Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra F. Vogel (PDF)

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Winner of the Lionel Gelber PrizeNational Book Critics Circle Award FinalistAn Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the YearPerhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist.Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,” Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China’s growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square.Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao―and he did not hesitate.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “A masterful new history of China’s reform era. It pieces together from interviews and memoirs perhaps the clearest account so far of the revolution that turned China from a totalitarian backwater led by one of the monsters of the 20th century into the power it has become today…Vogel has a monumental story to tell. His main argument is that Deng deserves a central place in the pantheon of 20th-century leaders. For he not only launched China’s market-oriented economic reforms but also accomplished something that had eluded Chinese leaders for almost two centuries: the transformation of the world’s oldest civilization into a modern nation…[An] illuminating book.”―John Pomfret, Washington Post“Ezra Vogel’s new biography portrays Deng as not just the maker of modern China, but one of the most substantial figures in modern history…[A] meticulously researched book…Vogel knows China’s elites extremely well, not least because of his years as an intelligence officer in East Asia for the Clinton administration. This book is bolstered by insider knowledge and outstanding sources, such as interviews with Deng’s interpreters…The definitive account of Deng in any language. Vogel eloquently makes the case for Deng’s crucial role in China’s transformation from an impoverished and brutalized country into an economic and political superpower.”―The Economist“A lively portrait of the man…Vogel provides a wealth of fascinating material, from vivid accounts of Deng’s political and organizational skills in reviving the economy in the mid-1970s to his up-and-down relations with Vietnam and its leaders. The author also offers astute insights into the reformist roles played by Hua Guofeng, Mao’s immediate successor after his 1976 death, and by two of Deng’s own associates, both ultimately purged by him, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. The book is at its best in portraying the tense interplay of personal relations and ambition among Mao’s many lieutenants. On the surface, lockstep Communist ideology prevailed during Mao’s rule, but behind the walls of Zhongnanhai, Beijing’s central leadership compound, the dual drive for self-preservation and advancement fed a kind of political nihilism.”―Howard French, Wall Street Journal“When Chinese historians are able one day to ply their subversive trade without control or censorship, their judgment will surely be that their country should revere Deng Xiaoping way above his predecessor Mao Zedong…Ezra Vogel’s massive biography assembles the case for Deng (1904-97) with narrative skill and prodigious scholarship.”―Chris Patten, Financial Times“Vogel has gone to enormous lengths to document his subject…Vogel’s painstaking research provides plenty of fascinating detail. The description of the period after Tiananmen, for example–when the octogenarian was forced to call on a lifetime’s accumulated political wiles to defeat an attempt by conservatives to almost completely reverse his reforms–is eye-opening. The pages in which Deng effectively threatens to have then Communist Party Secretary Jiang Zemin dismissed unless he throws his support behind renewing the reform drive are very nearly worth the price of the book alone…On the ways through which Deng set about the enormous task of rebuilding the gutted economy, shattered by decades of turmoil under Mao Zedong, Vogel is exhaustive.”―Simon Elegant, Time“Ezra Vogel’s encyclopedic Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China is the most exhaustive English retelling of Deng’s life. Vogel, an emeritus professor at Harvard, seems to have interviewed or found the memoirs of nearly every person who spoke with Deng, and has painstakingly re-created a detailed and intimate chronology of Deng’s roller-coaster career.”―Joshua Kurlantzick, The Nation“A virtue of Vogel’s book is that it collects and organizes a huge amount of material on the struggles within the elite power circles in China over several decades. In these accounts we learn how Deng tried to protect his allies and how he sought to undermine his enemies; he fell, rose, fell again, then rose again to the pinnacle position in the second generation of the Communist dynasty. Vogel’s materials will be very useful to students of elite power struggles in China.”―Fang Lizhi, New York Review of Books“One of the virtues of Vogel’s analysis is that he understands the thinking of Deng’s rivals as well as he does Deng’s own…Deng was infatuated with everything he viewed as modern, and wanted China to have it all. By entering into Deng’s vision, Vogel helps readers see how the person who forged the world’s most successful example of modernizing authoritarianism believed that such a combination would work.”