Stemming from the idea of a constitutional monarchy came radical ideas like abolishing the monarch altogether. An overwhelming cause for the revolution could have been the general suffering and distress of the population due to natural disasters like floods, droughts, and famines, plagues and the fact that as China's population swelled, food became harder to come by. Life in China was difficult for those not in the upper class. So although new ideas and thoughts were abundant, food and secure living was not. Basically the whole country was restful and ready for change.
Post World War Two.
After World War II, the Communists under Mao Tse Tung established a dictatorship that, while ensuring autonomy of China, imposed strict controls over all aspects of like and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor Deng Xiaoping decentralized economic decision-making; output quadrupled in the next 20 years. Political controls remained tight and at the same time economic controls have been weakening. Today, China remains the major issue in U.S. security policy in Asia. The currently dominant security policy holds that China has essentially replaced the former Soviet Union as the chief strategic threat to the United States in the region, and the U.S. should essentially retain its containment strategy, with China as the new target. The basis of this new strategy includes a strengthening of cold war-era bilateral military alliances in with the development of a Theater-based Missile Defense system that would cover South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. China's defense budget has grown more than 50% over the course of the 1990s and is said to have increased 15% in 1999.
Current Relations and View on Iraqi Crisis.
In recent years, there have been four major concerns in U.S.-China security relations: 1) Taiwan, 2) U.S. proposals for deploying theater missile defense systems in Asia, 3) supposed leaks to China of military-related technologies and nuclear secrets, and 4) Chinese arms export policies.
