there were two main ideologies faced with each other, being a nationalist with a clear democratic approach, capitalistand very united to western values, and on the other hand that of the communist who sought a Soviet model, defending the peasants and also ending the social division of the Asian state.

To all this must be added that in the Chinese population the communist model was increasingly seen better, since it was more common to relate the capitalist system with that of the United States and the powers Westerners, these being the ones who had stolen China's possessions, and therefore seeing these regions as rivals of the population China.

Economic and social system

China's economic and social system was quite close to the feudal, being too old-fashioned for the time, and causing that the Chinese society in general was very much more outdated than the European powers or Japan, with a large majority of the population in a situation of poverty.

The large tracts of land in China were owned by landowners and other more privileged classes, while the weaker classes such as peasants worked for them. This caused a great economic dominance of a small part of the population, and enormous poverty in most of Chinese citizens of the countryside, which is why the largest communist movements were born in the peasantry Chinese.

Russia's support

The Chinese saw how all the great European powers and Japan sought to profit from China, and as none of the great world powers helped great China against her enemies was then when Russia appeared as the great ally that the Asian people needed.

Russia assisted China at all times and supported the communist side in the war, making themselves see in the eyes of the Chinese as great allies, unlike the United States. All this coupled with the fact that the Russian communist system was viewed favorably by the Chinese population led to numerous uprisings in favor of the Chinese communist leaders.

To continue with this lesson we must talk about the consequences of the chinese civil war, since the communist victory changed the Asian country forever. The consequences of this war were the following:

• China suffered millions of deaths, most of them being civilian victims due to the type of war they carried out.
• The Chinese economic system went from being capitalist to be communist.
• The new Chinese government took the land from the landlords and gave them to the peasants.
• The Economic recovery The Chinese state was slow, since its only commercial allies were the communist countries.
• A parallel republic, existing two Chinas for years, but ending up being the official People's Republic of China.
• China's past was rejected, since it was considered that this was united to the old system.
• The tension China with Western countries was huge, and even many of these nations took years to recognize the new Chinese government.