#401 Deng Xiaoping: “Black Cat, White Cat”

Reflection on unit III:

Unit III feedback

Reflection on unit III:

• To what extent has our recent narrative demonstrated the “fall and rise” pattern?
  
• China’s leaders have struggled to allow public grappling with some of the “dark valleys” of this era. Does reflection on history and memory matter? Why or why not?
  

Introducing Unit IV:

• As Schell and Delury suggest, “By the 1980s [Deng Xiaoping] had named his counterrevolution gaige kaifang (改革开放), “reform and opening up.” Deng’s strange hybrid reform combined Vladimir Lenin’s recipe for a disciplined and well-organized state and Milton Friedman’s celebration of free market economics” (261).
  
• Over the next couple of weeks we will examine this transformation of China from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
  

Interactive background

• Slides
  

Further discussion:

• To what extent do you think Deng’s biography (his family background, his time in France and the Soviet Union, his revolutionary credentials, or his experience during the Cultural Revolution) impacted his eventual choices as paramount leader?
  
• How would you summarize the complex relationship between Mao and Deng?
  
• What is the relationship between “reform” and “opening”?
  
• What do you find admirable about Deng’s leadership? Are there any aspects that might give you pause?