China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

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Still though after having myself read a few books, including Dikotter's book on Mao's famine, dealing with China up until Mao's death in 1976, I personally cannot help but see that things have gotten a lot better for very many people there- so much technological and economic progress, as shoddy as a lot of it may be- that future generations may not judge the Chinese Communist Party quite so harshly. Foreign investors soon found themselves mired in a sea of red tape as they began to take advantage of the concessions. State subsidized industries like textiles crushed American mill owners and products flooding the markets were shipped through Hong Kong to conceal the country of their origin. As moves were made to address the deficiencies many outside observers thought China was transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy and that democracy would follow, promoted by the Clinton administration.

His work has been translated into twenty languages, including The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957, which was short-listed for the Orwell Prize in 2014, and The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976, the final volume in his trilogy on the Mao era. A historian at the pinnacle of his field, Dikötter challenges much of what we think we know about how this happened. About 15 years ago, I read a truly remarkable book, "Mao: The Unknown Story" which covered the life of this horrid communist dictator until his death in 1976, and since then, I have always hoped to find another book on the history of China since 1976 that was as good as "Mao: The Unknown Story" and now I have done so. He analyses China's response to the global financial crisis of 2008, its growing hostility towards what it perceives as Western interference, and China's evolution into a deeply entrenched dictatorship, complete with an expansive security apparatus and the most advanced surveillance system in the world. This ultimately underctus Dikotter's final point, where he argues that all the tricks China has used over the last 40 years have run their course, and their in dangerous waters to keep their overrated economy humming.The CCP learned the value of hostage diplomacy for one single dissident as Japan ramped up Chinese investments by 40%. With China After Mao, Dikötter has told the story of the years after Mao's death in 1976 until the arrival of President Xi . I thought it was an enlightening, sobering and thought provoking work, which perhaps allows one to recognize 'repeated' themes - National security, foreign forces, endemic corruption, shadow banking, triangular debt, etc. This book deals with the economic history of China after Mao up to 2012, when Xi JinPing came to power. In what appeared very much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, Beijing's belief that the United States was a hostile force bent on containing it actually became true.

Dikotter had previosly written a series of books highly critical of China under Mao Zedong, so now he's back with a book about the problems of China after Mao. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. More to the point it was realized socialized business couldn’t compete with capitalist companies on a level playing field. Joining the WTO in 2000 trade imbalances with the US ballooned to a quarter trillion dollars per year, putting factories in America and Mexico out of business.

The organizing principle was the CCP’s need to ensure that it remained in charge of every aspect of life. So wird beispielsweise die um das Jahr 1998 erfolgte Privatisierung der Kollektivunternehmen nur gestreift, die neben zahlreichen Firmenpleiten auch einen Boom der Privatwirtschaft ausgelöst hat. The 150th anniversary of the Opium War provided an opportunity to denounce a ‘Century of Humiliation’ China endured at the hands of imperialists. Simpler perhaps to assume that this is a case of dogs fighting under the carpet and not about an efficient economy at all.

He examines China’s approach to the 2008 financial crash, the country’s increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship – one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. In a few easy steps, create an account and receive the most recent analysis from Hoover fellows tailored to your specific policy interests. I don't mind a book being critical of post-Mao China as there are plenty of reasons to have issues with China.Televisions and automobiles were imported to special zones using duty free status and currency manipulation for resale at three hundred percent markup as inflation rose between thirty to fifty percent.

A year after China won its 2002 bid for the Olympics a virus began to spread from a market in Guangdong, mirroring the pandemic 17 years later in its official obfuscation and refusal to inform the WHO. While many of China’s western supporters believed that growing prosperity would bring growing demands for political freedom and participation, Xi believes that the separation of powers, judicial autonomy and freedom of speech represent a mortal threat to the party, and that once China’s people are materially better off, they will agree with the party’s claim that China’s socialism is superior to western capitalism.

As the Federal Reserve raised interest rates China became the greatest holder of US debt after Japan. China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower is a non-fiction book by Frank Dikötter, a Dutch historian. Some things were new to me though, I hadn’t known there were so many popular protests in the 80’s culminating in the 1989 student protests on Tiananmen Square. As a serious historian, he starts by pointing out how little we know, referencing China analyst James Palmer’s 2018 essay in Foreign Policy, catchily entitled: Nobody knows anything about China, including the Chinese government . The next year thousands of outlawed temples, churches and ancestral halls were either torn down or blown up in every province.