―Andrew J. Nathan, New Republic“[An] exhaustive biography…Vogel’s book is an encyclopedic look at Deng’s career.”―Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, The Independent“Deng was perhaps the most intriguing leader that I met while traveling with Mr. Blumenthal and President Jimmy Carter. I had to wait another 30 years, however, before a definitive biography would be written about Deng, arguably the most globally transformational leader of the 20th century. This year Ezra Vogel delivered it with Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.”―Richard W. Fisher, Wall Street Journal“Vogel, one of the world’s preeminent Asia scholars, has produced the most comprehensive and authoritative account of Deng’s career as a revolutionary, party leader, and architect of China’s reform. Meticulously researched and highly readable, the book is not a typical biography. It does not dwell much on Deng’s personal life. Instead, the focus of the book is Deng’s unusual career trajectory, his unique style of rule, and the strategic choices he made during and after the Cultural Revolution…This book should be read by anyone who wants to understand the domestic and international dynamics that have led to China’s rise as a great power.”―Yanzhong Huang, Foreign Affairs“If anybody still nurtures the illusion that Deng was a closet liberal, this book will bring them back to reality. For all the changes he championed and the vicissitudes of his life, the diminutive, blunt Deng has received much less biographical attention than Mao, which makes Ezra Vogel’s huge account particularly welcome. The product of 10 years of work by a leading China scholar, it is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the evolution of China to the status it occupies today. It offers an enormous compendium of material about the lifelong Communist whose story, even more than that of Mao, reflects the dramatically varying fortunes of his nation in the 20th century…Vogel is an admiring biographer who presents a treasure trove of new information that will delight modern China scholars for years to come.”―Jonathan Fenby, Times Higher Education“Deng [is] a fit subject for a weighty, probing and judicious biography, which is just what Ezra F. Vogel has produced…Vogel is the master of this complex material. He had access to many who knew and worked with Deng, including Jiang Zemin. Deng selected him as Party leader in 1989 to succeed Zhao Ziyang, who had been sacked and disgraced because of his opposition to the use of force in Tiananmen Square. Vogel also spoke to two of Deng’s children. The documentary sources are copious and, in terms of access to material, this study is unlikely to be bettered until the Party opens its most sensitive archives–which could be a long wait. It is hard to disagree with much of what Vogel writes and there is much to admire, particularly his judicious contextualization of Deng’s motives.”―Graham Hutchings, Literary Review“A major biography of the man who may turn out to have done more to transform the world than any other leader of the 20th century. Deng’s market Leninism has massively increased China’s wealth, while repressing democracy. Vogel’s portrait is sympathetic, although not uncritical.”―Financial Times“This is the most ambitious biography of Deng Xiaoping by a western scholar so far. Drawing on numerous Chinese sources, including the Deng family, it tells the story of a man who, the author says, may have had more impact on world history than anyone else in the 20th century…This is a monumental work, carried out in the author’s retirement and intended to cap a distinguished career in Asian studies. His diligent use of official papers and his privileged access to members of the Chinese Communist elite make this biography of Deng Xiaoping the most complete we are likely to have under the present ruling order.”―Michael Sheridan, Hong Kong Economic Journal“Deng led a long and remarkable life, packed with drama and global significance, one that deserves to be dissected in detail. So we must be thankful to Harvard professor Ezra Vogel for devoting a large chunk of his academic career to compiling a prodigious biography, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, the most ambitious account of the man so far. In writing this volume, Vogel has done an enormous amount of work. He appears to have absorbed the documents from every single Chinese Communist Party plenum since 1921…There have been several Deng biographies before this…but Vogel’s can be regarded as the most comprehensive and informative of the lot…There’s no question that Vogel has gone farther than anyone else to date in telling Deng’s story. For that he is to be applauded; there is a whole hoard of valuable material here that we probably would not have gained otherwise.”