In the early 1990s, China was under uncertain situations surviving the public resentment over the government’s crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests and the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. During this time of crisis, Deng Xiaoping launched his Southern Tour in the spring of 1992 to restructure the economy and strengthen its ties with the West (Sornoza-Parrales et al., 2018). This paper will discuss Deng’s reforms that helped transition China from a poor state to an influential nation in the international economy and politics.
Deng began by the assessment that getting rich is glorious, inspiring a wave of entrepreneurialism still practiced in modern China. He exercised harsh policies to develop the economy operating by consensus, compromise, and persuasion. The one-child policy was a major social reform and the most rigorous family planning program that controlled the burgeoning population of China. Farmers were given individual control and responsibility for their production and profits, which increased agricultural production in the country. Deng freed various industrial enterprises from the supervision and management of the central government and bestowed the power to managers to determine production levels and pursue profits for the industries (Sornoza-Parrales et al., 2018). China’s trade and cultural ties with the West were strengthened, opening the Chinese production sectors to foreign investment.
Reference
Sornoza-Parrales, G. I., Conforme-Cedeno, G. M., & Saltos-Buri, V. del. (2018). The case of China’s economic reform: The Xi Jinping Era, a comparative analysis with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Polo Del Conocimiento, 3(7), 38. Web.