ABSTRACT
By the time Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976, China’s population had suffered the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Sixty per cent of the people had to survive on less than the internationally accepted poverty line of one US dollar per day. Productivity in agriculture and industry was either standing still or in decline. There were serious economic imbalances across the country, with underdevelopment of the western regions creating a huge drain on the eastern economy. The non-Han populations who populated the border regions suffered deeper feelings of alienation than most after being subjected to nation-building through ‘class struggle’. In foreign affairs, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) not only had tense relations with both superpowers, it had even alienated the non-aligned states, thanks largely to attempts to export Maoism. Meanwhile, the military was more of a bloated and inefficient welfare system engaged in maintaining domestic political stability than a professional fighting force.
