Describe the factors that helped the Chinese Communist Party consolidate its authority while building up state strength

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The CCP benefited from several sets of circumstances.
First, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), under the command of the CCP, enjoyed a
series of military victories. During the Korean War (1950–1953), the PLA fought United
Nations forces led by the U.S. military to a stalemate—which, given China's previous
record of defeats at the hands of far less?powerful opponents, was regarded not
unjustifiably as a victory. In 1962, the PLA also soundly defeated India's military in a
series of battles along their disputed border deep in the Himalaya Mountains. The PLA
also detonated China's first nuclear weapon in the Lop Nor desert in 1964. These
victories gave the PLA and CCP leaders tremendous legitimacy and helped the party
consolidate its rule.
Second, the CCP benefited from international perceptions. The CCP was able to convince
other countries that China was more powerful than it actually was, and that it was not
to be trifled with.
Third, the CCP's effort to establish authority over Chinese territory benefited from
China's geographic environment. Although surrounded on the east by its Cold War
ideological enemies—Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—the PRC also had formidable
buffer zone along its northern, southern, and western borders.
Finally, the CCP benefited from the domestic economic environment, which was finally
improving after decades of stagnation or decline. Land reform brought the dream of
property ownership to millions of peasants who had hitherto worked under the yoke of
the landlord class. In the cities, the new government established an industrial program
that within the space of a few years made China a viable economic power. Thus
although in 1949 China had very little modern economic infrastructure to speak of,
within ten years it has established an impressive heavy industrial base modeled on the
Soviet Union's. The planned economy—in which CCP government bureaucrats and not
market forces made economic decisions ranging from what to manufacture, how to
distribute it, to what prices to set—consolidated the economy under the centralized
control of the state.