Historical Background
Part I of 4
China's Economic Miracle
Shanghai (Pudong) 1987.
Shanghai (same location as top photo) 2007


The economic and historical forces that created the Harry Potter generation in China were set in motion about thirty years ago by Deng Xiaoping. When Deng came to power he inherited a nation plagued with economic and demographic troubles, the result of the policies of his predecessor, Mao Zedong. Although Mao did restore pride to the Chinese people after years of humiliation in the face of Western imperial aggression, his Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution proved to be disastrous for China's Gross Domestic Product. His policies not only slashed China's potential GDP by half [1] but unleashed a population surge that brought enormous strain upon China's diminishing resources.

Shortly after coming to power in 1978, Deng Xiaoping initiated a series of reforms in China that stood as a stark repudiation of the Marxist ideology of the previous decades. If his exhortation "to get rich is glorious" seems incongruous with classical communism, his statement "some will get rich faster than others" leaves no doubt about his break with communism's utopian dream of economic equality. Although Deng did not dismantle the political power of the Chinese Communist Party, his reforms would set modern China on a course of unprecedented economic development. 

                                                        

Notes:
[1] World Bank Estimate. In 1981 the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party admitted as much. 
After naming a few accomplishments of the period, it went on to say that "none of these successes can be attributed 
in any way to the Cultural Revolution, without which we would have scored far greater achievements for our cause." 
Cited in Edwin E. Moise, Modern China: A History, New York: Longman, p. 213.