China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower

by Frank Dikötter

Overview

“A blow-by-blow account … An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.”--Financial Times

From internationally renowned historian Frank Dikötter, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, a myth­-shattering history of China from the death of Chairman Mao to Xi Jinping.

Through decades of direct experience of the People's Republic combined with extraordinary access to hundreds of hitherto unseen documents in communist party archives, the author of The People's Trilogy offers a riveting account of China's rise from the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. He takes us inside the country's unprecedented four-decade economic transformation--from rural villages to industrial metropoles and elite party conclaves--that vaulted the nation from 126th ­largest economy in the world to second ­largest. A historian at the pinnacle of his field, Dikötter challenges much of what we think we know about how this happened. Casting aside the image of a society marching unwaveringly toward growth, in lockstep to the beat of the party drum, he recounts instead a fascinating tale of contradictions, illusions, and palace intrigue, of disasters narrowly averted, shadow banking, anti-corruption purges, and extreme state wealth existing alongside everyday poverty. He examines China's navigation of the 2008 financial crash, its increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference, and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. As this magisterial book makes clear, the communist party's goal was never to join the democratic world, but to resist it--and ultimately defeat it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639730520
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	678,898
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Frank Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People's Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao. He lives in Hong Kong.

Frank Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People's Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao. He is married and lives in Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Map xviii

1 From One Dictator to Another (1976-1979) 1

2 Retrenchment (1979-1982) 33

3 Reform (1982-1984) 55

4 Of People and Prices (1984-1988) 83

5 The Massacre (1989) 109

6 Watershed (1989-1991) 141

7 Capitalist Tools in Socialist Hands (1992-1996) 173

8 Big Is Beautiful (1997-2001) 201

9 Going Global (2001-2008) 233

10 Hubris (2008-2012) 267

Epilogue 287

Notes 297

Select Bibliography 361

Acknowledgements 375

Index 377

Editorial Reviews

08/15/2022

University of Hong Kong historian Dikötter (the People’s Trilogy) debunks the myth of China’s miracle economy in this expert study. He credits Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up” program, which more than doubled industrial growth from 1983 to 1985, with helping to make China a superpower, but notes that “we do not know the true size of the economy, since no local government will report accurate numbers.” He challenges claims that China’s growth signals the country’s march toward capitalism, pointing out that in a true capitalist economy, capital is subject to rules on rates of return and profit margins, while in China, capital is distributed by state banks to state-controlled enterprises and businesses operate based on meeting a production target, regardless of whether their goods sell or not. Analyzing the regimes of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, Dikötter paints a picture of continuous market manipulation, including the fixing of exchange rates, the encouragement of intellectual property theft from foreign companies, and the use of child labor. He also documents the crushing of civilian unrest, the scapegoating of the West for economic problems, and the existence of a shadow banking system riddled with massive debts. Extensively researched and cogently argued, this is a must-read for China watchers. Agent: James Pullen, Wylie Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Iconoclastic.” —Wall Street Journal

“A clear-eyed and detailed account.” —The Guardian

“A blow-by-blow account … An important corrective to the conventional view of China's rise.” —Financial Times

“One of the most insightful and nuanced looks at the complex rise of China since the Second World War ... engrossing and riveting.” —The Diplomatic Courier

“A skilled writer, Dikotter is accessible to both expert and lay readers alike.” —The Washington Examiner

“Challenges assumptions about China's speedy, four-decade rise and its transformation from a reclusive agrarian economy into a global superpower . . . Dikötter's well-researched volume marks an important contribution to the literature on China's rise. Highly recommended.” —Choice

“A compelling and informative account and analysis of Chinese history from the early 1970s to 2022 ... China After Mao is packed with intrigue and insight for the layperson and scholar alike” —Shelf Awareness

“A revolutionary book.” —Sunday Times

“Highly-readable.” —New Statesman

“Dikötter delivers an excellent, highly critical description of China's spectacular expansion that emphasizes banking, industrial policy, trade, and currency … a richly informative, disquieting history.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Dikötter (The People's Trilogy) debunks the myth of China's miracle economy in this expert study ...Extensively researched and cogently argued, this is a must-read for China watchers.” —Publishers Weekly

“Whether he is pondering which came first, Party politics or economic policy, or navigating the slippery relationship between power, productivity and protest, Dikötter unpicks this most tangled web with admirable clarity.” —South China Morning News

“Convincingly shows how foreign capital pouring into China (to benefit from low – and often artificially suppressed – wages) became a key ingredient of economic growth at a time of intensifying repression following the Tiananmen Square massacre. [China After Mao] also shatters the myth of competent technocratic policymaking . . . Most radically, the book makes the case that, rather than being a sharp break with the recent past, President Xi Jinping's more nakedly authoritarian rule is in many ways a continuation of trends that started long ago.” —Project Syndicate, Best Reads of 2023

From the Publisher

★ 2022-08-31
An expert on modern Chinese history examines its rapid rise following the Cultural Revolution.

After Mao Zedong died in 1976, his misgoverned and largely impoverished nation began the greatest economic advance in history. Dikötter, chair of the humanities department at the University of Hong Kong and author of multiple books about Mao and the Cultural Revolution, chronicles this period. Many Western observers believe that Mao’s death allowed China’s rulers, led by the sensible Deng Xiaoping, to discard Marxism and welcome capitalism, leading to an explosion of prosperity. This is a myth, writes Dikötter, whose extensive reading in mainland archives, gimlet eye, and bestselling histories have made him a controversial figure among some Chinese scholars. The author argues that China’s leaders dismiss Western ideas of democracy, proclaiming that, as Marxists, they serve the people; according to them, this makes China the world’s most democratic nation. Mao remains a godlike figure, but his successors yearned to recover from his disastrous revolution. They believed that a top-down, disciplined command economy would fix things. Dikötter delivers an excellent, highly critical description of China’s spectacular expansion that emphasizes banking, industrial policy, trade, and currency. He also shows how the country struggled initially because key positions in the finance arena went to party loyalists who lacked sufficient technical knowledge. With time, leaders learned from their mistakes, importing technology and investment from Western nations enraptured by the thought of more than 1 billion new customers and under the mistaken impression that China was “privatizing.” All expressed horror when Chinese leaders slaughtered democratic reformers in Tiananmen Square and throughout China in 1989—and then quickly forgave them. At the time, writes the author, “the regime learned to appreciate the benefits of hostage diplomacy and the price of even a single dissident.” Dikötter brilliantly recounts the defects of China’s economic model and deplores its human rights record, but he is unable to explain why it continues to grow.

A richly informative, disquieting history.

Kirkus Reviews