―Christian Caryl, Foreign Policy“China scholars might think they have read enough about Deng Xiaoping. After all, at least three biographies of Deng were available prior to the release of this massive new book. But Vogel, one of the world’s preeminent Asia scholars, has produced the most comprehensive and authoritative account of Deng’s career as a revolutionary, party leader, and architect of China’s reform. Meticulously researched and highly readable, the book is not a typical biography. It does not dwell much on Deng’s personal life. Instead, the focus of the book is Deng’s unusual career trajectory, his unique style of rule, and the strategic choices he made during and after the Cultural Revolution. Vogel considers the extent to which Deng fundamentally and irreversibly transformed China’s society, governance, and relations with the outside world…This book should be read by anyone who wants to understand the domestic and international dynamics that have led to China’s rise as a great power.”―Yanzhong Huang, Foreign Affairs“The big picture is the key to this book. Those hoping for hidden secrets and untold stories about Deng in Vogel’s book will be disappointed. Comprehensive as it is, the book is not an expose. But it does ring with authority. The Harvard professor spent most of the 10 years lining up interviews with people who had first-hand experience of Deng. In the end he spoke to dozens, if not a hundred, of people who knew something about the man…As a result, his depiction of Deng is rich, balanced and colorful. Vogel portrays a Deng who is determined, resourceful, at times uncompromising and difficult, but always pragmatic…This is where the strength of Vogel’s book lies. It is all about the grand historic view. And that is fitting: out of all of Deng’s amazing qualities, it is his grasp of a broad perspective and his keen sense of history that enabled him to achieve what so many had deemed impossible.”―Chow Chung-yan, South China Morning Post“If you’re going to read one book about modern China in the period after Mao, then this is the book you should read. Though the book is framed around the rise of Deng Xiaoping and his reforms that transformed China into an economic powerhouse, Ezra Vogel’s compelling biography examines how China went from being a desperately poor country to certainly one of the two most important countries in the world today.”―Bill Gates, Gates Notes“From arguably the most important scholar of East Asia, this is an important book on the force behind China’s transformation in the late twentieth century, whose full fruits are visible only today. Deng ordered the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, but he was also the person most responsible for modernizing China and opening it to trade with the West. Again and again he survived threatening challenges in the Chinese political bureaucracy, to emerge at the top in the late 1970s. His role in subverting Chinese orthodoxy from the inside is comparable to that of Gorbachev with respect to the Soviet Union–and he deserves sustained attention such as this landmark book offers.”―Anis Shivani, Huffington Post“Not just a definitive biography of a world-class leader, but also the most authoritative and riveting account of the secretly contrived U.S.-Chinese strategic accommodation of 1978 and of how that in turn facilitated China’s domestic transformation.”―Zbigniew Brzezinski“This is an impressive and important biography of one of the most important men of the twentieth century. Deng Xiaoping transformed China economically, politically, and socially. One of the most significant achievements for his and my country was the establishment of diplomatic relations between us. The book provides an excellent account of this historic event.”―President Jimmy Carter“Vogel offers a nuanced portrait of China’s great reform leader Deng Xiaoping and a shrewd analysis of the political maneuvers by which he made such a large mark on history. By entering deeply into Deng’s vision for China, Vogel shows how the person who forged the world’s most successful example of modernizing authoritarianism understood how such a system could work. And he shows how a major leader can steer a huge country in a new historical direction. A terrific accomplishment.”―Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University“A multilayered study of change and adaptability. At the core is one man’s response to the dangers of a complex revolution. Around him is the transformation of the largest political entity in history from rural disarray and helplessness to an industrial and manufacturing giant. In between are ambitious and bewildered people in search of leadership. Vogel has made Deng Xiaoping’s vision convincing, the Chinese maze comprehensible, and even the bit actors come alive.”―Wang Gungwu, National University of Singapore“Deng Xiaoping’s skill, vision, and courage in overcoming seemingly insuperable obstacles and guiding China onto the path of sustained economic development rank him with the great leaders of history. And yet, too little is known about the life and career of this extraordinary man. In this superbly researched and highly readable biography, Vogel has definitively filled this void. This fascinating book provides a host of insights into the factors that enabled Deng to triumph over repeated setbacks and lay the basis for China to regain the wealth and power that has eluded it for two centuries.”―J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. Ambassador to China“Deng could be tough, but he was direct and engaged. He was a person we could do business with, and I liked him a lot. He played an extraordinary role, bringing the world’s largest nation into the modern world. We are fortunate that Vogel, one of our foremost China scholars, has now brought the man alive in this uniquely researched biography.”