China Emerging_ 1978-2008 - Xiao-bo , Wu [5]
Another remarkable aspect when we look back at the past thirty years is the recognition of just how far removed China was from the rest of the world and how far it had to go to catch up. At a time when the penetration rate of televisions in the United States was over 70%, in China it was near zero. Only in July 1978 did the People’s Daily allow the first advertisement on its pages; from August onward, the paper would occasionally publish the very limitedtelevisionprogramschedule.The governmentstillencouragedextreme
An advertisement for Feiyue Televisions, from the ShanghaiPictorialof 1982.
frugality among people, especially with regard to old cement bags—they were tobereusedandneverthrownaway.In1978,apersonfromBeijingtraveledto Shanghaiandsawthatabookstorewastoutingits“open-shelf”system:People couldactuallygoinandbrowsebooksinsteadofbuyingthemfromadistance with a broad counter and a forbidding employee in between. As someone was to say later, “If we had known just how far we were from the world back in 1978,Idon’tknowifwewouldhavehadthecouragetocarryon.”
Change now began to accelerate. From December 18 to 22, 1978, one of the most important meetings in modern Chinese history—the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China—took place in Beijing. The sole topic of this meeting was “Shifting the Focus of All Party Work toward the Socialist Modernization.”
The assembly agreed to stop using the slogans “Consider class struggle as the guiding principle” and “Carry on revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.” It reestablished the structure and “line” of the Party. It opposed any tendency to adulate a single person and aggrandize him or her. It evaluated and overturned the false accusations made against certain people in recent years and looked at the “contributions and mistakes” made by senior leaders. It was a meeting of tremendous symbolic significance, implying that, from now on, “politicized life” would no longer be the basic mode of existence for the Chinese people. Instead, China had returned to the world stage and to an arena of peaceful competition. From now on, having survived one hundred years of extreme political turbulence, this Asian country would be using economic development as the means to move toward abettertomorrow.
China’s doors were opening and her people were suddenly looking out on all that was “outside” with great wonder and interest. China and the world had been cut off from each other for so long that the West was all too curious about a place that seemed different from everywhere else. At the end of 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the second Chinese leader to appear on the cover of Time magazine, the first being Premier Zhou Enlai who passed away in 1976. Not only was Deng chosen as “Man of the Year,” but also the magazine devoted 48 pages to describing him and the newly reopened China. Time began the article with the headline “Visions of a New China.”
Deng Xiaoping honored as “Man of the Year” on the cover of Timemagazine, January 1, 1979.
Children and foreigners strolling in front of Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, Beijing.
Where Will the Money Come from?
“G
ettingstartedisalwaysthehardestpart.”TheChinesesayingtothis effect was certainly appropriate for a man who was intending to undertake a full-scale reconstruction of China. The first question hewasconfrontedwithwas,“Whereisallthemoneygoingtocomefrom?”
In 1978, China’s total foreign exchange reserves amounted to the trivial sum of US$167 million. Thirty years later, in 2008, China’s foreign exchange reserves exceeded US$1.7 trillion. The total has increased more than ten thousand times. Unlike Mao Zedong, who mobilized the populace for economic development, Deng intended to mobilize capital. He planned to borrow the money of capitalism to create “China’s mighty edifice.”
In a discussion with some members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, he pointed out, “It is altogether acceptable to expand business with overseas partners and make, say, some 50 billion.