Lüqiu Xiaotong
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His Excellency Lüqiu Xiaotong | |
|---|---|
| 陆秋晓彤 | |
.jpg) Lüqiu Xiaotong in 1970 | |
| 14th President of China | |
| In office 25 January 1982 – 23 February 1987 | |
| Premier | Zhu Min (1982–83) Li Hwei-ru (1983-86) Luísa Wong (1986-88) |
| Vice President | Yang Lei Cao Fen |
| Preceded by | Tatiana Antonova |
| Succeeded by | Cao Fen |
| 27th Premier of China | |
| In office 21 January 1968 – 11 April 1970 | |
| President | Yuni Tian |
| Preceded by | Zhao Lei |
| Succeeded by | Su Wuying |
| Leader of the Patriotic Labour Party | |
| In office 4 March 1965 – 15 December 1970 | |
| Deputy | Sima Jia |
| Preceded by | Position Established |
| Succeeded by | Hu Yaobang |
| Minister of Economic Affairs | |
| In office 9 February 1962 – 27 November 1964 | |
| Premier | Sima Jia |
| Preceded by | Deng Xiaoping |
| Succeeded by | Na Mu |
| Chairman of the Western China Development Authority | |
| In office 10 March 1960 – 9 February 1962 | |
| Premier | Sima Jia |
| Preceded by | Yu Qiuli |
| Succeeded by | Ma Hong |
| Member of the Legislative Yuan | |
| In office 9 February 1962 – 23 February 1987 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Lüqiu Tianqiao |
| Constituency | Yangpu (1968-87) |
| In office 4 February 1956 – 19 March 1960 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 26 March 1924 Shanghai China |
| Died | 23 February 1987 (aged 62) Lagos Nigeria |
| Cause of death | Malaria infection |
| Political party | Patriotic Labour Party (1965-1987) |
| Other political affiliations | Solidarity (1956-1965) Minmeng (Before 1956) |
| Spouse | Xia Jie |
| Children | 13, including Zhenglong and Tianqiao |
| Parents |
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| Education | Zhejiang University (BA) London School of Economics (MA) |
| Profession | Economist |
| Religion | Chinese folk religion Three teachings |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Republic of China |
| Branch/service | National Revolutionary Army |
| Years of service | 1947-1948 |
| Rank | Sergeant |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
| Awards | Order of Victory |
Lüqiu Xiaotong (26 March 1924 - 23 February 1987) was a Chinese politician, economist, and political philosopher who served as Premier of China from 1968 to 1970 and President of China from 1982 to his death in 1987. Ideologically a Principled Communist and left-wing nationalist, Lüqiu promoted his philosophy of traditional socialism as a democratic socialist alternative to the Marxism-Leninism of the French Commune and the liberal capitalism of the United States. As Premier, Lüqiu significantly expanded state control over the economy and promoted redistribution of wealth, and as President, Lüqiu helped cause the French Commune's dissolution, helped end the Sino-American alliance that existed since World War II, and carried out an explicitly ideological foreign policy, sponsoring democratic socialist, left-wing nationalist movements in much of the Third World and allying with socialist states such as India and the FECR. These policies, amongst others, made Lüqiu Xiaotong one of the most consequential and controversial politicians in Chinese history.
Lüqiu Xiaotong was born in Shanghai in 1924 to a middle-class, liberal family, and attended Zhejiang University from 1942 to 1946, where he became a Marxist. After graduating from Zhejiang, Lüqiu enlisted in the National Revolutionary Army, serving as a Sergeant during the late stages of World War II. After the War ended, Lüqiu temporarily served as a Buddhist monk before studying international relations at the London School of Economics from 1949 to 1952, coming under Harold Laski's influence.
After graduating from the LSE, Lüqiu briefly worked for the Chinese Solidarity and Labour Federation, a large democratic socialist union federation which spearheaded the merger of the Minmeng's socialist faction and the Communist Party of China into the Workers' Party in 1953, swiftly banned under the Political Organizations Act. He subsequently became a professor of development economics at Tsinghua University in 1953, promoting government-directed industrialisation and the ideas of Michal Kalecki, particularly in relation to the importance of agrarian reform and the reserve army of labour.
Lüqiu was then nominated and successfully elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1956 as a member of the far-left Solidarity Party, formed by independent, Workers' Party-aligned activists, and became Chairman of the Western China Development Authority in 1960 and Minister of Economic Affairs in 1962. Then, Lüqiu's 1964 Martyrs' Blood speech, praising the Plural Left Coalition and denouncing the KMT's campaigning tactics, catapulted him to national prominence. Though the Plural Left Coalition lost the 1964 election, the Speech helped elect Lüqiu Leader of the Patriotic Labour Party, a merger of Plural Left Coalition's largest parties, in 1965. As PLP Leader, his major electoral strategy - appealing to rural, historically KMT voters - mirrored his support for a social conservative-socialist alliance, which led him to author From Zongzu to Minsheng: On Tradition and Socialism, beginning the traditional socialist movement.