―Brent Scowcroft“A thorough picking-over of Deng Xiaoping’s record and accomplishments, setting him firmly as the linchpin linking an antiquated authoritative thinking to modern growth and acceleration…Vogel meticulously considers all facets of this complex leader for an elucidating–and quite hefty–study.”―Kirkus Reviews“[An] impressive and exhaustively researched biography…Vogel reminds readers that it was under this pragmatic politician’s watch that the party made three moves that helped it outlast so many other Leninist organizations.”―Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Miller-McCune.com“This intensely researched doorstop delivers a step-by-step political biography of the man who gets most of the credit for China’s spectacular rise to an economic juggernaut. Vogel recounts how Deng (1904–1997), a leading figure from the 1950s on, was banished when his preference for practicality over class struggle angered Mao Zedong during the disastrous 1969–1975 Cultural Revolution. Returning to power after Mao’s 1976 death, he eliminated the anti-intellectualism and chaotic policy swings that characterized Mao’s rule while opening the nation to Western ideas. The result was China’s emergence as the world’s most dynamic economy, with a free market but still with a disturbing absence of political freedom (he gives a nuanced analysis of the Tiananmen Square massacres)…Scholars will value it.”―Publishers Weekly“If you want to understand China today, you must understand Deng Xiaoping (1904–97)…Deng shared Mao’s ambition to make China a strong nation under party leadership, but he cannily built an unassailable position within the party to take it in new directions. Vogel interviewed dozens of leaders and China experts, as well as Deng’s family, did exhaustive documentary research, and mines the scholarly literature (a good deal of it by his former students) to analyze Deng’s initial success in building China’s economy and international position, frustration in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and ultimate legacy…Massive but fascinating, this is highly recommended for those with a serious interest in modern China. Indispensable in understanding Deng, what he accomplished, and where he fell short.”―Charles W. Hayford, Library Journal“In an authoritative biography of Deng, Harvard sociologist Ezra F. Vogel, a renowned specialist on China and Japan who rose to international prominence in 1979 with the publication of Japan as Number One: Lessons for America, has attempted the difficult task of providing a comprehensive look at the experiences and influences that shaped this remarkable individual. He has succeeded superbly…Vogel’s book provides extensive insights into how Deng was able to use his experience, his network of associations among China’s aging revolutionaries, and the force of his personality to direct China’s course, all while allowing others to hold the top government and party titles…For those of us who as U.S. government officials participated in or monitored many of the developments in China and in the bilateral relationship Vogel describes, he has illuminated events in ways that would have been invaluable to us had we had such a clear picture at the time. The transformation of China that Deng set in motion is likely to confront the United States with its most significant foreign-policy challenge over the next several decades. We are fortunate indeed that Vogel has written this timely and highly informative biography of Deng Xiaoping, which provides a wealth of insights into one of history’s great leaders”―J. Stapleton Roy, Wilson Quarterly“Deng Xiaoping is one of the most influential men in modern history and here his dramatic story, one intertwined with elite intrigues in the Chinese Communist Party, is recounted in detail by one of the most eminent scholars of Asia…Regarding the debate over whether Deng was more despot than reformer, Ezra Vogel emphasizes the successful consequences of his economic reforms, but does not shy from criticizing his failures. The portrait that emerges is of a visionary authoritarian who helped his nation overcome the self-inflicted wounds of Mao Zedong and achieve enormous economic advances.”―Jeff Kingston, Japan Times“This monumental book, not so much biography as political history, is overdue.”―Rowan Callick, The Australian“As one of the foremost scholars of modern China, Vogel is an appropriate authority to pen such a thorough account of Deng Xiaoping’s tumultuous journey from political exile to paramount leader of China. A detailed study into Deng’s dedication to the Chinese establishment of the People’s Republic, to his reemergence as unrivaled decision-maker of the Chinese people, the book details how Deng’s policies continue to shape the nation, and how it will most likely require a number of generations before scholars can fully appreciate his impact. In capturing the most turbulent period in the modern 20th century in this 928-page tome, Vogel contributes an important piece to the historiography of Chinese history.”―A. Cho, Choice“[A] masterful biography.”