CHAPTER 12
The Indestructible Deng
ONLY THOSE WHO experienced Mao Zedong’s China can
fully appreciate the transformations wrought by Deng Xiaoping.
China’s bustling cities, the construction booms, the traffic
gridlocks, the un-Communist dilemma of a growth rate occasionally
threatened by inflation and, at other times, looked to by the
Western democracies as a bulwark against global recession—all of
these were inconceivable in Mao’s drab China of agricultural
communes, a stagnant economy, and a population wearing standard
jackets while professing ideological fervor from the “Little Red
Book” of Mao quotations.
Mao destroyed
traditional China and left its rubble as building blocks for
ultimate modernization. Deng had the courage to base modernization
on the initiative and resilience of the individual Chinese. He
abolished the communes and fostered provincial autonomy to
introduce what he called “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The China of today—with the world’s second-largest economy and
largest volume of foreign exchange reserves, and with multiple
cities boasting skyscrapers taller than the Empire State
Building—is a testimonial to Deng’s vision, tenacity, and common
sense.