Jonathan Chatwin on Deng Xiaoping's 1992 Southern Tour

This week on Sinica, Kaiser is joined by Jonathan Chatwin, author of a new book about Deng Xiaoping's "Southern Tour" of early 1992 — a pivotal event that renewed a commitment to economic reforms after they'd stalled following 1989, and seized the initiative from conservatives in the Chinese leadership. The book is called The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future.

2:10 – Why Jonathan focused on the Southern Tour, and the narratives surrounding it in China

7:19 – How the events of ’89 influenced Deng’s thinking 

11:08 – How the political fates of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang affected Deng’s planning 

14:31 – The reformers’ path to victory from the second half of ’89 to January of ’92

20:32 – Deng’s vision of opportunity in the face of communism’s apparent global retreat

24:53 – How Deng’s personal experiences shaped his policy decisions 

27:07 – The strategic signaling and risky timing of the Southern Tour 

34:07 – The influence of the Chinese horoscope, and “The Story of Spring”

37:33 – Shenzhen speed 

40:57 – What Jonathan learned about Deng Xiaoping 

45:00 – Jonathan’s recommendations for learning more about Deng Xiaoping and the post-Mao era 

46:18 – Xi Jinping, the “end” [not sure how to phrase] of Deng’s reform and opening era, and the [parallels with the?] Chinese economic situation today 

Recommendations

Jonathan: China’s Hidden Century, edited by Jessica Harrison-Hall and Julia Lovell, produced to accompany the British Museum’s exhibition by that name; and the app Voice Dream, a text-to-speech reader 

Kaiser: Andrea Wulf’s Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self, a book about the group of German Romantics gathered in Jena, Germany 

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