Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

“Did any other leader in the twentieth century do more to improve the lives of so many? Did any other twentieth-century leader have such a large and lasting influence on world history?” This is how Ezra Vogel concludes his massive 700-page tome, “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.” Indeed, who else in history has raised more people out of poverty? There may be no definitively right answer, but Vogel makes a convincing case that Deng Xiaoping has a better claim than anyone else.While lengthy, this book is an easy read and provides fascinating insights and lots of detail on how Deng and his forward-thinking policies turned China from a backward, poverty stricken basket case in the wake of the disastrous Cultural Revolution to an economic superpower in a single generation. It has been a revolution every bit as astonishing and impactful to world history as the Japanese Meiji Restoration of the late nineteenth century.Vogel’s narrative focuses mainly on the years from Mao’s death in 1976 to Deng’s retirement in 1992. Deng’s quite eventful first 65 years of life are covered in just 45 pages; China’s dramatic growth over the two decades since his retirement receive a mere 20 pages of attention. This book could have been called the “Deng Restoration,” the decade-and-a-half period when the Chinese leader blazed a new path, normalizing Chinese foreign relations and assiduously laying the political and economic groundwork for China’s improbably rapid rise from a self-isolated Third World Country into a global leader in manufacturing and burgeoning superpower just beginning to stretch its legs and demand its rightful place in the sun, to paraphrase Bismark.What struck me most about Deng’s leadership and policies, besides their remarkable success, was their consistency – and authority. His power was strictly personal, not positional; Deng was never chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, nor Premier of the Chinese government. Rather, he was something else, the “preeminent leader,” officially only vice chairman of the party and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Aging and hard of hearing, he rarely attended Politburo meetings. Yet, “it is doubtful that anyone [other than Deng] had the combination of authority, depth and breadth of experience, strategic sense, assurance, personal relationships, and political judgment needed to manage China’s transformation with comparable success,” Vogel writes. When he came to power in the late 1970s, he had very firm ideas on what needed to be done, plans that Vogel claims matured in Deng’s mind during his long and humiliating five year exile in Jiangxi working at a tractor factory during the Cultural Revolution.First, stability and unity were paramount in Deng’s plans, according to Vogel. He knew that the economic transformation China must go through would be wrenching and tumultuous, and he believed that only the Communist Party, with its discipline and order, could effectively manage the change. He had to maintain a delicate balance between encouraging innovative thinking and freedom of expression while maintaining the unquestioned rule of the Communist Party. In 1978, Deng formulated the Four Cardinal Principles, essentially four red lines that could not be crossed in China (socialist path; dictatorship of the proletariat; leadership of the Communist Party; Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought), and he never waivered from them. In fact, his most controversial and unpopular decision – the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989 – was taken precisely because the protests were openly challenging the Four Cardinal Principles. Although he was an ambitious reformer, he was a Communist first-and-foremost. When his two top lieutenants and official heads of party and state, respectively, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, were seen as going soft on dissidents, he had them unceremoniously cashiered. It was the outpouring of love for Hu at his death in 1989, along with frustration at how he had been treated by Deng and the Party, that sparked the Tiananmen protests, a movement that became truly dangerous when Zhao resigned rather than acquiesce to Deng’s call for martial law.Second, vast improvements in science, technology and education would be the cornerstone of Deng’s policies. Vogel describes Deng as obsessed with the importance of education and the critical role in advanced technology in China’s future. At roughly the same time that Deng formulated the Four Cardinal Principles to guide political discussion in China, he also developed the Four Modernizations, the areas in which the government would concentrate efforts to learn, grow and improve: 1) science and technology; 2) industry; 3) agriculture; and 4) defense. Again, Deng and the Chinese government remained steadfast in pursuing these objectives even when they led in politically sensitive directions, such as dropping class background from college admission criteria and instead relying solely on meritocratic entrance exams; encouraging thousands of students to study overseas, especially in Western countries, exposing them to potential “dangerous” ideas; establishing special economic zones (SEZ) along the coast to promote capitalist investment and trade, even though they encouraged graft and corruption; and the dramatic downsizing of the People’s Liberation Army to create a more highly educated and technologically savvy armed forces. “Deng was unique in that he pushed doors open far wider – to foreign ideas, foreign technology, and foreign capital – than his predecessors, and he presided over the difficult process of expanding the opening despite the disruptions it caused,” Vogel writes.Third, Deng was adamant that China must be fully engaged in world affairs. He was very much his own foreign policy strategist and built his policies around a few basic objectives. Above all, Soviet expansion must be stoutly resisted. Deng went to war – “Deng’s War,” Vogel says – with communist neighbor Vietnam in 1979 to “teach Hanoi a lesson.” Namely, that China refused to allow Vietnam to become a hegemonic power in Southeast Asia while serving as the Soviet’s “Cuba in the East.” China’s month-long invasion captured five northern Vietnamese provincial capitals at the cost of 25,000 PLA soldiers killed in action, according to Vogel (that is, China lost half as many men in one month in Vietnam as the US did in a decade!). Next, Deng sought to normalize and improve relations with the Western world, an objective he largely achieved, although the backlash from Tiananmen Square was sharp and prolonged. Finally, Deng desperately wanted to consolidate Chinese territory in his lifetime, achieving peace and stability in Tibet, reintegrating Hong Kong, and, most important of all, reunifying with Taiwan. The last goal was one of Deng’s great disappointments, although he did successfully prevent the Reagan administration from formally recognizing Taiwan and worked to reduce arms shipments to the island nation. “Under Deng’s leadership,” the author writes, “China truly joined the world community, becoming an active part of international organizations and of the global system of trade, finance, and relations among citizens of all walks of life.”Finally, Deng was a political virtuoso, albeit of a distinctly communist variety. Deng was well-described by US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as “remarkable… impatient, feisty, self-confidently outspoken, direct, forceful, and clever.” Standing just five-feet-tall, with limited formal education and a lifelong habit of using a spittoon even when negotiating directly with world leaders in the West, Deng was nevertheless a man of immense natural ability and innate political instincts. Unlike the “mercurial” Mao, who Vogel describes as “ranked high among world leaders” in megalomania and lust for power, Deng was personally humble, wanting nothing more than to serve his country and then be forgotten. Upon his death, he donated his corneas for eye research, his internal organs to medical science, was cremated and had his ashes scattered into the sea. There would be no “Cult of Deng” if he had anything to say about it.A deeply and sincerely committed communist, he was nevertheless open-minded and had no use for communist dogma. He was highly opposed to Mao’s revolutionary radicalism, yet sensitive to charges of being the “Chinese Khrushchev.” He quickly worked to overthrow the so-called “Gang of Four” after Mao’s death, but steadfastly espoused a flexible, results oriented approach to reform. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, just so long as it catches mice,” he liked to say. He used his liberal approach to outmaneuver and then oust Mao’s handpicked successor, the middle-aged cipher Hua Goufeng, who stumbled badly in 1977 when he penned an editorial claiming that future policy “will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave” (the so-called “Two Whatevers”). Deng had different ideas – and they would prevail.Although he a had clear vision for where China should go conceptually, Deng honestly admitted that he had to “grope for stones as he crossed the river” the entire time, never knowing for certain which approach was best, but always open to learning-by-doing. “Don’t argue, just push ahead,” was a favorite mantra. His SEZ experiment at Shenzhen was controversial, but ultimately successful beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. And unlike Dahzai, Mao’s experimental ideal collective community, Chinese leaders and others flocked to Shenzhen out of genuine interest rather than political expediency.Twenty-first century China is Deng’s China. If the sun is setting on the American century and rising in the East, no one man had more to do with it than Deng Xiaoping, a man Vogel believes may be one of the greatest men in his nation’s long history. “The transition from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban society and the spread of common national culture are among the most fundamental changes that have occurred in Chinese history since the country’s unification in 221 BC,” Vogel declares, and it was mainly the work of one little, unassuming man from a small village in Szechuan.

