Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

Ezra F. Vogel

Published by Harvard University Press 2011

Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

Ezra F. Vogel

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674062832

Overview
Contents

About this book

Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist.

Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,” Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China’s growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square.

Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao—and he did not hesitate.

Author / Editor information

Vogel Ezra F. :

Ezra F. Vogel is Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard and former Director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research and the Asia Center.

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Map: China in the 1980s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Preface: In Search of Deng Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Introduction: The Man and His Mission Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Deng’s Background
1. From Revolutionary to Builder to Reformer. 1904–1969 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Deng’s Tortuous Road to the Top. 1969–1977
2. Banishment and Return. 1969–1974 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
3. Bringing Order under Mao. 1974–1975 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
4. Looking Forward under Mao. 1975 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
5. Sidelined as the Mao Era Ends. 1976 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
6. Return under Hua. 1977–1978 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	184
Creating the Deng Era. 1978–1980
7. Three Turning Points. 1978 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
8. Setting the Limits of Freedom. 1978–1979 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
9. The Soviet-Vietnamese Threat. 1978–1979 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
10. Opening to Japan. 1978 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
11. Opening to the United States. 1978–1979 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
12. Launching the Deng Administration. 1979–1980 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349
The Deng Era. 1978–1989
13. Deng’s Art of Governing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	377
14. Experiments in Guangdong and Fujian. 1979–1984 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	394
15. Economic Readjustment and Rural Reform. 1978–1982 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	423
16. Accelerating Economic Growth and Opening. 1982–1989 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	450
17. One Country, Two Systems: Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Tibet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	477
18. The Military: Preparing for Modernization Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	523
19. The Ebb and Flow of Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	553
Challenges to the Deng Era. 1989–1992
20. Beijing Spring. April 15–May 17, 1989 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	595
21. The Tiananmen Tragedy. May 17–June 4, 1989 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	616
22. Standing Firm. 1989–1992 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	640
23. Deng’s Finale: The Southern Journey. 1992 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	664
Deng’s Place in History
24. China Transformed Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	693
Key People in the Deng Era Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	717
Chinese Communist Party Congresses and Plenums. 1956–1992 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	747
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	749
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	751
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	851

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 928
Illustrations
- Other: 39 halftones

eBook

Published: September 26, 2011
ISBN: 9780674062832