After the Patriotic Labour Party made gains during the 1968 parliamentary election amidst an economy just exiting recession, Lüqiu Xiaotong became Premier, leading a coalition government between the PLP, the Islamic socialist and regionalist Fidesian Workers' Coalition, and the centrist Progressive Coalition. During Lüqiu's Premiership, the government endeavored to establish a social-democratic welfare state, guaranteeing universal, subsidised childcare through the Families First Program and old-age pensions through the State Pension Fund. Lüqiu's Premiership also saw agrarian reform through the National Agricultural Board and Regional Agricultural Boards, enjoying a monopsony on staple crops and owning agricultural machinery and warehouses. Lüqiu Xiaotong's government also nationalised the Four Northern Banks and Three Southern Banks, and reorganised China's mining and extractive industries into the State Mining and Extraction Corporation. Seeking to render a capital strike ineffective, Lüqiu established the State Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund which, by owning plurality or majority shares in government-linked companies, helps ensure substantial state power over the Chinese economy to this day. However, Lüqiu's election also led to severe capital flight by American investors, and the unpopular establishment of additional Special Economic Zones failed to prevent this. China's export-oriented economy entered into recession in late 1969, causing an attempted coup d'état in early 1970. While this attempt failed, it nevertheless caused most Progressives and many moderate Patriotic Labourites to leave the government, triggering an election in 1970 that the rump Patriotic Labour Party lost in a landslide.
Politically isolated and out of power, Lüqiu emigrated to Communist-ruled India, where he had political connections since the 1960s, serving as a Professor at Delhi University and economic advisor to the Indian government, though he remained a Legislator. However, after the Lei Machine scandal revealed most elections since 1964 were fraudulent, to the Progressive Coalition's benefit, and after the Chinese economy entered into an economic recession in 1980 following several years of prosperity, Lüqiu returned to China, forging strong relations with FECR leaders, engaging in a high-profile campaign against the right and for the PLP, and becoming President after the Patriotic Labour Party and its allies won a landslide victory in 1982.
As President, Lüqiu Xiaotong covertly armed various left-wing national liberation movements in French Africa and French Indochina, seeking to confront the French Commune, greatly expanded Chinese soft power through Project National Glory, especially by establishing the internatoinal Chinese broadcaster InterB, and offered substantial economic aid and infrastructure investment to independent African countries, in exchange for establishing military bases in Africa that were covertly used to fund national liberation movements in French Africa and letting the State Mining and Extraction Corporation acquire a virtual monopoly on mining and extraction in Africa. Lüqiu Xiaotong also strengthened relations with socialist India and the Fedederation of European Council Republics, leading to the formation of the International Solidarity Pact, a defense pact consisting of China, India, the FECR, and those nations' various allies. After Lishan Hubei assassinated Georges Marchais, China's aid to French rebels led to near-nuclear war between China and the French Commune; however, before Lüqiu could respond to this crisis, military forces led by Claire Poincaré and Liang Zemin staged Operation Qingyun, a coup d'état. However, despite this coup leading to a collapse in the Chinese chain of command, the military government successfully pursued Lüqiu's plan to invade and disarm nuclear silos in French Indochina; subsequently, Liang Zemin ceded power to the elected government after it became apparent that resistance to the coup would be much greater than expected. Lüqiu Xiaotong preceded to assemble a multilateral coalition that invaded the French Commune in Operation Just Cause, leading to the French Commune's dissolution and the establishment of the democratic French Republic.
Under Lüqiu's influence, the ex-French African colonies became democratic socialist, Chinese-aligned states with the exception of Senegal, which briefly became a Marxist-Leninist, white-dominated remnant of the French Commune before a Chinese-led invasion made it a democratic socialist states like its neighbors. However, in Just Cause's aftermath, the anti-Chinese American President Donald Rumsfeld dissolved PATO and replaced it with organizations excluding China and the Federation of the European Council Republics collapsed, replaced by democratic socialist states in Central Europe and capitalist states - some democracies and others dictatorships - replaced it, though by the early 1990s the former FECR states all reverted to democratic socialism. Simultaneously, the French Levant descended into civil war as genocide engulfed the ex-FECR Caucasus; accordingly, Lüqiu Xiaotong directed China to military intervene in both areas, and led an invasion of Communist-ruled North Egypt, uniting it with constitutional monarchist South Egypt in order to secure Chinese and ISP control over the Suez Canal. In tandem with this increasingly interventionist and aggressive China, Lüqiu Xiaotong reorganized and greatly expanded the Chinese military, notably increasing the National Revolutionary Navy's budget to twice that of 1982 in pursuit of a blue-water navy and establishing the National Revolutionary Space Force and the National Revolutionary Cyber Force, the first separate military branches devoted to space and cyber warfare in the world. However, Lüqiu Xiaotong's foreign interventions had, at best, mixed effects; though the invasion of North Egypt was quickly successful, the interventions in the Levant and the Caucasus proved bloody, protracted affairs that lasted years. While in Lagos to gain African support for the Chinese invasion of North Egypt, Lüqiu contracted malaria and died shortly thereafter, though conspiracy theories abound alleging foul play.
Over three decades after his death, Lüqiu remains intensely controversial, both domestically and internationally. Supporters praise him as a champion of democratic socialism and anti-imperialism whose domestic policies lifted many Chinese, especially in rural areas, out of poverty and led to the 1970s economic miracle and whose foreign policies led to substantial economic development in Africa along democratic socialist and social-democratic lines, the establishment of democracy in former Marxist-Leninist states, and China rapidly transforming from a middle power into the world's strongest nation; Lüqiu is particularly beloved in Africa, India, and Indochina, and amongst the Chinese left. Conversely, left-wing critics, concentrated on the African and European far-left, and amongst Chinese pacifists, denounce him as a social-imperialist whose policies entrenched, rather than weakened, neocolonialism in the Third World and failed to seriously challenge Chinese capitalism, while right-wing critics, concentrated on the Chinese political right and in Western Europe and the United States, blame Lüqiu for capital flight and economic recession in the late 1960s and for greatly increasing China's national debt in the 1980s. Both leftist and rightist critics castigate Lüqiu for foreign interventions that they perceive as reckless, and allege that his policies helped cause World War III.