Opinion | China’s reforms don’t contradict the communist revolution – they consolidate it
- As the People’s Republic turns 70, sinologist and historian Wang Gungwu delves deep into ancient history to illustrate how modern China, from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, has followed a continuous rather than contradictory path
- Wang was speaking at the launch of ThinkChina magazine in Singapore
How do we see the last 70 years, when a revolution that succeeded under Mao Zedong in 1949 was followed by reform?
In this case, Deng Xiaoping didn’t make the mistake of calling it bianfa. He said it was gaige.
In English, we translate both of them as reform. So the word reform can be confusing. If you associate it with bianfa, it’s very negative. If you associate it with gaige, it’s very positive. So be careful how you use the word.
Thirty years of successful geming, followed by 40 years of successful gaige. Revolution followed by reform. Just the opposite of that by Shang Yang (an adviser to the state of Qin in the 9th century BC), which was reform leading to revolution. In our times, it was revolution followed by reform.
These are contradictory images, certainly difficult to explain. But the fact remains that in this case, in the last 70 years, it’s very clear – 30 years of a revolution’s victory that included Mao’s idea of continuous revolution, jixu geming. That was quite an extraordinary idea. Frankly, I don’t think it had any chance of success, but that was what Mao thought, and he seemed to have seriously believed it.