Deng Xiaopeng and the Transformation of China

After however many months, and however many books I started and/or didn't finish in the middle of it, I am done with this one, no thin tome, first published by Ezra Vogel in 2011. This was no easy book, and it didn't in many ways cover what I had hoped it would. But it was still very worthwhile. And hell, if they had wanted me to write the book, they would've asked me.

First and foremost, Vogel has written what I would call a "court history," in that it focuses on how Deng operated within the Chinese power structure, and also when he was on its periphery or worse, as during his period of rustication during the Cultural Revolution. This is generally not my kind of thing. I am more into the stories of historical change on the ground: how people lived, how things were made and sold, what they watched, listened to, cared about, dreamed of etc. Vogel does address this kind of thing in passing, at a high level, and he 100% gets that it was Deng who made it possible for all of that to happen. So in a sense the story Vogel tells is necessary and prior to all the things I want to know about.

Vogel focuses on how Deng did it, inch by inch, brick by brick, plenum by plenum, circular by circular. It is a hard story to tell, but there is much to it.

The key is Deng's long view. When Mao died, and even before, Deng understood how far China was behind the West, and he had some vague inkling of what it would take to bridge the gap. Too much waste in the military, too many soldiers? Scale back the army. But how to do that? So many generals and officers, proud of their positions in life, how to overcome their resistance? What happens when millions of soldiers return to their villages? What will they do to feed themselves? That's just one example of one problem set Deng and China faced.

How to address these big challenges? Talk them through. Big meetings. National meetings. Regional meetings. Local meetings. Discuss the problems on the ground, and how they can be addressed in the light of Maoist thought and Party guidance. Because the center needed to hold. China's overarching problem over decades and centuries -- and its greatest shared fear -- had been chaos (most recently the Cultural Revolution) and domination by foreign powers (the West since the Opium Wars, Japan pre-WWII). So the Party needed to remain sacrosanct as a place where issues could be worked out. Even if it meant using force to quell rebellion at Tiannanmen Square.

Overall, the big lesson from this book is how intensely consensual governance in China is. Yes there is a firm center, but it always exists in dialogue with its constituent elements, if not the true periphery (Tibet, Xinjiang). Deng mastered the process, because he sought to guide and channel it prudently, and at certain moments, like his final Southern Tour in 1992, where he challenged the post-Tiannanmen conservative consensus in Beijing to push for further reform and openness, he gave it a kick in the ass to get it going again.

As ever, the picture is complex.