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Inheritance
The roots of China’s recent boom extend deep into its imperial and communist past. But tradition’s legacy is a complicated one. To achieve modern development, China had to throw off the “yoke” of traditional society. Yet the long traditions of centralized government administration, kin-based entrepreneurism, and value placed on education and diligence prepared the Chinese well for capitalism. Despite catastrophes like the Great Leap Forward and the famine in its wake, Mao Zedong’s nation building efforts between the founding of the PRC in 1949 and the unleashing of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 laid socialist foundations for the subsequent boom. Even the disastrous, decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution contributed to the boom: By eroding public support for radical politics, the ground was cleared for a transition from revolution to reform—for new policies that were gradualist, internationalist and capitalist. |
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China’s Leaders Embraced Reform to Stay In PowerPeriod: Inheritance (Pre-1978)
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Click to expand I’m in the camp that thinks the boom wouldn’t have been possible, perhaps, without the Cultural Revolution; that that was such a disaster and so traumatic for the nation, that it allowed the leadership to do a 180 degree turn and embrace capitalism the way they did. If there had been no Cultural Revolution, I think it's quite conceivable that the government may not have launched the market reforms, that they would have pushed ahead and muddled along like many socialist states did in that period. I think it was because the Cultural Revolution was such a disaster, tens of millions of people died in famine and political violence and the country was torn apart, the economy was in shambles and I think communism, as an ideology, was all but dead at that point. It completely discredited it. And so, it was only because of that, I think, that the leadership had the courage, because if they wanted to survive and stay in power, I think it was their only choice to embrace market reforms the way they did. And they succeeded.
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