―Arun Maira, Indian Express About the Author Ezra F. Vogel is the author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize, and of the international bestseller Japan as Number One. He was Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐“Did any other leader in the twentieth century do more to improve the lives of so many? Did any other twentieth-century leader have such a large and lasting influence on world history?” This is how Ezra Vogel concludes his massive 700-page tome, “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.” Indeed, who else in history has raised more people out of poverty? There may be no definitively right answer, but Vogel makes a convincing case that Deng Xiaoping has a better claim than anyone else.While lengthy, this book is an easy read and provides fascinating insights and lots of detail on how Deng and his forward-thinking policies turned China from a backward, poverty stricken basket case in the wake of the disastrous Cultural Revolution to an economic superpower in a single generation. It has been a revolution every bit as astonishing and impactful to world history as the Japanese Meiji Restoration of the late nineteenth century.Vogel’s narrative focuses mainly on the years from Mao’s death in 1976 to Deng’s retirement in 1992. Deng’s quite eventful first 65 years of life are covered in just 45 pages; China’s dramatic growth over the two decades since his retirement receive a mere 20 pages of attention. This book could have been called the “Deng Restoration,” the decade-and-a-half period when the Chinese leader blazed a new path, normalizing Chinese foreign relations and assiduously laying the political and economic groundwork for China’s improbably rapid rise from a self-isolated Third World Country into a global leader in manufacturing and burgeoning superpower just beginning to stretch its legs and demand its rightful place in the sun, to paraphrase Bismark.What struck me most about Deng’s leadership and policies, besides their remarkable success, was their consistency – and authority. His power was strictly personal, not positional; Deng was never chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, nor Premier of the Chinese government. Rather, he was something else, the “preeminent leader,” officially only vice chairman of the party and chairman of the Central Military Commission. Aging and hard of hearing, he rarely attended Politburo meetings. Yet, “it is doubtful that anyone [other than Deng] had the combination of authority, depth and breadth of experience, strategic sense, assurance, personal relationships, and political judgment needed to manage China’s transformation with comparable success,” Vogel writes. When he came to power in the late 1970s, he had very firm ideas on what needed to be done, plans that Vogel claims matured in Deng’s mind during his long and humiliating five year exile in Jiangxi working at a tractor factory during the Cultural Revolution.First, stability and unity were paramount in Deng’s plans, according to Vogel. He knew that the economic transformation China must go through would be wrenching and tumultuous, and he believed that only the Communist Party, with its discipline and order, could effectively manage the change. He had to maintain a delicate balance between encouraging innovative thinking and freedom of expression while maintaining the unquestioned rule of the Communist Party. In 1978, Deng formulated the Four Cardinal Principles, essentially four red lines that could not be crossed in China (socialist path; dictatorship of the proletariat; leadership of the Communist Party; Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought), and he never waivered from them. In fact, his most controversial and unpopular decision – the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square in 1989 – was taken precisely because the protests were openly challenging the Four Cardinal Principles. Although he was an ambitious reformer, he was a Communist first-and-foremost. When his two top lieutenants and official heads of party and state, respectively, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, were seen as going soft on dissidents, he had them unceremoniously cashiered. It was the outpouring of love for Hu at his death in 1989, along with frustration at how he had been treated by Deng and the Party, that sparked the Tiananmen protests, a movement that became truly dangerous when Zhao resigned rather than acquiesce to Deng’s call for martial law.Second, vast improvements in science, technology and education would be the cornerstone of Deng’s policies. Vogel describes Deng as obsessed with the importance of education and the critical role in advanced technology in China’s future. At roughly the same time that Deng formulated the Four Cardinal Principles to guide political discussion in China, he also developed the Four Modernizations, the areas in which the government would concentrate efforts to learn, grow and improve: 1) science and technology; 2) industry; 3) agriculture; and 4) defense. Again, Deng and the Chinese government remained steadfast in pursuing these objectives even when they led in politically sensitive directions, such as dropping class background from college admission criteria and instead