For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. However, Dikotter has woven a compelling narrative regarding how each leader in the reforms era has been ruthless in asserting the party’s dominant position, notwithstanding the price they had to pay. If one takes into consideration Deng’s ruthless purging of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, Jiang Zemin’s ‘three represents’ theory and its adept interpretation followed by Hu Jintao’s pronouncements regarding the unquestionable supremacy of the party, Xi Jinping’s policy of party first is more of a continuity rather than an aberration. 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 na Mao is een zeer gedetailleerd werk en als lezer is het soms moeilijk je hoofd erbij te houden. De auteur heeft duidelijk een grote kennis van het land en goochelt met termen die vooral economen bekend in de oren zullen klinken. Anderzijds zullen zij het dan weer moeilijk hebben met de geschiedenis van China die ook niet nader verklaard wordt. Het is dus een ingewikkeld werk voor lezers die zowel geïnteresseerd zijn in China, als in economie, en er bovendien reeds heel wat vanaf weten. Hierdoor is het boek zeker niet zo toegankelijk voor het bredere publiek, wat wel jammer is, gezien het interessante thema. Er zijn ook wel wat haperingen, zo stopt hij zijn relaas bij Xi Jin Ping, wie ook wel heel wat hervormingen doorgevoerd heeft die een impact hebben gehad. Hierdoor lijkt Dikötter zijn betoog niet volledig. De bronnen zijn ook eenzijdig, zo haalt hij zijn informatie niet uit verschillende soorten bronnen halen.

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

But 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). 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' New Statesman

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Zhao Ziyang seen supporting Tiananmen protests, supporting thesis that popular discontent only poses a real threat if used for intra-elite conflict

China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower - The Hindu China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower - The Hindu

Zhao was ousted and replaced with Jiang Zemin, who waged propaganda campaigns to root out the foreign collaborators plotting to defeat socialism and poison the body politic with western spiritual pollution. Lei Feng, fictional Mao era model soldier and socialist, was wheeled out of mothballs to appear on television, in movies, study groups and symposiums. The 150th anniversary of the Opium War provided an opportunity to denounce a ‘Century of Humiliation’ China endured at the hands of imperialists. United Front established a network of domestic and international celebrities and spokespersons to win over hearts and minds and to promote acceptance of the Chinese Communist Party. Thousands fled from Hong Kong, considered by Beijing a hotbed of foreign subversion, trying to escape the rapidly approaching return to the mainland. Similarly, the issue of anti-corruption under Xi Jinping has been highlighted as an extraordinary policy. Dikotter has provided very forceful evidence of how Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao have made anti-corruption an integral part of their tenure as the party’s helmsman during their respective eras. The seventeenth party Congress report presented by Hu Jintao (just before Xi Jinping took over the party’s leadership) highlighted the issue of anti-corruption. Third, the policy of consolidating SOEs to make them ‘national champions.’ From Jiang Zemin (and Zhu Rongji) to Xi Jinping, a select group of SOEs has always been identified to turn them into world beaters. The idea of ‘going global’ has been given a new dimension with Xi’s policy of engineering mega-mergers of SOEs and turning them into world beaters. In this regard, the priority of SOEs seems to be more of a continuity rather than a radical departure of the Xi era from the previous ones.Het is duidelijk dat het grootste probleem, om een bloeiende economische markt te krijgen, het communistische systeem is. Economie kan niet floreren onder het communisme. Het boek is dus tevens een soort van pleidooi tegen het Chinese politieke systeem. Maar zal het ooit een echte democratie kunnen worden? De Chinese regering doet er alles aan om dit tegen te houden, zo worden demonstraties van studenten over de jaren heen steeds de kop ingedrukt, is er geen persvrijheid, etc…. I would have liked a little more focus on HK (and Taiwan), maybe Macau and the rest of PRD, and some other specific topics, as well as the business/scientific issues of specific joint ventures and infrastructure projects, but this was a high-level overview. A blow-by-blow account of the uneven, reactive and sometimes chaotic course of economic policies . . . An important corrective' Financial Times An informative, detailed history that to some extent boils down to a repetitive cycle of reform and repression, expansion and mismanagement (which isn't the book's fault, it can't help that its subject is repetitive). I lost count of the times the author repeated the point that local governments or state industries could go into heedless debt confident in the fact that the state would be obliged to bail them out no matter what, for instance. Reading things like this I find interesting compared to the prevailing narrative that China's out to eat everyone's lunch and is going to take the United States' place as the preeminent world power -- every time I read anything that actually describes the inner workings of the Chinese economy in detail the degree to which it comes across as a house of cards is striking.