China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

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While many of China’s western supporters believed that growing prosperity would bring growing demands for political freedom and participation, Xi believes that the separation of powers, judicial autonomy and freedom of speech represent a mortal threat to the party, and that once China’s people are materially better off, they will agree with the party’s claim that China’s socialism is superior to western capitalism. As the early reformer Zhao Ziyang – later disgraced for his opposition to the Tiananmen massacre – put it: “We are setting up special economic zones, not political zones. We must uphold socialism and resist capitalism.” Another significant event is the Internet boom in the late 1990s. Not only it gave birth to some prominent private companies such as Sina and Baidu, but also it changed the social lives of everybody in China. Through online news, blogs, and microblogs, ordinary Chinese people follow world events, share their life stories, and participate in social movements. The thriving of the Internet is accompanied by ever-increasing Government regulation and censorship. The cat-and-mouse game between censorship and evasion profoundly shaped the Chinese online culture and the relationship between the Government and the mass.

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower | Hoover

The Communist Party leaders throughout the 1980s and 1990s are shown as having a staggering ignorance of basic economics (these are the observations of foreign contemporaries, rather than Dikötter himself) and we see that China’s economic miracle is also something that took a long time coming. This book is a definitive guide of what's happening in contemporary China. It will be a difficult read for pro-CCP admirers and the like. There is a narrative out there that China's regime has lifted 800 million people out of poverty since Mao's death, through "reform and opening up," the rise of the private sector, urbanization, and good old fashioned economic growth.Frank Dikotter, long time Chair of Humanities at Hong Kong University, has continued to hold on to his faculty position despite his books being banned in the People’s Republic. He sees this as fortunate since he is unknown on the mainland and still has access to the archives. In the preface to this late 2022 work he notes that regional archives for the Mao years (1949-1976) were opened in 1996 under Jiang Zemin and then closed in 2012 under Xi Jinping, but post Mao era files (1977-2002) became available. By the period of ‘Reform and Opening Up’ begun by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 the Party had become a system where industry, large enterprises, land, natural and financial resources were all controlled by the state. Systemic corruption and inefficiency had made the fiscal deficits and their mounting debts unsustainable. Essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has shaped today's China and what the Chinese Communist Party's choices mean for the rest of the world A note to prospective readers, this book is primarily interested in domestic Chinese politics and history, and relatively unconcerned with foreign policy (that, or during the period it covers China was relatively unconcerned with foreign policy). Also, the book might better be titled "China Between Mao and Xi" -- the period between Xi's accession and the present day is covered merely in the epilogue, in much less detail than previous decades. This was disappointing, since I would have liked to better understand China's present-day footing (e.g. its demographic challenges, or the Belt and Road Initiative). It's likely the source materials the author worked with for pre-Xi times are much harder to come by the closer you get to the present, so I understand, but I would have liked more since the book's account of the rest of its subject matter is quite good. Consider, for example, the magnitude of some of the relevant indicators that mark the accelerated material and cultural progress following the incremental advances of 1976 to 2001. The economic boom coincides with China’s integration into the World Trade Organization. At the close of the Cultural Revolution, in some provinces more than half of the population was illiterate. Underdevelopment and dependence has today given way to the world’s most powerful industrial production base, supporting a massive and dynamic technical/scientific superstructure. With an annual GDP growth for years averaging at 9 percent (more recently it has declined to a more normal rate), the economy will soon surpass that of the current number one, the United States. According to the World Bank, China has lifted 800 million people out of Maoist Great Leap Forward starvation and extreme poverty and its Cultural Revolution mass violence chaos. New material relations among the social classes of the twenty-first century have already presented themselves.

CHINA AFTER MAO: The Rise of a Superpower | By Frank Dikötter CHINA AFTER MAO: The Rise of a Superpower | By Frank Dikötter

From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine, a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman Mao Dikotter’s latest work is highly recommended for those who want to make sense of the intriguing developments and develop an informed understanding of China’s political and economic evolution in the post-Mao era. Dikotter has done a commendable job of unearthing some archival and other relevant primary sources (including party and other official documents in Mandarin) to uncover some of the most critical periods. A blow-by-blow account … An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.”-- Financial TimesBut if upon completing chapter 8 readers get the idea that in the coming years the Chinese economy and political system face collapse after teetering on the brink of irremediable crisis, they are in for a rude awakening. A close reading of chapter 9 and the first section of chapter 10 prompts us to study the relevant comparisons worldwide. For example, we might want to study the early signs of a possible degradation of some of the core institutions of United States democracy and that country’s declining economic vitality (accelerating indebtedness, for example to China). China's alliance with US after losing Vietnam War due to misconception that Soviet Union was the world's pre-eminent power, how would the world be different if China knew USSR was close to collapse? Implication for today that Russia doesn't need to align too closely with China as long as US has major weaknesses. A leading historian of modern China. He is a rare scholar, adept in both Russian and Chinese . . . Combined with this linguistic skill, Dikötter has a writer's gift' EVENING STANDARD The book became riveting in recounting the events leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square; there were uprisings in other cities as well. All were ruthlessly suppressed.

China After Mao by Frank Dikötter — the grand deception

Frank Dikötter is a Dutch historian specialized in modern China. He is currently a professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. Dikötter is known for his research on the Maoist era and his books, including "Mao's Great Famine," which won the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. “China After Mao” is Dikötter’s recapture of Chinese history between Mao’s death in 1976 and Xi Jinping’s throning in 2012. Contrary to the prevailing narrative of the “China miracle,” Dikötter describes China’s journey as a tyrannic ruler class stumbling through economic development and globalization. Dikötter’s work is hailed as a correction of the popular view, presenting a different story based on solid evidence. However, “China After Mao” is not a complete recount and should be considered together with other works. The main question that this study of China after Mao revolves around is an examination of a seemingly plausible and widely accepted hypothesis: that an implementation of free market methods will lay the foundation, inevitably, for democratic political reform. He certainly is an expert, and I'd say one of the best informed of Western commentators on China that we have and should treasure. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind about how much archival work he has done to get this book out in the world.In 2010, Chongqing had 500,000 cameras, Beijing and Shanghai had over 1 million, and London had 7,000