Editorial | A modern, powerful China the legacy of Deng Xiaoping, born 120 years ago
- Paramount leader launched country on reform path that transformed nation from among the world’s least developed to a global force
It is no exaggeration to say that China would scarcely exist in its current form had not Deng Xiaoping launched the country on its path to reform and opening up at the third plenum of the Communist Party in 1978. Long credited as the architect of China’s market reforms, Deng started the country on a path to modernisation that helped transform it from one of the world’s least developed economies into the powerhouse it is today.
All the more reason to mark Thursday, the 120th anniversary of Deng’s birth.
Standing on a street in China today, it is hard to imagine just how alien a market economy would sound to the average Chinese in the late 1970s. The country had just emerged from a decade of chaos under Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.
The economy was still centrally planned and the state controlled everything from workers’ wages to factory output and the price of products. Genuine private entrepreneurship had not existed since before the 1949 revolution.
Rice, wheat, eggs and even bicycles were rationed, obtainable only with coupons issued by one’s local work unit, which provided lifetime jobs known as the “iron rice bowl”. The population was near 1 billion, hundreds of millions lived in poverty, just as many were illiterate and the education system was fractured by years of turmoil and neglect.