A wonderful biography of Deng Xiaoping. There is more emphasis on the later as opposed to earlier years of his life. He was a survivor, having been purged twice by Chairman Mao Zedong. But Mao was not to be finished with Deng--keeping him on the backburner in case he needed his skills later on.The book provides background for his ultimate leadership of China. Deng was "taken down" during the Cultural Revolution, an enormous upheaval of Chinese society orchestrated by Mao. Deng and his family were essentially "exiled." When the time came for Mao to recall him and address excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Deng was slowly put back into harness for a short period of time. The time came when, again, Mao began to distrust Deng and even put the cold shoulder to Zhou Enlai, Mao's long time lieutenant. After a brief exile, Deng was again readmitted into a leadership role.The book then goes on to outline how, through political acumen and skills at coalition building, slowly became the # 1 leader, leaving Mao's successor out of power. The book has several areas where it explores Deng's career as leader. His role in upgrading the state of science and education is one focal point. There is a nice discussion of his reaching out to other countries to bring China up to speed in modernizing its economy, its military, and so on. The book also considers economic his economic policies, as Deng tried to jump start China's economy, based on fairly rapid growth (with the risk of inflation). His tactics to do this are described well. There is also discussion of his role in the military. He knew that the army was too large, too many senior officers had outlived their usefulness, and the war technology was not up to modern armies. How he was able to make progress in these (and other) sectors is fascinating.The book also addresses what appear to be some difficult choices that suggest some problematic decision making by Deng. His invasion of Vietnam is portrayed by Deng as a major factor in addressing Vietnam's aggressiveness. I think that the book's author might have had a somewhat more critical take on this event. Too, there is Deng's decision to bring the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to Beijing to put down the Tienanmen Square protests.After his retirement, his successors became, in Deng's mind, too cautious with the economy. There is a fascinating tale told of how he used his political skills to get China on a pathway toward more rapid growth. It shows Deng as a wily political figure, who even in his eighties could bend events toward his desires.All in all, a detailed biography, overall well done, of one of the most important figures in the late 20th century. The book might have been even better with a more critical assessment of Deng's work at some points. Still and all, an important work.

