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“Reform and opening” started from the top with the seminal leadership transition from Mao to Deng. Deng Xiaoping heralded China’s boom in late 1978 when he called for experiments with “economic democracy” and “emancipation” from orthodox ideas. But the boom was not simply a top-down, state-orchestrated phenomenon. In fact, the biggest contribution of the state, especially in the first phase of growth, was to get out of the way. Farmers were liberated from collectives, sparking a wildfire of capitalism in the countryside. Urban markets and industry were freed to “grow out of the plan,” making profits on surplus production and creating powerful incentives for rapid growth.

Deng Xiaoping Was Modern China's First Modernizer

Period: Emancipation (1978-84)

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  • Reform Was Accompanied by an Open Door Policy

    Jin Canrong

  • Deng Xiaoping Was Modern China's First Modernizer

    Xu Xiaonian

  • Phasing Out The Planned Economy

    Barry Naughton

  • Chinese Were Enthusiastic About The New Beginning

    Yoichi Funabashi

  • If We Don't Do Anything, This Country is Ruined

    Philip P. Pan

  • Economics Was a Minor Aspect of Opening in 70s

    Winston Lord

  • Deng's Visit to The US Resulted in Capitalism

    Mao Yushi

  • The Resurgent Elite Legitimized Deng's Government

    Michael Anti

  • China's Development in Three Periods

    Li Cheng

  • The Legacy of Property Provides Stability

    Fan Jianchuan

  • Eating from One Rice Bowl

    Zhong Taiyin

  • Factory Managers Did Not Understand Business

    Thomas Rawski

  • Playing to The Provinces

    Susan Shirk

  • For 800 Million People, It Was a Huge Bang

    Deborah Davis

  • Beijing Back Then Was Like Pyongyang

    Carl E. Walter

  • The Birth of Private Workers, The Death of People’s Communes

    Bao Yujun

  • One Child Policy Stimulated Growth

    Michael Pettis

  • People Who Fall Behind Will Be Beaten

    Cai Guoqiang

  • Deng Understood That the World Had Changed

    Wu Jianmin

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Meettheexpert

Xu Xiaonian

Professor of Economics and Finance, CEIBS

Xu Xiaonian is professor of Economics and Finance at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), an international business school located in Shanghai. He has worked for China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC) since 1999 as Managing Director and Head of Research. Xu was ranked the No. 1 economics researcher among domestic brokerage firms in 2002 by Chinese institutional investors. Prior to joining CICC, Dr. Xu was Senior Economist with Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong, and a consultant for the World Bank in Washington, DC before that.

Xu obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Davis and an MA in Industrial Economics from People's University of China. He received the prestigious Sun Yefang Economics Prize in 1996, the highest Chinese award in the field, for his research on China's capital markets. Xu was also named one of China's Most Powerful People by BusinessWeek in 2009. His research interests include: macroeconomics, finance, financial institutions and financial markets, transitional economies, and China's economic reform.

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Mr. Deng Xiaoping was a great, great leader. He started the process of modernization of China. He was really the first one to put the modernization of an ancient civilization in action. And before him, some scholars and philosophers realized what we need to do to modernize this ancient civilization, in particular after the first Opium War in 1840. We lost that war to Great Britain and the transition of a traditional society into a modern society began. But, for most of those years, there was war after war, war against the Western powers, and then the Japanese invasion, the civil war between the Communists and the Guomindang and Chiang Kai-shek; the Chinese people really didn't get a chance to put the idea of modernization in action. Mr. Deng Xiaoping was the first one. But we need a lot more and we need to do a lot more. So, I think the past three decades were only a starting point for the modernization of China.

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Cite this Source >>
“Deng Xiaoping Was Modern China's First Modernizer | Xu Xiaonian | Emancipation | The China Boom Project.”
The China Boom Project.
The Asia Society Center on US-China Relations.
1 June 2010.
Web.
09 May 2025.
<https://chinaboom.asiasociety.org/period/emancipation/0/94>.
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  • Capitalism
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  • Inheritance (Pre-1978)
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  • Mao's Failure, Deng's Success
  • China Boom: Rural China in the 1980s

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