relying solely on meritocratic entrance exams; encouraging thousands of students to study overseas, especially in Western countries, exposing them to potential “dangerous” ideas; establishing special economic zones (SEZ) along the coast to promote capitalist investment and trade, even though they encouraged graft and corruption; and the dramatic downsizing of the People’s Liberation Army to create a more highly educated and technologically savvy armed forces. “Deng was unique in that he pushed doors open far wider – to foreign ideas, foreign technology, and foreign capital – than his predecessors, and he presided over the difficult process of expanding the opening despite the disruptions it caused,” Vogel writes.Third, Deng was adamant that China must be fully engaged in world affairs. He was very much his own foreign policy strategist and built his policies around a few basic objectives. Above all, Soviet expansion must be stoutly resisted. Deng went to war – “Deng’s War,” Vogel says – with communist neighbor Vietnam in 1979 to “teach Hanoi a lesson.” Namely, that China refused to allow Vietnam to become a hegemonic power in Southeast Asia while serving as the Soviet’s “Cuba in the East.” China’s month-long invasion captured five northern Vietnamese provincial capitals at the cost of 25,000 PLA soldiers killed in action, according to Vogel (that is, China lost half as many men in one month in Vietnam as the US did in a decade!). Next, Deng sought to normalize and improve relations with the Western world, an objective he largely achieved, although the backlash from Tiananmen Square was sharp and prolonged. Finally, Deng desperately wanted to consolidate Chinese territory in his lifetime, achieving peace and stability in Tibet, reintegrating Hong Kong, and, most important of all, reunifying with Taiwan. The last goal was one of Deng’s great disappointments, although he did successfully prevent the Reagan administration from formally recognizing Taiwan and worked to reduce arms shipments to the island nation. “Under Deng’s leadership,” the author writes, “China truly joined the world community, becoming an active part of international organizations and of the global system of trade, finance, and relations among citizens of all walks of life.”Finally, Deng was a political virtuoso, albeit of a distinctly communist variety. Deng was well-described by US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as “remarkable… impatient, feisty, self-confidently outspoken, direct, forceful, and clever.” Standing just five-feet-tall, with limited formal education and a lifelong habit of using a spittoon even when negotiating directly with world leaders in the West, Deng was nevertheless a man of immense natural ability and innate political instincts. Unlike the “mercurial” Mao, who Vogel describes as “ranked high among world leaders” in megalomania and lust for power, Deng was personally humble, wanting nothing more than to serve his country and then be forgotten. Upon his death, he donated his corneas for eye research, his internal organs to medical science, was cremated and had his ashes scattered into the sea. There would be no “Cult of Deng” if he had anything to say about it.A deeply and sincerely committed communist, he was nevertheless open-minded and had no use for communist dogma. He was highly opposed to Mao’s revolutionary radicalism, yet sensitive to charges of being the “Chinese Khrushchev.” He quickly worked to overthrow the so-called “Gang of Four” after Mao’s death, but steadfastly espoused a flexible, results oriented approach to reform. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is black or white, just so long as it catches mice,” he liked to say. He used his liberal approach to outmaneuver and then oust Mao’s handpicked successor, the middle-aged cipher Hua Goufeng, who stumbled badly in 1977 when he penned an editorial claiming that future policy “will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao gave” (the so-called “Two Whatevers”). Deng had different ideas – and they would prevail.Although he a had clear vision for where China should go conceptually, Deng honestly admitted that he had to “grope for stones as he crossed the river” the entire time, never knowing for certain which approach was best, but always open to learning-by-doing. “Don’t argue, just push ahead,” was a favorite mantra. His SEZ experiment at Shenzhen was controversial, but ultimately successful beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. And unlike Dahzai, Mao’s experimental ideal collective community, Chinese leaders and others flocked to Shenzhen out of genuine interest rather than political expediency.Twenty-first century China is Deng’s China. If the sun is setting on the American century and rising in the East, no one man had more to do with it than Deng Xiaoping, a man Vogel believes may be one of the greatest men in his nation’s long history. “The transition from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban society and the spread of common national culture are among the most fundamental changes that have occurred in Chinese history since the country’s unification in 221 BC,” Vogel declares, and it was mainly the work of one little, unassuming man from a small village in Szechuan.