This book provides a thorough treatment of the career of a man whose influence on China was arguably as great as anyone's in the 20th Century, Mao included. The picture that emerges is of a man who exercised good judgment, was a skillful politician, held certain core beliefs, but was pragmatic and capable of reversing course when necessary. I see parallels to FDR, in some respects. The author gives him credit for working masterfully within the Chinese Communist Party framework to achieve and exercise power, which required a certain amount of misdirection if not subterfuge, yet the prominent Americans who dealt with him all regarded him as being direct if not blunt to deal with.I am around 70% through the book and have branched off twice to read other books, which I almost never do. It occurs to me that this book is not a particularly easy read. In part this is due to the seemingly endless parade of characters whose identities can be difficult to keep straight. Part is due to the fact that Deng did not seem to leave behind much in the way of personal writings or interviews, so the book lacks a personal narrative feel. Also, a lot of Deng's accomplishments as a politician involved the indirect exercise of power, through others. Much of the book involves telling us not what Deng himself did in a given situation, but what Deng arranged to have acomplished, which doesn't involve the same urgency. There is very little revealed of his personal life. It is arranged topically within an overall chronology. It is very straight-forward, with basically no subjective content or even reflection.The book appears to have been exhaustively researched. It is well worth the effort, given the importance of the subject, which is, ultimately, China itself.

Ezra F. Vogel depicts in great detail the life of the one man who transformed China into a develloped industrial nation. Deng was one of the first to join the Chinese Communist Party and was an officer in the People's Liberation Army. Though a convinced communist he never forgot that the aim of the party shall and must be to arrange for a better life of the Chinese people.Deng was one of the closest collaborators of Mao Zedong. He realized that Mao was a good leader in war, not so much in peace time. When the chance of Deng came in the late 70s of the last century to become the senior leader of his country, he used his power carefully and with great diligence to transform China from a backward rural nation to one of the finest industrial nations in the world. His humble demeanor made it possible that Japan, the USA and European nations helped actively in this transformation process.Deng's intention was to give the people as much freedom as possible as long as the leaading role of the CCP was not challenged. Unfortunately his successors have choosen another way of leading the country, more illiberal and more totalitarian.The style of writing of Vogel is exhaustive. You really feel that he is a Havard lecturer, used to have the best and the brightest listening to him. If you are patient and interested in history and China, you will profit enormously from this brilliant work from one of the foremost scholars in the USA.

I received the book in excellent condition and really seemed like a genuine cover and print. Reading the book now, have read 20% so far, first few chapters are slow about Deng's initial life but the book is now picking pace. From people who have read it, I came to know its a riveting read and really takes you through the key people and reforms they undertook to take China where it is today. One big economic monster.

El producto es justamente el que pedí. Y llegó en el tiempo que me habían ofrecido.

The book provides detailed and complete information about China's transformation into a capitalist country in a very pleasant way. It also shows how a system with executive, judiciary and legislative concentrated in one power only (Communist party) is operated. It is really entertaining to see that Mao Zedong, even being a dictator, gave orders that were not followed. People management is tough in all types of working system. it also gives also stories on how unfair this transformation was to great part of the chinese people. As Deng said: "Some will get rich first".The culture difference from China to western countries is another great aspect that this reading provides us.Despite being a long book, it really worths the time invested reading it.

Amazon sempre impeccabile, arrivato puntuale e imballato perfettamente.Testo utilizzato per scrivere parte di una tesi di laurea, non adatto ovviamente come libro di piacere se non per qualcuno di molto appassionato.