⭐I became interested in the life of Deng Xiaoping after reading THE TRAGEDY OF LIBERATION by Frank Dikotter and AVOIDING THE FALL by Michael Pettis. Deng is an enigma. He was a key player in the Chinese leadership from the earliest days. He was one of the core revolutionary leaders and one that was heavily involved in directing military campaigns leading to liberation. Afterward, he was the administrator for Sichuan and southwest China and implemented Maoist programs that led to mass starvation and incalculable human suffering. So, how was it possible for Deng Xiaoping to emerge as supreme leader of China, opening up the country to 4 decades of unprecedented growth? Did he learn from the failures of earlier policies? If so, what led to his change in thinking and when did it happen? Or was he always a pragmatist and a loyal follower? And if his thinking did change, how was he not one of the many leaders who were expelled from the Party and sent to prison or executed? It seems highly unlikely that a country that went through the purges, the witch hunts and the upheavals like the Cultural Revolution could have produced a leader of the stature of Deng Xiaoping capable of implementing the policy reforms that have led to China’s 4 decades of unprecedented growth. These are the questions that motivated me to tackle this 800-page biography.Ezra Vogel is one of the world’s pre-eminent China scholars. His knowledge of the events, people and places as well as the research of other scholars is second to none. He uses this knowledge combined with written accounts and interviews to piece together a comprehensive history of the life of Deng Xiaoping. The account is not strictly chronological. Vogel takes different periods of Deng’s life and divides each period into a set of topics covered in separate chapters. This makes the explanation of the events driving each topic easier to follow but it means that the reader may lose track of contemporaneous events discussed in a previous chapter.Unfortunately, Vogel’s review of the life of Deng Xiaoping has not fully answered my questions but it is not for lack of trying. Vogel points out early in the book that Deng Xiaoping did not keep a diary or personal writings or confide his inner-most thoughts on government policy with those around him. His speeches were well-organized and thought-out but without written notes. Consequently, we have no window into his thoughts; we have only his actions and events surrounding him to judge his thinking and how it changed over his life. This lack of a personal written record no doubt was a key factor in his survival of the many leadership purges under Mao Tse-tung. Another factor was his complete loyalty to the Party and to Mao. Although Deng was removed from top leadership positions three times in his career, including a 3-year exile during the Cultural Revolution, he was never expelled out of the Party.We also learn that Deng Xiaoping was, above all, a pragmatist and a patriot. His driving motivation was to do whatever necessary to foster China’s economic development and re-emergence as a global leader. He was not an ideologue, although he was a skillful politician, sensitive to those who opposed his ideas and careful to find ways to test out policy reforms in isolated cases before moving toward full implementation.Deng Xiaoping is easily one of the most important leaders of the 20th century. We are indeed fortunate to have Ezra Vogel’s scholarly and literary talents applied to an English biography of Deng Xiaoping. There is much we can learn from Vogel’s account but even more that is left for interpretation reading between the lines.

⭐A brilliant book on the greatest reformer in the 20th century. Many people think Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan where the greatest reformers when it came to economics but Deng Xiaoping outshine them both and this book shows that how he and colleagues remodelled a failed and crumbling economy into what it is today a modern and relentlessly ambitious economy which will be the largest economy in the world in the near future. This book shows the fascinating life of this giant on how he went to France and how going their changed his few of the world when it came to economics and also his thwart relationship with Mao and how he won the power game and became one of the main figures in China after Mao’s death. I would recommend this book it is has been written by one of the most respected people in his field and if you want a clear understanding of modern China this book on its main architects will show you

⭐I think that if you’re interested in personal development and getting better as a human being, this man flies under the radar. What do I mean? When you think of autobiographies and great people you think of Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Mother Theresa, Winston Churchill you know people like that. But for a country like China to come from obscurity to the top 5 countries in the world! The key players contributing to their growth need to be studied. And this book does Xiaoping the justice he deserves. Detailed, meticulous, and a fascinating introduction to the history of China.

⭐After reading it I formed the opinion that Mao is, in fact, less consequential for China today then Deng. I also started to understand why Mao behaved as he did, and why he cannot be disavowed in the way Hrusciov disavowed Stalin in the secret speech. Fascinating and well written, albeit perhaps a touch too long and repetitive. Also clearly written by a Deng admirer (he was as blood-stained as all his colleagues, but this does not come across almost at all).

⭐This is clearly a very well researched and scholarly work by someone who knows China well. The reasons I would not give it 5 starts are:1. it is a rather lopsided account of the life of Deng. The first 65 years of Deng’s life, until 1969, are quite cursorily dealt with. Of course he came to particular prominence at about this time and was instrumental in China’s development in the period thereafter. Before that, like many other contemporaries, was very much overshadowed by Mao. But the book devotes no more than 45 of its 714 pages to Deng’s career until his first comeback in 1969. It gives little real hint about what influenced and drove Deng up to that point or how his earlier history influenced his later outlook. Although mentioned, the treatment of Deng’s leading role in the anti-intellectual, anti-rightist campaign of 1957. is pretty perfunctory.2. the author, clearly fluent in Mandarin, is rather inconsistent in throwing in pinyin phrases to describe some developments/movements etc, but often not the more significant ones which one might expect to be given in Chinese: e.g. the “two whatevers”, “four cardinal principles” and so on. The use of Chinese phrases gives the impression of a rather throwaway, but indiscriminate, show of erudition.

⭐Ezra Vogel’s biography of Deng Xiaoping is a work long overdue within the numerous literature on modern China, and a work in every way entirely worth the wait.As the most consequential Chinese leader of the past 3 decades, or arguably within the world, Deng Xiaoping had long been entitled to a thorough, and scholarly biography, and finally such a work is here.As many may be previously familiar with the later parts of Deng Xiaoping’s life, his downfall in the Cultural Revolution, and his return to power in 1978, here more detail is given to his earlier life in Sichuan Province, and his crucial early years as a student in Paris.That is not to say that any detail is spared on the later more crucial parts of his life, such as his return under Mao and later Hua, and his period at the helm from 1978-1989. Here we learn the difficulty of the path he navigated between hardline conservatives such as Chen Yun, who were ambivalent toward economic reform, and the difficult process of opening up and maintaining the authority of the party.This biography in some ways repudiates the commonly held notion that Deng was a capitalist in disguise. A key insight offered was that he was initially influenced by the new economic policy implemented in the USSR in the early 1920s, which was a much milder version than the socialism implemented by Stalin, and later Mao.We also learn, that Hua Guofeng was the first to initiate Special Economic Zones, and had an inkling toward reform, even if he did not say so, but ultimately lacked the leadership pedigree inherent in Deng, making Deng’s outmaneuvering of Hua inevitable.More than just a chronicling of his economic reforms, the book contains a chapter on his flexible political vision, One Country, Two Systems, Hong Kong Tibet and Taiwan. This details the success of the return of Hong Kong, which despite the expiration of the lease, the British still wanted to continue to administer, and his generous offers at reconciliation with Taiwan and the Dalai Lama.The above chapter should be given thorough reading and re-reading by any sympathizers with Tibetan and separatism, as it exposes the generous opportunity missed by the Dalai Lama and his hardline exile community in Dharamsala.We learn that the Dalai Lama’s offer of return was the most generous he was ever likely to get, residence in Lhasa and Beijing, being made a Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress, and the autonomy they had long sought. Only this offer was rebuffed to demand more autonomy than was being offered to Hong Kong, and extension of the TAR to include all Tibetan areas in neighboring Chinese provinces.While many China hands will be familiar with Deng’s economic achievements, which are impossible to understate, this book also underscores his foreign policy achievements, which were equally remarkable.Deng set about full reconciliation with the US and the USSR, and on both counts, achieved reconciliation entirely on his terms. Deng’s foreign policy in itself was every bit as remarkable as his economic achievements.What we have is a thorough biography and chronicling of the life of Deng in all aspects, and rather than being simply a biography of the man, it is also in itself, a standalone history of modern China.Truly essential reading for any China enthusiasts, regardless of the immersion in the subject.

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